Laugh at Liberals

257 Responses to “MICHAEL MOORE IS A TRAITOR”

1. herb Says: July 6th, 2004 at 2:30 pm

   What war on terror? Mr Bush left the war on terror far behind last year when he decided to divert resources from the hunt for bin Laden so that he could take care of his father’s “unfinished” business in Iraq. As for calling Michael Moore a traitor, 200+ years ago you would have been calling people like Thomas Paine a traitor because he criticized the people who ran the country. I don’t know about your world but in mine alleigence is sworn to the country, not the man who happens to be in charge. Him, you can attack (verbally) at will if you think what he has done is not in the best interest of the country. As far as I know, the only countries where you can’t disagree with the man at the top are those run by men like Saddam or Hitler.

2. Emory Says: July 7th, 2004 at 3:14 am

   What resources were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq?

3. herb Says: July 8th, 2004 at 12:50 am

   Well, let’s see. Since they are extending the stays of most of the soldiers over there and are recalling to active duty those soldiers who have served their time but but do have reserve stqtus as part of their discharge I would say we are running a tad short of manpower. Since we haven’t caught bin Laden and the Taliban are still causing problems in Afghanistan maybe some of those troops in Iraq could have done better stationed in Afghanistan? Then there is the money. Maybe I am wrong but considering what is being spent to rebuild Iraq could have been put to better use rebuilding Afghanistan and weaning the outlying peoples away from the warlords that caquse so much trouble to the central government. I know it’s a toss up because the warlord culture is usually a hard one to break and it’s possible no amount of money could do it but would rather have seen the money spent on trying to unify a country that sincerely appreciates us and could make a stable ally. Of course all those destitute people at Haliburton surely appreciate all the aid we have given them.

4. zoot potatoe Says: July 9th, 2004 at 7:05 pm

   lol… F9/11 isn’t the only piece of propaganda that’s spreading around… there’s also george w. bush’s campaing commercials…

   i never got how this movie made michael a traitor. it’s obviously a slapped on title made by conservatives. It’s not a coincidence almost all conservatives hate it while all liberals love it…

   thank goodness for the FREEDOM OF SPEECH. really, though, i’m surprised of the title “traitor”… all because he doesnt’ support the president (like half of america) means he’s a traitor? If Joe Doe someone made a movie against Clinton when he was bombing Iraq, would conservatives call him a traitor? no. they wouldn’t. this is sad…

5. republican Says: July 13th, 2004 at 3:09 am

   Perhaps herb and zoot potatoe (with these names who could even have the audacity to leave a comment?) should re-read the article. Michael Moore is not named a traitor for disagreeing with the President of the United States (a.k.a. the man who was officially elected into office by the Electoral College) as perhaps half of America allegedly seems to (we’ll soon find out), but rather he is named a traitor for promoting hate against America. I am amazed by how much liberals admire a man who encourages others to hate their own country (one to which they supposedly swear allegiance to “in their world”). And how is it that comment number ‘3’ fails to mention Michael Moore even once, which is what the article was originally about. Now I understand why this site is called “Laugh at Liberals”.

6. JGK Says: July 14th, 2004 at 5:04 am

   It wouldn’t have even occurred to me that comment 3’s “failure” to mention Michael Moore even once is worth noting. If what started out as comments about Michael Moore leads to discussion of the content of his film, then you’ve got a real discussion. If after seeing F911 you just want to shoot the messenger and focus criticism on Michael Moore, you’ve missed the point of his movie, which isn’t about him. Sure, the movie lets you know Michael Moore’s opinions, and you might agree and you might not, but it also lets you know a lot of facts that are disturbing and unfortunately not disputable. F911 is an opinion piece, and therefore criticized for not really being a “documentary.” Well, whatever you want to call this film, too bad for this country that it is not a work of fiction, which is hard for some people to swallow. The biggest success of Michael Moore and F911 is that he has gotten so many people to ask questions and find out more. It’s a good thing for the discussion to become about the content of the film, not the man who made it.

7. maritnjb Says: July 15th, 2004 at 3:45 pm

   for disputable facts see hitchens article…whats funny is there are liberals in the liberal press saying this movie is a bunch of lies…and michael moore can’t decide himself if this is a documentary or a movie…two very different types of film…

8. Ben Says: July 16th, 2004 at 6:12 am

   “republican”, you fool - michael moooore’s message isn’t for you to hate your own country, it’s for you to understand what’s going on in the country, and how it’s wrong. Moreover, he’s really trying to show any openminded person (aka liberal) how much of a crackcase G.W.B. is. Go read your Drudge Reports, republican.

9. herb Says: July 17th, 2004 at 5:05 pm

   Ben, you have to realize that “republican” can’t seem to follow a coherant chain of thought or else he might have realized that comment 3 was a reply to comment 2 and fits in perfectly. Also, like many among the great unwashed he resorts to personal cracks, herb is my real name btw, rather than well reasoned discussion. As for Mr Moore preaching hate America I seriously doubt it unless you identify America totally with the man in charge. One can love one’s country but hate what she does because of the man at the wheel. As i said before, the only countries I know where you had to be faithful to the man in charge were those run by dictators, whether of the right or left.

10. Carlos Says: July 22nd, 2004 at 7:02 pm

    As a non-american I’ve been following the discussions about Fahrenheit 9/11 with great interest. What really amuses me is that all republican websites accuse Moore of being a traitor because of the fact he’s telling “nothing but lies” in his film. So far I haven’t found a single website questioning this so called lies or proving these lies are wrong…

11. reg Says: July 22nd, 2004 at 10:43 pm

    Carlos,

    I’m trying real hard not to laugh at your post. You’re basically saying that you do not know how, or refuse to learn how, to use an internet search engine. Ok, with that said, here is just one of many links that help you on your search.

    http://www.aim.org/
    aim_report/
    1802_0_4_0_C/’

    Others can also be provided.

12. Emory Says: July 23rd, 2004 at 2:14 am

    Re: #3, I disagree, Herb. Just because we haven’t caught bin Laden and the fact that operations continue in Afghanistan doesn’t translate into a need for more troops. If you’re aware of any reports of generals in the theater who have called for more troops in Afghanistan, please post the links. I’m of the opinion that more is not always the best solution. Most experts say that bin Laden is not in Afghanistan anyway.

13. herb Says: July 23rd, 2004 at 4:03 pm

    I am sure you do disagree Emory, and a lot more with you. Maybe more troops aren’t necessary in numbers but what about the fact that the only way the current manpower requirements are being met is with extended tours of duty? What happens if we should suddenly need manppower elsewhere? How about the governors’ latest cry that they have no manpower left to handle emergency situations on the homefront, jobs normally handled by the Guard? What does this do for future recruitment in both the active duty forces and the Guard? What does it do to the current grunt in the field and his mindset and stress level?

14. Mike Roberts Says: July 30th, 2004 at 2:35 pm

    Think of me as a non-partisan citizen.

    I worry about my nation. I have recently watched Moore’s Film and I was deeply shocked. I’ve always known the film is liberal propaganda ([Liberals] if you don’t believe me, look propaganda up in the dictionary).

    Yes, F911 is a mix of opinion, speculation and fact. Even if we discounted the speculation and opinions of Moore we are still left, nonetheless, with a chilling realisation of how our nation is being run.

    As I said above, I am fully aware that the film in propaganda, and with that in mind I have done my best to hear the “other side” of the story. All I have managed to find are pages like this one. Moore’s polar opposites pointing fingers and calling names. Is this really you’re argument? Vote for Bush because “Kerry is a fairy”? Kerry and Moore are traitors?

    Admittedly, I have found a number of sites that pick holes in some of Moore’s reasoning, especially how he connects the Bushes to the Bin-Ladens (which I don’t find particularly relevant in any case)

    I actually believe that Moore’s film has done more good than harm when screened in other nations (especially when screened in nations that severely dislike the USA) These are nations that blame all citizens for unpopular US foreign policy. The film shows that the decisions of the US government do not reflect every citizen. (Only my opinion)

    All I want to know is that our elected officials are running our nation wisely, in our interest. (The _undisputed_ facts in Moore’s film show that Bush has failed) Since doing my own (balanced — I wouldn’t be here otherwise) research I am left with the opinion that Bush failed these objectives and I think it’s time he has been replaced. I would welcome informed arguments saying otherwise.

    Republicans (Not every republican, mainly those who like to “Laugh at Liberals”): You are doing yourselves no favors right now. Many people are attacking your party with facts, and you are responding with the political equivalent of the “Your mother” comeback. If Moore, the press, or the liberals are lying, PROVE the are wrong with facts. If Moore’s film is simply, as you put it, “Lie after Lie” why hasn’t Moore been served with a Libel suit? Giving a childish response to intelligent argument only results in making you look foolish.

    Come November 2, I will vote for whoever I feel will do the best job. Give me a _real_ reason to vote for Bush

15. Grady Philpott Says: July 30th, 2004 at 10:39 pm

    Michael Moore is a traitor.
    John Kerry is a traitor.
    Anyone who supports John Kerry is a traitor.
    The Democrat Party is the American Communist Party.

16. Abel Gallardo Says: August 1st, 2004 at 10:59 am

    It’s funny you should mention Communism because it appears that the Communist Party of America has chosen their favorite candidate. Guess who? Check it out, the url is ‘http://www.cpusa.org/’. One thing is for certain, the Communists sure hate Bush.

17. zack Says: August 1st, 2004 at 2:28 pm

    Mike: This site is first and foremost about fun. We are all Americans. The fact that we can banter back and forth makes this a great country. When it gets sad is when people begin to make-up stories detrimental to The Commander In Chief during a time of war and call them documentaries for the sake of making money. People like Moore are more concerned about making money than the success of this war. We are in it. If you must, wait till our troops come home, then tell your lies. Liberals tend to do this more than conservatives. Linda Ronstadt says that she hates it when she gets up to perform and finds out that there is a fundamental Christian or a Republican in the audience. Imagine for a moment that a performer gets up and says that he/she hates it when they get up to perform and finds out that there is a homosexual or Muslim in the audience. That person would be prosecuted! The conservatives in Hollywood can’t speak out for the same fear! Yet, it’s the liberals who want to cuss and spew hate rhetoric about our President then run and hide behind “Freedom of Speech”. How did a President who had been in office a little over 7 months total, fail on 911? Forget partisanship for a minutes and think about that. The previous president ignored “trial-runs” on numerous occasions. Remember, they DID bomb the World Trade Center once! Suppose the first attack had been successful? Has anyone asked that? The terrorists failed, regrouped, when back to the drawing-boards and came up with a better plan while Clinton sat there and did nothing about that attack! Nobody is really thinking about that. But because the Bush administration didn’t comb through 100’s of thousands of pieces of evidence in 7 months to see it coming….it’s he failed!!!??? Michael Moore has done a great injustice to this country on more levels than just that. We are actually at a point in this society to where we don’t even know what a lie is. If I tell you that my car is in the parking lot, then I go outside to leave my office only to find that someone has stolen my car….does that mean I lied? The best Intel in the world, American, British and even Russian, who, BTW, didn’t even want us to go in to Iraq, told the President that the WMD were there. What would YOU have done? Better yet, what would Kerry or any other President have done? We later found out that the UN was full of countries who were making billions under the table from Iraq and would NEVER have voted to go into Iraq, no matter what Saddam did. Congress agreed and voted to give the President the power to use military force ANYWAY HE SAW FIT. Remember all of that? Kerry doesn’t. He should at least be honest about that. For the record, there is no way that, if politics were removed, anybody would believe that all three Intel services are wrong about it. The WMD’s ARE there, OR they have been taken to another country! Any honest person, would admit that.

18. zack Says: August 1st, 2004 at 2:38 pm

    Just curious. How does every posting here define a traitor? How do you define a lie? Do you side with the UN over the US government when you disagree with the US government? How far does your loyalty to your country go?

19. JGK Says: August 2nd, 2004 at 12:52 pm

    About comment 14, very well put, Mike. I also found this site by searching the internet for information from “the other side.” Now about comment 15, there’s a contrast in the thoughtfulness that went into a post. Amazing you put those statements out there, Grady, AFTER reading what Mike just wrote in 14. There sure is a lot of namecalling and nagativity coming from the Repulicans in response to F9/11. I was glad a couscious effort was made at the DNC to avoid Bush-bashing. Of course, the Democrats already have Michael Moore and many others doing that for them. Hearing Jimmy Carter’s speech at the DNC echoing much of the content of F9/11, I find it now really hard to take seriously those that continue to call the film a pack of lies. At a personal level, while I appreciate that Michael Moore’s film has gotten so many Americans to talk politics and ask questions, I think Michael Moore can be smug, sarcastic, and obnoxious. Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, is respected around the world as a great humanitarian. He personifies decency. Without mentioning Bush, he gave one of the most powerful speeches against our current president’s policies and style of leadership. If you didn’t hear the speech, it’s at dems2004.org/site/
    apps/nl/
    content3.asp?
    c=luI2LaPYG&b
    =130840&ct=158731

20. Sara Says: August 4th, 2004 at 12:56 am

    Well… Of course some people here seem not to really understand what a propaganda movie is. There surely were many manipulations that Moore did to prove his point. The plain facts would not make anyone shock because there was hardly any great revelation or discovary throwout the whole movie. He worked more on the impressions that he wanted to make than on presenting the facts and building any good arguments to support them, and his conspiracy theories where just childish! If you want some good incite on these manipulations, lies and twisted facts you can check out: http://www.moorelies.com or http://www.mooreexposed.com
    These have detailed arguments about how he used manipulative methods to make the audience agree with him while the plain facts would have proved nothing at all.

    When I personally saw F9/11 a few things caught my attention. Since I just saw the movie I had no possibility to say whether what he said was true or not, but I just assumed that he told the truth and nothing but the truth and he just made the speculations based on what he saw without any evil intentions.

    Then I decided to assume what would I have thought if I would have come upon the information that he came upon and I decided to look at the info that he gave through my own eyes, and I came to the conclusion that as I said there was hardly anything troubling and extraordinary in what he found.

    I give you some examples. The most vivid one that I can tell you now was what he said about the gas line that was going to be built in Afghanistan. He speculated that Bush only started the war to build a gas line there. Well, that’s his speculation since the fact that a treaty to build a gas line was signed by Hammed Karzai after the war absolutely doesn’t follow the conclusion that this was the only reason for war. We only conclude that if the war in Afghanestan would have produced no positive results for anyone except the people who wanted to build the pipe there. This is not true. The people of Afghanestan now are much better off than they were under Taliban. The country is gradually becoming better and better. As I told in another message on this blog before I am an Iranian. My country is right next to Iraq and Afghanistan. We had loads of Afghan refugees who simply couldn’t live in their native land the life there was unbearable. But now they are going back to their homeland and they are very happy about the changes. So now if in addition some gas line would be built how does it make the war in Afghanistan unjust?

    Another thing is that Michael Moore is absolutely soaked in his leftist ideology which considers any attempt to make profit sound and look like a crime no matter how justly it has been conducted or how many other people other than the business men involved have benefited from it. Again I can bring the gas pipe agreement as an example. What harm a gas pipe passing through Afghanistan can cause to Afghan people? Their country has no natural resources, no industries, no great agriculture, basically no income to fill their treasury! Their strategic location is the only card they can play. Does Moore actually think that building a gas pipe is a favor that Afghanistan is doing to the gas companies? They are doing business for God sack and they are going to get money which they so badly need out of it too!

    I also noticed that Moore was making Saddam’s Iraq look like a peaceful and problem-less place. Well, we all know that it was not like that! What ever the reasons of attacking Iraq might have been in Michael Moore’s imagination I don’t think there would be any honest person that would deny that Saddam Hussein was a blood-thirsty tyrant who had committed many crimes against humanity and it is great that he is gone for good! Now if again some companies now can go to free Iraq and do business there it is only great and not just for them, but for the Iraqi people too, because the presence of foreign companies will make sure first of all that law and order will be restored soon since you can not do business in a chaotic and lawless environment and secondly it is good because they will bring jobs and higher standards of life to Iraq. To be honest with you there is no country amongst the undeveloped nations who wouldn’t want to have as much investments as possible coming to their land! It will boost the economy and after a while the standards will rise and people will become more financially strong. So Moore mentioned that the corporations are rushing into newly liberated Iraq, so what?! Hardly a revelation and not a bad news at all, unless either you are a communist or you are clueless about economics and you will just hear Moore’s ominous tone of voice and scary music and start to think: “Gee! So that’s why we went to war! To have some people exploit the Iraqi people…!”

    Another example was about having the Saudis out of America right after 9/11. Well, later on I read on numerous websites that actually Saudis went out much later than what Moore had us believed and those who could have been of any help where already investigated. But at the very first moment when I saw that in the movie it came to my head that actually this was a very wise decision. These people could have gotten killed because of a massive hatred towards any person from the Middle East on those days. My own sister who lives in New Jersey got attacked by some angry people who suddenly started to throw tomatoes at her because she has Middle Eastern features and I assure you she is very westernized and doesn’t wear anything that indicates that she is a Muslim. So imagine how would the Bin Laden family must have felt. What if one of them would have become subject to a hate crime? Or the fact that Saudi embassy is so heavily guarded is nothing surprising and it doesn’t lead to any of the phony conclusions that Moore was making. It is just common sense! After the terrorist attacks some ignorant people might cause some harm to that building and to people inside it and that would lead to an international scandal.

    Well… other than those points mentioned above I didn’t like Moore’s approach in vandalizing the character of those whom he doesn’t like. Those pictures of Bush, Ashcroft and other people who was recorded on camera before the actual report or interview started was simply a childish mockery and using these kinds of methods of bulling people are not worthy of being used in any movie or “documentary’ with an intelligent message. Well you chose to call it political satire, but I found them out of contexts with the tone and flow of the rest of the movie which was trying to look very serious and intelligent! Bad taste; that’s all!

    After all I found this move (lies or no lies) not a shocking revelation, but Moore’s own point of view (as his supporters try to emphasize so much) which is paranoid, biased, coming from a silly, unintelligent, outdated, and childish world-view, totally amerced in communist ideology; preoccupied with “corporate conspiracies” and other childish notions, and demonstrated by childish and unintelligent and quite tasteless means and methods! I think it was not a documentary; it was a tantrum!

21. Chris Kelley Says: August 4th, 2004 at 8:46 am

    did you pay to see the movie?

22. Chris Kelley Says: August 4th, 2004 at 8:55 am

    If you did, thanks for contributing to an 80 million dollar contribution to the Democrats for 2004! If you didn’t pay to watch it, you’re a crook. If you saw and were scared, you’re a Republican.

23. Andrew Says: August 6th, 2004 at 5:25 pm

    Buck Evinger, You sound more like a Nazi than an American.

24. Ted Phillips Says: August 21st, 2004 at 6:25 am

    To be honest, I don’t care about the shakey business links between bush and bin laden and a lot of the other nonsense in the film. What bothers me the most is we were lied to by our leader. I cannot support a candidate who is more concerned with his personal agenda than that of the nation.

    To quote David Sirota and Christy Harvey:

    In his March 17, 2003 address preparing America for the Iraq invasion, President Bush stated unequivocally that there was an Iraq-al Qaeda nexus and that there was “no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”

    In the context of what we now know the White House knew at the time, Bush was deliberately dishonest. The intelligence community repeatedly told the White House there were many deep cracks in its case for war. The president’s willingness to ignore such warnings and make these unequivocal statements proves the administration was intentionally painting a black-and-white picture when it knew the facts merited only gray at best.

    That has meant severe consequences for all Americans. Financially, U.S. taxpayers have shelled out more than $166 billion for the Iraq war, and more will soon be needed. Geopolitically, our country is more isolated from allies than ever, with anti-Americanism on the rise throughout the globe.

    And we are less secure. A recent U.S. Army War College report says “the invasion of Iraq was a diversion from the more narrow focus on defeating al Qaeda.” U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi put it this way: “The war in Iraq was useless, it caused more problems than it solved, and it brought in terrorism.”

    These statements are borne out by the facts: The International Institute of Strategic Studies in London reports al Qaeda is now 18,000 strong, with many new recruits joining as a result of the war in Iraq. Not coincidentally, the White House recently said the American homeland faces an imminent threat of a terrorist attack from a still-active al Qaeda operation in Afghanistan. Yet, the administration actually moved special forces out of Afghanistan in 2002 to prepare for an invasion of Iraq. Because of this, we face the absurd situation whereby we have no more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan hunting down those who directly threaten us, yet have 140,000 troops in Iraq�a country that was not a serious menace before invasion.

    Of course, it is those troops who have it the worst. Our men and women in uniform are bogged down in a quagmire, forced to lay down life and limb for a lie.

    To be sure, neoconservative pundits and Bush administration hawks will continue to blame anyone but the White House for these deceptions. They also will say intelligence gave a bit of credence to some of the pre-war claims, and that is certainly true.

    But nothing can negate the clear proof that President Bush and other administration official officials vastly overstated the intelligence they were given. They engaged in a calculated and well-coordinated effort to turn a war of choice in Iraq into a perceived war of imminent necessity.

    And we are all left paying the price.

25. John Berger Says: August 24th, 2004 at 6:25 pm

    Fahrenheit 9/11 is astounding. Not so much as a film - although it is cunning and moving - but as an event. Most commentators try to dismiss the event and disparage the film. We will see why later.

    The artists on the Cannes film festival jury apparently voted unanimously to award Michael Moore’s film the Palme d’Or. Since then it has touched many millions across the world. In the US, its box-office takings for the first six weeks amounted to more than $100m, which is, astoundingly, about half of what Harry Potter made during a comparable period. Only the so-called opinion-makers in the media appear to have been put out by it.

    The film, considered as a political act, may be a historical landmark. Yet to have a sense of this, a certain perspective for the future is required. Living only close-up to the latest news, as most opinion-makers do, reduces one’s perspectives. The film is trying to make a small contribution towards the changing of world history. It is a work inspired by hope.

    What makes it an event is the fact that it is an effective and independent intervention into immediate world politics. Today it is rare for an artist to succeed in making such an intervention, and in interrupting the prepared, prevaricating statements of politicians. Its immediate aim is to make it less likely that President Bush will be re-elected next November.

    To denigrate this as propaganda is either naive or perverse, forgetting (deliberately?) what the last century taught us. Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast. Propaganda invariably serves the long-term interests of some elite.

    This single maverick movie is often reflectively slow and is not afraid of silence. It appeals to people to think for themselves and make connections. And it identifies with, and pleads for, those who are normally unlistened to. Making a strong case is not the same thing as saturating with propaganda. Fox TV does the latter; Michael Moore the former.

    Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events. It’s a tricky question because two very different types of power are involved. Many theories of aesthetics and ethics revolve round this question. For those living under political tyrannies, art has frequently been a form of hidden resistance, and tyrants habitually look for ways to control art. All this, however, is in general terms and over a large terrain. Fahrenheit 9/11 is something different. It has succeeded in intervening in a political programme on the programme’s own ground.

    For this to happen a convergence of factors were needed. The Cannes award and the misjudged attempt to prevent the film being distributed played a significant part in creating the event.

    To point this out in no way implies that the film as such doesn’t deserve the attention it is receiving. It’s simply to remind ourselves that within the realm of the mass media, a breakthrough (a smashing down of the daily wall of lies and half-truths) is bound to be rare. And it is this rarity which has made the film exemplary. It is setting an example to millions - as if they’d been waiting for it.

    The film proposes that the White House and Pentagon were taken over in the first year of the millennium by a gang of thugs so that US power should henceforth serve the global interests of the corporations: a stark scenario which is closer to the truth than most nuanced editorials. Yet more important than the scenario is the way the movie speaks out. It demonstrates that - despite all the manipulative power of communications experts, lying presidential speeches and vapid press conferences - a single independent voice, pointing out certain home truths which countless Americans are already discovering for themselves, can break through the conspiracy of silence, the atmosphere of fear and the solitude of feeling politically impotent.

    It’s a movie that speaks of obstinate faraway desires in a period of disillusion. A movie that tells jokes while the band plays the apocalypse. A movie in which millions of Americans recognise themselves and the precise ways in which they are being cheated. A movie about surprises, mostly bad but some good, being discussed together. Fahrenheit 9/11 reminds the spectator that when courage is shared one can fight against the odds.

    In more than a thousand cinemas across the country, Michael Moore becomes with this film a people’s tribune. And what do we see? Bush is visibly a political cretin, as ignorant of the world as he is indifferent to it; while the tribune, informed by popular experience, acquires political credibility, not as a politician himself, but as the voice of the anger of a multitude and its will to resist.

    There is something else which is astounding. The aim of Fahrenheit 9/11 is to stop Bush fixing the next election as he fixed the last. Its focus is on the totally unjustified war in Iraq. Yet its conclusion is larger than either of these issues. It declares that a political economy which creates colossally increasing wealth surrounded by disastrously increasing poverty, needs - in order to survive - a continual war with some invented foreign enemy to maintain its own internal order and security. It requires ceaseless war.

    Thus, 15 years after the fall of communism, a decade after the declared end of history, one of the main theses of Marx’s interpretation of history again becomes a debating point and a possible explanation of the catastrophes being lived.

    It is always the poor who make the most sacrifices, Fahrenheit 9/11 announces quietly during its last minutes. For how much longer?

    There is no future for any civilisation anywhere in the world today which ignores this question. And this is why the film was made and became what it became. It’s a film that deeply wants America to survive.

26. Arouet Says: October 15th, 2004 at 11:54 pm

    RE: Michael Moore is a traitor. John Kerry is a traitor. etc.
    Your ignorance of what this country is about astounds me. Perhaps you would be happier under some type of dictatorship - in such regimes, anyone who disagrees with the autocracy is a traitor.

27. Adam Says: October 16th, 2004 at 3:46 am

    “Did you know that American citizens at the Republican National Convetion last night were wearing band-aids with Purple Hearts on them to mock veterans (i.e. Kerry) who were lightly wounded? I’m in a bunker in Mosul, Iraq, getting mortared daily, and I have to watch my countrymen wearing Purple Heart Band-aids and getting coverage on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX?

    Did you know that two nights ago, our combat support hospital took in two casualties from an IED (improvised explosive device, a road side bomb)? One kid had two broken legs, a broken arm, broken ribs, and a punctured lung. The other kid was trapped in the vehicle and burned to death. Have you ever seen a burnt human body? It’s a sight you won’t forget and the smell never leaves you.

    I wish I could reach out to those fine Americans at the Republican National Convention and make then see what I’ve seen; I would show them all of the wounds and injuries our surgeons, nurses, and medics have treated. American soldiers are dying over here, and those at the convention have the temerity to mock us? While the balloons drop and the banners wave, somebody’s son is taking fire, somebody’s daughter is crying for her mother on our operating room table, and somebody’s husband is lying cold in a “pouch, human remains.” Will that be enough to convince these model citizens to take off their Purple Heart Band-Aids?”

    This comment from a Veteran who served in Iraq.

28. jd Says: October 16th, 2004 at 2:20 pm

    Adam: old news but like most brain dead liberals you miss the point. Kerry exagerated his injuries to get out of Vietnam. That is an insult to the brave and dedicated vets who stayed and fought and died. Kerry manipulated the system to get out then uses his time there to say “vote for me”. He is the one who is insulting our servicemen and he is the one who deserves your scorn. Get your liberal head out of your liberal ass long enough to think about it.

29. Arouet Says: October 16th, 2004 at 3:50 pm

    Kerry was in Vietnam (and yes, I have read some of the hate-filled venom of the “not-very-swift vets” led by Nixon’s hatchet man O’Neill, so no lectures please).

    Meanwhile, this “warrior” President was not. He chose the tough path - Air National Guard. Back then, unlike now, it was a way out of Nam.

30. Emory Says: October 16th, 2004 at 4:16 pm

    Arouet, I went to the C-SPAN site and watched the inaugural meeting of the Swiftboat Veterans and concluded that they are sincere people who were truly hurt by John Kerry and genuinely do not believe Kerry would be a good president. I challenge anyone to watch the video and see for themselves the pain and angst the Switvets are experiencing.

31. kduey Says: October 16th, 2004 at 4:50 pm

    Kerry was injured facing the right direction on a battlefield. Bush was arrested for driving home drunk from a celeb party. Kerry could have gotten out, and he went. Then, coming home, he told a hard truth. I wrote a book that required me to interview 153 vets in 1973. Stories of atrocities ran through nearly ever combat vet’s memories. A number of them wept over things they had seen (or perhaps done themselves, though none admitted it to me, except one. He showed me his ear collection.) Two men spoke of killing women and children in free-fire zones and were soul-sick about it and other things they had seen and done. Kerry went, then he came home and he told the truth about a terrible war. If you have not read his whole testimony, you owe yourself the information. At 28, he acted his conscience twice, going to fight, then talking about the war to Congress, relaying the stories he had heard from hundreds of others. And, by the way, back then, I never heard Kerry’s name spoken. Not once. He was one of tens of thousands of voices against the war, many louder and more eloquent than his. Viet Nam cost me a cousin, two good friends and several high school friends. It left a scar on many others of my generation. The “crazy Viet Nam vet” had good reasons to lose his grip. He was asked to do things no one should ask or allow a soldier to do. He came home to a country that knew the war was bogus, a political exercise, doomed to fail–and knew his friends had died for nothing. I fear for the Iraq vets and am already hearing stories of atrocities outside the prisons. This is a tragic betrayal, a bad use of young men’s lives. There are a thousand things wrong with this war, the man leading it, the motivations behind it and the way it was sold to the public. But beyond all of that, the men fighting it are going to be damaged, some of them deeply, all of them forever. War is a failure of civilization, period. An avoidable war is a crime against civilization.

    Progressives, liberals, whatever you want to call us, we aren’t laughable. We are people who don’t feel bigger or smarter for having “kicked ass” in a basically unarmed country. We don’t think that a crying Iraqi child is “collateral damage”. We think she is a human child, whose parents are now dead, who will stumble through life as a result. We hate dictators who *aren’t* sitting on oil fields in strategic positions as much as those who are.

    And many of us know a guerilla civil war situation when we see it. Again.

    The soldiers are poor boys for the most part, fighting a rich man’s war. The profiteering of Halliburtan and the Carlyle group is transparent and ugly. The Bush family hs pulled this kind of thing for three generations. And you love them for it? Why?

    I understand perfectly why white men who make 10 million or more a year and bank offshore are republicans, though I don’t admire them for that kind of self-serving predation. What I can’t understand is the rest of you. Government has to be watched, you have to hold their feet to the fire, and we aren’t doing that. Why?

    Adam. Thank you for your service. I hope the war is better run soon. I am so sorry you have had to see things and do things that will be hard to live with. I will do my best to make your sacrifice worthwhile, to make sure that the politicians of both parties do right by you, and I will work to salvage some kind of victory for you and for the Iraqi people–not just a corporate earnings party and a clumsy retreat when the cash flow dries up.

32. Arouet Says: October 16th, 2004 at 4:56 pm

    Hello Emory,
    I have no doubt that some of these men seemed sincere, but over and over the charges they leveled have been refuted. Please see this site for an example. There are many other sites that do the same.

33. Arouet Says: October 16th, 2004 at 5:39 pm

    Hello Emory,
    I don’t doubt they seemed sincere, but their charges have been refuted by many sources, not just liberal ones.

34. JD Says: October 16th, 2004 at 5:52 pm

    Boy those liberal talking points just keep coming. I keep hearing the SBV’s have been discredited but funny, I haven’t heard how. Their story is entirely credible, unlike John “Christmas in Cambodia” Kerry’s. I challenge one of you liberals to present just one verifiable instance refuting even one of the SBV’s charges. Just one!

35. Emory Says: October 16th, 2004 at 5:56 pm

    Arouet, several in the democratic party and media have attacked the swiftboat vets. I’m not aware of any charges from the book that have been refuted.

36. Arouet Says: October 16th, 2004 at 6:05 pm

    Emory and JD,
    I have been trying to mention a good site, by URL, but it won’t seem to take this in the post, and I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it is a policy here.

37. JD Says: October 16th, 2004 at 6:15 pm

    Nice try Arouet but it doesn’t count. Just one and put it here where we can read it.

38. Adam Says: October 16th, 2004 at 6:21 pm

    Adam: old news but like most brain dead liberals you miss the point. Kerry exagerated his injuries to get out of Vietnam. That is an insult to the brave and dedicated vets who stayed and fought and died. Kerry manipulated the system to get out then uses his time there to say �vote for me”. He is the one who is insulting our servicemen and he is the one who deserves your scorn. Get your liberal head out of your liberal ass long enough to think about it.

    So what Kerry should be scorned because he didn’t give his LIFE for Vietnam? You’re an idiot and you don’t make any points that re worth arguing. You have no idea, no fucking clue what it’s like to serve in a time of war. You and other right-wing buddies can scream “kick their ass” all you want from your little computer desk, but the real heroes are the ones who are putting their lifes on the line for this country. Go watch a 10 year old boy get his limbs blow off by a scud missle, and atch his face as doctors try to salvage whatever they can of his leftover body, and then come talk to me about being a vet, because you don’t know.

39. Arouet Says: October 16th, 2004 at 6:38 pm

    Let me try again.

40. Adam Says: October 16th, 2004 at 6:39 pm

    The following is a quote from a Naval Doctor from the SBV site.

    “The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

    Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore.”

    So the claim is that Kerry fired a grenade at a rock? If you believe it, good for you, but I’m gonna stick with the notion that Kerry didn’t fire a grenade launcher at a “bunch of rocks on shore”.

41. Adam Says: October 16th, 2004 at 6:43 pm

    Nice site by the way Arouet.

42. Emory Says: October 16th, 2004 at 6:53 pm

    Hi Arouet, posts with links have to be approved to prevent spam attacks. It’s also better to make the link text short. Here’s Buck’s post about it.

43. Arouet Says: October 16th, 2004 at 7:02 pm

    Thank you very much for that information, Emory. I could have presented the arguments myself, citing the source naturally, but that would have made for a rather long post.

44. JD Says: October 16th, 2004 at 9:37 pm

    Adam if you think what you said proves anything, well, lets just say it is not enough for people who are interested in the truth.

45. someone Says: October 16th, 2004 at 10:17 pm

    “His movie, Fahrenheit 911, is an act of treason during a time of war.”

    Hey, we’re not at war anymore. Remember last year when Bush made his Mission Accomplished speech and said that the war was over? When he said, “major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”? Oh wait…if the war’s over then why are our soldiers still over there and getting killed?

46. JD Says: October 16th, 2004 at 10:21 pm

    Someone: Bush never said the war was over, you did. In fact he said that there was much to be done. The major combat operations WERE over and have been over since then. Done fighting? nope but the major operations were over, Sadams army was defeated and it was a spectacular achievement. Only loser liberals would deny that.

47. JD Says: October 16th, 2004 at 10:26 pm

    Someone: There are two sides to every election. The guy you want to win and the guy you don’t want to win. We quite often have to pick the lesser of two evils and that is why you have to focus both on positives and negatives. I will take the guy who exhibits honesty and character every time. And a guy who says he is going to do something and then does it. You pick how you want.

48. Emory Says: October 16th, 2004 at 10:51 pm

    The war on terrorism is no where near over. There are too many terrorist leaders and terrorist cells active and governments supporting them.

49. Arouet Says: October 18th, 2004 at 9:28 pm

    Being at “war” does not give the president the power of a dictator.

50. Emory Says: October 18th, 2004 at 10:16 pm

    Of course, Arouet. U.S. presidents get that authority from congress and in a secondary sense, the U.N.

51. Serbian National Says: October 18th, 2004 at 10:23 pm

    But George W. Bush sure is acting like one, isn’t he? I mean, he hasn’t had to veto a single bill in the Congress (oh, wait, look here), he indeed isn’t bogged down by the legislative process (oh, no, wait, look at this. Even though it’s obviously from a liberalist site, it still gets the point across) and he definitely has no opposition in the United States.

    Sorry mate, democracy is still alive and kicking in America, however annoying it may sometimes be.

52. Arouet Says: October 18th, 2004 at 10:41 pm

    It appears some people believe that is the case, though.

53. draco Says: October 19th, 2004 at 8:19 pm

    oh lordy- it’s fun to watch the liberals squirm and twist in the wind like the crying babies they are! this is a comedy site! they have no sense of humor…
    if you need counterpoints to fareheit 9/11, there are plenty available. here’s one that you cannot denounce because it is actually based on facts: http://www.fahrenhype911.com/index.php

54. Arouet Says: October 19th, 2004 at 11:34 pm

    Sorry, I don’t think young men and women being killed because of Bush’s folly is funny.

55. Emory Says: October 20th, 2004 at 3:25 am

    I would say the folly of the U.S. not confronting Iraq and terrorism goes well beyond Bush into past administrations.

56. Arouet Says: October 20th, 2004 at 9:21 pm

    Yes, that is part of the folly. But going to war against Iraq was the apex of folly.

57. Emory Says: October 21st, 2004 at 2:26 am

    I think if you take into account all the bad decisions that were made over all administrations, the ones that lead to 9/11 were probably more harmful than the folly of defeating Saddam Hussein (at least in terms of casualties).

58. Serbian National Says: October 21st, 2004 at 2:31 pm

    Unfortunate though it may be, soldiers are dying for a good cause. Thanks to their hard efforts, we have beaten down a tyrannical regime and overthrown a cruel dictator who had either the possibility to create WMDs or even had WMDs. Anyone who says otherwise needs to check out the facts instead of everything that Sen. Kerry tells you. The greatest intelligence services in the world told us that Hussein had them, I doubt that they were all wrong. Saddam Hussein was also sposoring terrorism, so anyone who says outright (Sen. Kerry once more) that Iraq had no connections to terrorism is a fool.

    Even though it may seen coarse, the soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing their job - what they are paid to do. They signed up to possibly give their life in the defense of their country, and that’s exactly what they are doing over there in the Middle East.

    Michael Moore has the right to say whatever he damn well pleases. He is not a traitor, because there is no such thing in America (to a certain extent). What he is doing, however, is attempting to sway undecided voters against President Bush by using propaganda techniques and “facts” (I use that word lightly). Instead of using Mr. Moore to do it, why doesn’t Kerry present to us his plans on 1. what he will do better in Iraq (besides everything) or 2. how he plans to pay for everything?

59. Arouet Says: October 21st, 2004 at 3:57 pm

    No, they are not dying for their country in Iraq…they are dying for some special interests that are not the same as American peoples’ interest.
    Saddam sponsored Hezbollah - not a big threat to this country - they are not the same as Al Qaeda!

60. bonniem Says: October 21st, 2004 at 4:55 pm

    Every life is valuable of course. We lost more people on 9/11 for absolutely no reason, and so far less than half that number fighting for a cause in Iraq. Also for those people who say we are fighting for oil, are you also the ones who don’t want us to drill in Alaska, or off shore, and where do we get our energy supplies from? What do you drive? How much electicity do you use, how do you heat your home? The same as people who complain about losing our troops, but are all for abortion. And to be honest - if the occassion arose where I had to make a choice on abortion — I don’t know which way I would feel.

61. bonniem Says: October 21st, 2004 at 4:57 pm

    I think what I was trying to say (I know someone will jump on that phrase), if you don’t have a solution - workable solution- don’t judge so harshly.

62. Arouet Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:10 pm

    The US is in Iraq for more than the oil.
    But, regarding oil…why do Americans need to consume so much of it? For example, there are no logical reasons to be driving around in huge SUVs. In Europe, we don’t.

    The need to develop alternate energy sources (not nuclear and dirty coal) was known in the seventies (maybe earlier), but not much was done. Why?

63. Emory Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:14 pm

    Regarding “Saddam sponsored Hezbollah not a big threat to this country,” remember that in 1983 Hezbollah suicide bombers killed more than 250 U.S. Marines in Beirut by ramming a truck past a guard post and detonating a bomb against the Marines’ barracks. In 1984, Hezbollah kidnapped and murdered CIA station chief William Buckley. Also in Lebanon, four years later, they kidnapped Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins. They tortured Higgins before he died, and then published photographs of his battered body. Source: Frum.org article.

64. bonniem Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:18 pm

    Arouet, I don’t know. I know that corn has also been mentioned as a source, but then I have heard that it is too expensive (whatever that means) and not a good source.

65. bonniem Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:22 pm

    One thing on the size of cars, I feel safer in the midsize or larger car. I don’t drive the vans or suvs, but no more than I drive, it is not a big deal.

66. Arouet Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:24 pm

    Did I say Hezbollah were not terrorists? No, I did not. But they are not a direct threat to the US, as despicable as their past actions have been.

67. Arouet Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:28 pm

    But bonniem, that is part of the problem. Everyone needs a bigger and bigger vehicle to feel safe…what is next, tanks? What if, as a society, we all decided to go to smaller and more economical cars? We would use less fuel and all have vehicles of roughly the same size.

68. bonniem Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:44 pm

    Well,if all of the cars were smaller, you wouldn’t have to worry about being hit by a suv.

69. bonniem Says: October 21st, 2004 at 5:47 pm

    I don’t believe safety is the issue always when a larger vehicle is chosen. But where it is a matter of “keeping up with the Joneses” that is a different matter. But you know, we live in America, where you have a choice and we exercise that freedom, and sometimes it leads to choices not in the best interest of America itself.

70. JD Says: October 21st, 2004 at 6:44 pm

    Arouet: I have a one word answer for your question of why we “need” SUV’s: Choice
    We don’t need SUV’s we need the choice to choose because through our choices we exercise our freedom and when you start to limit choice you then start to limit freedom.

71. Arouet Says: October 21st, 2004 at 7:32 pm

    Fine, JD. Then choose big, gas guzzling vehicles and live with your choice. That is what amazes me about America. You want your choices, regardless of how they affect your society as a whole, but you do not want the consequences of those choices.

72. shamdamble Says: October 21st, 2004 at 7:50 pm

    “As a non-american I’ve been following the discussions about Fahrenheit 9/11 with great interest. What really amuses me is that all republican websites accuse Moore of being a traitor because of the fact he’s telling “nothing but lies? in his film. So far I haven?t found a single website questioning this so called lies or proving these lies are wrong?”

    web site

73. JD Says: October 21st, 2004 at 9:14 pm

    Arouet: We not only are living with our choices we are wildly succesful because of them. I have no doubt that if and when the price of gas rises to the point SUV’s become to expensive we will want smaller cars. But the high gas price will also bring more supply to market, will make alternatives more viable and will encourage conservation. The market will and always does act rationally and that is what makes us successful. Not the arbitrary and capriciuos determination of “need”.

74. JD Says: October 21st, 2004 at 10:08 pm

    shamdamble: Many articles were written around the time F/911 was released. Newsweek in particular did a good piece on Moore’s misrepresenting the facts. Moore is a talented filmmaker and his deceptions are subtle and at times complicated. His biggest weapon is the half truth so it takes an effort on the individuals part to get the whole story. Images are taken out of context and juxtaimposed with storylines from different incidents. He is really somewhat masterful in his deceit and it is easy to see why people would be fooled.

75. bonniem Says: October 21st, 2004 at 10:26 pm

    Shamdamble, So you think the Republicans are making it up about the lies? You obviously haven’t kept up with what is going on over here except thru the biased news networks. It is a shame you are as gullible as a lot of the Dems.

76. Arouet Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 2:26 pm

    JD, it has been known for quite some time that there is not an infinite supply of fossil fuel, and that most of it comes from unstable parts of the world. (Only 3% could be gotten from the US). So, isn’t it short sighted to buy huge fuel guzzling vehicles that are no more functional than smaller cars because, at one point in time, fuel prices are low? Or can’t Americans see beyond the immediate?

77. JD Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 4:16 pm

    Arouet: One point in time fuel prices are low? Based on current dollars the cost of a gallon of gas is half what it was in the mid 1970’s and that was when we had a real shortage. You acually had gas stations out of gas and mile long lines. You have to parse the rhetoric on the supply of fossil fuels. “Known reserves” are limited because, duh, they are known. But what about unknown reserves? What about exploration that had all but stopped when oil was $12 a barrel just two years ago? There are many estimates that the potential amount of fossil fuels available in the future will be double or triple what we “know” to exist now. The point is the market will adapt to changes in supply and that consumers will make far more rational choices than any central planner who feels qualified to determine what people “need” and what they don’t.

78. Serbian National Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 6:34 pm

    Most Americans, and most people in the world, are short sighted - that’s just an undeniable fact. I will probably never drive an SUV, and I hope the much raised gas prices will bring their downfall because I certainly don’t like paying very large amounts for gas and under the economic law of supply and demand, the less demand the more supply and the less the price is. Even though it is unfortunate that most of our gas comes from unstable parts of the world, that is just another fact of life that we have to live with. With democracy in the Middle East, however, if it does win over (in 20-40 years, if that) then the gas coming from that area of the world would be coming from a stable part of the world and gas prices would be stable as a direct result of that.

    Isn’t that a reason to give them democracy, if you are only looking at it from the perspective of how can it benefit us? Besides the fact that these people are starved of freedom.

79. Arouet Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 8:15 pm

    I think what is boils down to is that Americans are a very materialist people, in general. Of course that is true of some Europeans, but we tend to value time more than money and quality over quantity.
    It is almost as if there is some huge emptiness in Americans’ lives that drives them to fill it with material possessions.

80. bonniem Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 8:20 pm

    Maybe we for the most part, just live life to the fullest. But not all Americans are materialst. Probably the ones you judge us all by are the ones you see on TV.

81. Arouet Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 8:34 pm

    No, bonniem, it is not people I see on tv, it is people I see daily! I live here - am a naturalized citizen. To me and others not born here, “living life fully” doesn’t mean filling your life with material goods.

82. bonn Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 8:59 pm

    I agree that living life fully doesn’t mean filling your life with material things, but I don’t see a lot of that among my friends and people I know and associate with. As a matter of fact I see very little of it other than on TV and in the movies.

83. Anonymous Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 9:02 pm

    Neither do we judge how our friends live. We are pretty acceptable of others.

84. Arouet Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 9:28 pm

    I am not judging - only saying that this enormous use of resources (in this case oil) will have repercussions we may not want to deal with.

85. bonniem Says: October 22nd, 2004 at 10:17 pm

    I guess we already are to a point,don’t you think. I don’t know what happened that Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and some of those states who used to have oil wells all over the place, seemed to shut down in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Maybe someone out there might know.

86. Brooks Says: October 26th, 2004 at 11:13 pm

    I define a traitor as anyone who is or is trying to bring deliberate harm to his country… our country. Micheal Moore is a traitor because he is trying to bring harm to us because he hates us collectively. He hates our way of life, our freedom, but does nothing about it except wine and complain. Micheal Moore, if you don’t like it here, go live in China, they love you there.

87. Arouet Says: October 27th, 2004 at 5:02 pm

    Mr. Moore is not trying to bring harm to his country - but he speaks out when he feels something is wrong - and many of us agree with him. If you don’t like that, I suggest you go live in a dictatorship.

88. bonniem Says: October 27th, 2004 at 8:17 pm

    I suggest, Arouet, that you take a look at the gullible people who think Mr. Moores “documentary” is all facts, and understand that people who don’t believe him have as much right to live in this country and call him a liar, just as much as those with little knowledge have a right to live in this country and call our President a liar. I also suggest that if you can’t take it don’t dish it out! He is definitely trying to divide this country as he has claimed our President has. But I, along with others who do our own thinking, know exactly what he is trying to do.

89. Arouet Says: October 27th, 2004 at 9:56 pm

    First of all, bonniem, I should have addressed this to Brooks, as it was his comment I have an issue with. The point is not whether or not Mr. Moore is always Truthful (only the bible can claim that, yes?). The point is whether or not he can say/write what he likes (and others can criticize him) without being labeled a traitor. Throughout history, that tactic has been used by authoritarian governments and their supporters to silence opposition (often in bloody and horrific ways - read about the French and Russian revolutions), and using this tactic here is not worthy of this country.

90. brooks Says: October 28th, 2004 at 1:32 am

    it is a time of war and he is a propagandist… it’s that simple… I can’t wait til Fairhenhype 911 comes out its gnna be so great.

    And the best thing i’ve come up with to define a liberal is someone who thinks with their heart not their brain.

91. brooks Says: October 28th, 2004 at 1:36 am

    and my comment is not whether he can say/write what he likes dumbass, it’s stating that he is trying to bring home to our country. Way to go Bonniem for knockin some sense into the guy.

92. brooks Says: October 28th, 2004 at 1:37 am

    typo home should be harm sry bout that… got angry and was typin a bit too fast

93. Anonymous Says: October 28th, 2004 at 2:05 am

    I do think that people like Mr. Moore who write all these documentarys(?), movies and the like , ie Columbine, and wht was one about - Ihink Detroit-do so to put a negative impression on whatever he is writing about. I think he does it for money — not to change things for the better. I think he had a huge ego and little else to go with it. I believ he loves to stir up trouble - just for the heck of it and not to improve things. Therefore I have no respect for him and a very low opinion of him. But he really doesn’t do that to be popular. Just try to mess with peoples heads, so - what is the old saying? I won’t allow him to take up space in my mind.

94. brooks Says: October 28th, 2004 at 2:07 am

    touche anonymous, although your grammar looked like something you’d find on johnkerry.com

95. Anonymous Says: October 28th, 2004 at 2:21 am

    Sorry, teach! You know how it is. Refer to 92!
    Thot this was kinda like IM. the ones who read it figure it out. LOL

96. Serbian National Says: October 28th, 2004 at 2:41 pm

    Sometimes it’s easier to “figure out” some things more so than others.

    “Mr. Moore is not trying to bring harm to his country - but he speaks out when he feels something is wrong - and many of us agree with him”

    Many of you who believe that Mr. Moore DIDN’T misrepresent and bladantly make-up his “facts”; many of you who believe that Saddam Hussein wasn’t a threat to us because of his WMDs that “don’t exist”; many of you who think that the conflict in Israel between them and the Palestines can be solved by sitting down and “talking it out”; many of you who think that John Kerry is reliable.

    Case in point.

97. Arouet Says: October 28th, 2004 at 6:58 pm

    Odd how many in this country are so poorly educated when it comes to grammar and spelling…

98. Republican 4 ever Says: October 28th, 2004 at 7:12 pm

    its best to have poor grammar than poor info…

99. Arouet Says: October 28th, 2004 at 7:57 pm

    Well, you people have both.

100. Republican 4 ever Says: October 28th, 2004 at 8:01 pm

     your arguments are so strong…it’s hard to react to them

101. Serbian National Says: October 28th, 2004 at 8:19 pm

     Please point out to me where I misspelled anything?

102. Arouet Says: October 28th, 2004 at 9:04 pm

     “bladantly”

103. The Wompire Says: October 30th, 2004 at 6:30 am

     Moore speaks out when he thinks he can make a buck. He’s a people user. He and Kerry are soul mates.

104. An Aussie Says: October 30th, 2004 at 9:38 pm

     Seeing as Osama Bin Laden just used that obese assholles movie as a talking point, Id say that whatever credibility that jerk had is now long gone.

     Moore is a traitor, and a liar.

105. Arouet Says: November 1st, 2004 at 5:27 pm

     You people would have labeled Thomas Paine a traitor.

106. Allison Says: November 1st, 2004 at 5:43 pm

     go back and read comment #31 by kduey. This man would get my vote if he ran for president.He knows waht he’s talking about.

107. Emory Says: November 1st, 2004 at 6:46 pm

     I’ve read Thomas Paine, Arouet; I’ve seen documentaries on Thomas Paine; Thomas Paine is one of my favorite political writers… Ma’am, Michael Moore is no Thomas Paine.

108. Arouet Says: November 1st, 2004 at 7:11 pm

     Perhaps if you had lived then, Emory, you wouldn’t have thought so highly of M. Paine either.

109. Arouet Says: November 1st, 2004 at 8:37 pm

     Oh, and by the way, it is not “Ma’am”.

110. JD Says: November 1st, 2004 at 10:54 pm

     Moore should send Bush a thankyou card for making him rich.

111. dave barnes Says: November 2nd, 2004 at 4:01 pm

     liberals will go to hell because they don’t agree with us. so will all non-whites, poor people, and non-americans. it says so in the bible.

112. Winner, not Whiner Says: November 7th, 2004 at 7:26 pm

     Arouet, what I don’t understand is if you have all of this insight and good information on how a country should be run and how those in other countries do it better, Why subject yourself to this country instead of your own? The point is, we do do it differently and that is why we are the ONLY superpower in the world and why people like you would rather live here than in your country of origin.

113. Arouet Says: November 8th, 2004 at 4:10 pm

     Excuse me, Winner, but this IS my country now. That being said, it doesn’t mean I can’t criticize what I see as wrong and to work to fix it - I thought that was what a democracy was all about.

114. Serbian National Says: November 8th, 2004 at 7:48 pm

     That is democracy, and this country is democracy at its finest. Even if it creates a huge division in our country, maybe that will benefit us in the end.

     I’m terribly sorry, Arouet, but perhaps if you could get off your high horse and overlook the fact that I swapped a ‘t’ for a ‘d,’ we could have a more productive conversation.

     Did you just tell us that you lived during Thomas Paine’s time? That would be.. what, 200 years ago?

115. Arouet Says: November 8th, 2004 at 8:16 pm

     Alright Serbian, this is how I see the division: It is between secularists, who tend to lean towards a mild form of socialism (they want a safety net), and religious fundamentalists, who use and are used by those who believe in unfettered capitalism. Whether these groups can find common ground is doubtful.

     And no, unfortunately I wasn’t alive during Paine’s time - to have met the philosophes would have been wonderful!

116. Arouet Says: November 8th, 2004 at 8:26 pm

     Well Serbian,
     To get off my high horse - I think the division is between secularists who tend to lean towards a mild form of socialism, and religious fundamentalists, who use and are used by those who believe in unfettered capitalism. The chasm between these groups may not be able to be bridged.
     I wish I had been alive during M. Paine’s time - it would have been wonderful to have met the philosophes.

117. arouet Says: November 8th, 2004 at 10:14 pm

     Well, Serbian,
     Let me get off my high horse and say that I think the division is this country may be too deep to bridge. On the one hand are the secularists, who tend towards a moderate form of socialism, and on the other are the fundamentalists, who use and are used by the unfettered capitalists

118. JD Says: November 9th, 2004 at 2:49 pm

     Arouet, “unfettered” capitalism? I will take that any day over repressive and dogmatic “moderate” socialism.

119. arouet Says: November 9th, 2004 at 7:49 pm

     Then, JD, you don’t believe in any kind of social “safety net”? Some might define that as socialistic.

120. arouet Says: November 10th, 2004 at 3:28 pm

     JD, capitalism is only as good as those practicing it (same with socialism). Therefore, there must be restraints upon it to protect those who can’t protect themselves.

121. Anonymous Says: December 8th, 2004 at 12:24 am

     Mochael Moore is a fat communist bastard communism is never good because lazy asses leech off of other’s hard earned money.
     Actual Michael Moore quotes:
     “Ive always seen the faults of capitalism”
     “There is no terrorist threat”

     When asked if he liked America:
     “To a certain extent”

     In Farenheit/911 he makes the good soilders who sign up for the army because they love america look like evil dicks, but yet he sympathizes for the soilders that sign up just for college money. Bottom Line Michael Moore hates America.
     P.S. Thomas Paine didn’t spread communist propaganda.

122. chillliberal Says: December 8th, 2004 at 6:34 pm

     All Michael Moore haters are ridiculous! Saying he’s unpatriotic is also scandalous!! Haven’t you seen his other movies?? Probably not…you guys must be still stuck watching the crap hollywood feeds you (probably thinking you’re patriotic cause you watch Hollywood movies..made in the USA!! wow!!)…
     Take Roger and Me for example (one of his first documentaries…for you ignorant rednecks!!) In that documentary and in most of his other project he fights for the little people..the people of Flint Michigan who got screwed over by huge motor companies…don’t you want a guy that fights for the common man?? He’s about the only one that does it…communist propaganda?? Do you live in the 80’s? (or before) Can’t you accept that one guy is asking questions?? Continue obeying your master: CNN!!! hahahha ohhhh geez!! its a red terrorist warning today!! tell the Nebraska people to rush to the Walmart to get supplies for their bunker…soooooooooooo sad!!

123. bonniem Says: December 9th, 2004 at 6:52 am

     chillliberal, you are really silly!

124. Serbian National Says: December 9th, 2004 at 2:48 pm

     chill, you need to chill out. Michael Moore doesn’t fight for “the little people,” he fights for what he thinks will get more dinero for his “documentaries.” He sure wasn’t fighting “for the little people” with Farenheit 911, considering that anti-Bush and anti-war sentiment makes up almost 50% of the population.

125. chillliberal Says: December 9th, 2004 at 3:14 pm

     Politics are so sad in America that the liberal party should in fact consider (like M. Moore said) a guy like Tom Hanks to run for office…or Oprah…Republican’s should have a fun time destroying a simple actor and a BLACK WOMAN euhhhh!! I want Clint Eastwood to run as an independent! Thats my choice!! soooooo sad!!
     But seriously now…what about Warren Beatty???
     I’m gonna swim back to Cuba!

126. chillliberal Says: December 9th, 2004 at 3:49 pm

     Bonniem: I’m here for your entertainment only, just like the liberal party. Continue saluting the flag on your front lawn and thank God for the 17 year old Marines protecting your lazy biased *ss!

127. Serbian National Says: December 9th, 2004 at 6:22 pm

     You must learn to organize your thoughts coherantly when you are writing, otherwise no one will understand your stupidity. And we wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?

     Go ahead and swim back to Cuba, I’m sure you can catch the return raft of several of your Cuban friends who are joining the millions and millions of people each year who immigrate to this nation. We must be doing SOMETHING right.

128. bonniem Says: December 10th, 2004 at 3:28 am

     Yep, chillliberal, I think you should swim back to Cuba. Why are you here anyhow? So you can be in a country where you can say what you want and not get thrown in the slammer. I don’t know what makes you think I am biased and I sure know that you don’t know me, to call me lazy. So you go ahead and talk tough and that will make you feel like a Big Man! You are pitiful! I do thank the marines and all of the troops here or abroad. I also thank their families. They are not only doing a great job, they are making sacrifices so you can sit on you biased and lazy *ss and criticize without having a solution. You must feel so good!

129. bonniem Says: December 10th, 2004 at 3:38 am

     chillliberal, Yeah, I think it is a good idea to swim back to Cuba. Why are you here anyhow? Want to be in a country where you can speak out without being thrown in the slammer. And you don’t know me, so you are judging me as biased and lazy. I also want to tell you that I do salute the flag and thank God for the men and women and their families, who fight for us to have the privilege of saying what we think. To me they are heroes. So, why don’t you get of your lazy biased *ss and do something to show you are more than just a blowhard. You must feel like a very big man.

130. bonniem Says: December 10th, 2004 at 3:40 am

     My comment to chillliberal is not coming thru. Must have said something wrong. I will just say then that, once again Serbian National, you and I are if full agreement about chillliberal.

131. chillliberal Says: December 10th, 2004 at 4:28 pm

     S. N. Thanks for the tip…I’ll go to the Rumsfeld school of creative writing. I’ll learn how to make the most general statements like: Are we for people getting their heads chopped off? Of course not!” Disagree with that! sheeesh!!

     Yeah the USA is so awesome for letting millions of immigrants to come illegally to the US. I really feel like I owe each citizen for letting me in. Just the fact that you have no compassion for people who had to swim/float and risk their life to come here shows your narrow mindedness…

132. bonniem Says: December 11th, 2004 at 5:39 pm

     chillliberal, I still don’t understand why you are still here when you hate it so much. You don’t have to swim back even. I bet there are just a whole lot of folks that would be glad to send you back. Maybe you can hitch a ride with some of the Hollywood folk that are supposed to leave after Pres. Bush was re-elected. At least they promised they would.

133. Serb National Says: December 13th, 2004 at 2:04 am

     Compassion for them? If we didn’t have compassion for them, we would be deporting them by the thousands every day! So far as I know (and I’ve done my homework) that’s not happening, and they have jobs (if not great ones, but that is what happens when you’re uneducated and inexperienced) that they get paid for doing. I have plenty of Hispanics doing lawnwork in my neighborhood every day (sorry for the stereotypical example) and I’m sure that, with the very large and growing Hispanic population in my city some of them are illegal. At least they are doing better here than they were at their homeland.

     Also, if we didn’t have compassion for them, would we hire them? I don’t think so.

134. Serb National Says: December 13th, 2004 at 2:05 am

     Oh, and bonniem - I’m sure they’ll say that next time when another Republican gets elected. And if we’re super lucky, they might actually leave this time.

135. arouet Says: January 6th, 2005 at 9:27 pm

     The Mexicans aren’t here because of our compassion - they are here to provide very cheap labour. And there may be another reason - both political parties hope to gain their support at some time in the future (when they are no longer “WOPS”).

136. Serb Says: January 7th, 2005 at 12:28 am

     They are here to get labor at all - whether they are paid a million bucks for it or minimum wage. Its sure higher than what they’d get back home. And if they aren’t citizens, I don’t belive they can vote.

137. arouet Says: January 7th, 2005 at 11:20 pm

     They can’t vote yet, but both parties would like to make it easier for them to become citizens. Why else all of the pandering to Hispanics that goes on?

138. James Says: September 7th, 2005 at 1:37 am

     Why so much negativity?
     in interpreting this artical we can trade slaps in the faces time and time again, tring to get out opinion heard in which both sides have strong cases. The beauty is that we all can have different opinions and disagree with eachother, and then at the end of the day, have a beer and focus on what we all have in common. We live in a great country that is worth fighting for and protecting. But our country’s citizens also deserve to know who exactly we are fighting and what exactly we are fighting for. Republican or Democrat, we all are Americans, who need to set aside the negativity from the bias media, movies and eachother, and learn how to compromise. I think it’s time that we stop letting the media and Hollywood sway our minds aginst eachother, and start believing in one another.

139. Bill W. Says: April 9th, 2007 at 2:24 am

     Check out this new paper addressing Michael Moore

     michaelwestfall.tripod.com/id101.html

140. Sarah Says: May 13th, 2007 at 6:51 pm

     Michael Moore is a traitor- Jane Fonda is a traitor, Sean Penn is a traitor, how does hollywood dumbass liberals get away with talking so much shit- and I trully hope people can see right through all this bullshit. Bill Mahr also, a man who has no idea why we are at war, all he drops are one line jokes. Liberals bad mouth and name call conservatives- and then when asked what democrates are really going to do about- illegal immigrants, gay marriage, Iran, death penalty, and oh by the way- gun control; they simply do not answer the questions and you know what- I got my guns and when the liberal dumbass democrates decide to pull out of Iraq, or when they ignore the seriousness of our situation with Iran- you bet they will be asking GOD for help and forgiveness- Am I the only person who can see that liberals do lack a belief in GOD and I simply can not even understand why so many people follow these nut cases!

     Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, and Sean Penn should be put in prison for anti- american, yes I said it ANTI-AMERICAN talk of TREASON- if they trully do not like this country please by all means LEAVE! I do not care for them, my husband can not stand them, and if anything they are an embarrassment to this country! Our troops protect us and fight for these idiots’ right to speak their trash! Liberals should SHUT UP, SIT DOWN and all illegal criminal immigrants should get the FUCK OUT!!!!

     I am an American, my husband is in the military, my brother is in the military, my grandfathers, my dad, and my uncle- how many liberals put their necks out for this country- they talk the talk- but NEVER WALK THE WALK!

     GOD BLESS THE TROOPS! HANG IN THERE GUYS AND GALS, WE LOVE YOU AND SUPPORT YOU- THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO FOR US!

141. The Other Side Says: May 14th, 2007 at 5:42 pm

     wow sarah, you and your beliefs that you so eloquantly stated are why bush and the congressional republicans have been corrupted and suffered losses last election. the we’re right all the time and the opposition is always wrong is weak. hiding behind the rhetoric of supporting troops and painting the opposition as not doing so worked for a while. but bush’s administration has shown that he used them to get votes, like the evangelicals. we all support the troops, get that through your thick head.

142. Lug Says: May 16th, 2007 at 12:53 am

     Wow….The other side! Is that the dark side you come from???
     You know that “Shadow Party” you belong to….backed by Soros!
     You weasel!!

     frontpagemag.com/articles/readarticle.asp?ID=15392&p=1

143. shannon Says: May 16th, 2007 at 12:54 pm

     You know the unbelievable theme here is that politics have divided our country. How can anyone support this administration? How can any of you think the things the monkey in office are doing are so wonderful? The funny thing is you all believe that if you don’t support this ridiculous war that you are a leftist. Funny thing is that most Republicans I know are absolutely dumb founded about the whole situation and they voted for the idiot, not once, but twice.

144. The Other Side Says: May 16th, 2007 at 4:11 pm

     what?

145. ACCNationlist Says: May 17th, 2007 at 3:48 am

     I agree with sarah..she has it right. Why can’t we suspend Habeaus Corpus and jail every single liberal in this country? The Media would be abolished ( YEA!) and those who decided to act up( such as Michael Moore) would be thrown in the clink. Liberals support the troops, but not our troops.

146. The Other Side Says: May 17th, 2007 at 4:18 pm

     i can’t tell if accnationlist, lug and sarah actually believe what they are saying. i had hoped we moved past the divisiveness of this country that republicans used when they were in power. people are so in denial its getting pathetic.

147. Kolran Fett Says: May 17th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

     ACCNationalis is correct, Liberal bigwigs do not support our troops. They support the idea of having soldiers ready to defend them, but the only reason they do that is because the majority of Americans would be appalled if a Liberal bigwig said he didn’t support our troops.

     -Kolran Fett

148. Spc. Blakely Says: May 18th, 2007 at 4:50 am

     Michael moore isn’t a damn traitor. I’m Sick of hearin it.
     IF mikey were a traitor he wouldn’t have made ferinheit 9/11, he’d make a documentry about high value Targets and the utter Joke that is security in this country, and send it to Al Qaeda.

     treason isn’t speaking against the president, and don’t give me that “it aids and comferts the enemy Bullshit, I’ve served in Afghanistan for a whole godforsaken year, and trust me those fuckers don’t want or need aid and comfert from some fat hippie that can’ even take care of himself. trust me all they care aout is killing Americans, they honestly don’t give a shit if you’re Democrat or Republican, to them we’re all infadels, and according to one of them, we’ll call him “Bob” for now, we’re all “going to be destroyed by the wrath of God, and the rivers will run red” with our blood.

     nice guy huh?

149. shannon Says: May 18th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

     I do not understand why everyone thinks that if your views are seen as being liberal that you support EVERYTHING the party does. If you all think that you have serious issues. I do not think that ONE politician in this country is capable of making an entire following agree with EVERYTHING he or she says. I do not like politicians period, it does not matter what party they support or are running with, I know they are all liars and are all corrupt. I voted for Bill Clinton, and as far as I can see the only thing he did that was worth a shit was keep Reaganomics in place. So in saying that, shut the fuck up if you cannot understand that this country is sick to death of corruption, terrible politics, and all of the double talk from BOTH sides.

150. The Other Side Says: May 18th, 2007 at 4:51 pm

     if democrats don’t support the troops, then what are the republicans doing to them?

     to any conservative on this site: please define what supporting the troops means.

151. Kolran Fett Says: May 18th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

     Nancy Palocy cut the troops funding. She did not stop them from getting killed, she took away money they could use for protection. That is NOT supporting the troops.

152. nutslikebush Says: May 18th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

     There is really one fundamental battle in this world. It is a war between those who believe in a pluralistic society in which all individuals have the right to pursue happiness and those who want a homogeneous world where only those who live and believe like they do are tolerated. That is why I think that Christian fundamentalists like Falwell, right wingers like Rush Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and Kolran, dictators like Joseph Stalin, and muslim extremists like Bin Laden are basically cut from the same cloth. Any differences you might think there are between those characters are only superficial. Essentially, they all want a world made in their own image and they are willing to kill to make their dream of that world a reality. They share a common fundamental ideology that centers around destroying everything that they perceive as being different from them.

153. shannon Says: May 19th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

     We have never SUPPORTED the troops Kolran. We sent them over there without enough troops, and supplies. So, exactly how do you point a finger at any one person?

154. Kolran Fett Says: May 19th, 2007 at 4:56 pm

     Actually nutslikebush, you are quite wrong in your distorted views of the world. Joseph Stalin was communist, which, for the most part, is socialist. Liberalism, for the most part, is socialism. So, if anything, I would compare the liberals trying to give power to the government to Joesph Stalin.

     I really don’t see why your brought Bin Laden in besides to make republicans mad. It’s kind of sad that you think I share any parallels with celebrities (yes O’Reilly is a celeb) and even sadder that you see them and me as the kind of people who would kill people for a religion. Really, I could see you killing people for atheism or pacifism though. Your probably for abortion, which is basically killing people based on moral beliefs.

     -Kolran Fett

155. nutslikebush Says: May 19th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

     Kolran,
     You say the strangest things on this site. You should know that the House just sent a bill to Bush to fund the war for $124 billion more dollars. That isn’t a funding cut. We have spent over 500 billion dollars on the war so far. And the war is fully funded through the summer with or without a signed bill. So, stop passing along false information. The democratic party just asked for a little accountability in Iraq. It has been a complete disaster and waste of life and money so far. At some point someone has to demand some honesty from the republicans who created this mess.

156. The Other Side Says: May 19th, 2007 at 5:35 pm

     pelosi didn’t cut the troops’ funding, bush neglected to include the funding in his state of the union address. therefore, that left the door open for democrats to try and change the strategy in iraq. the troops have funding until july, thats why they are currently trying a new bill, that bush won’t comprimise with. actually, if you want to blame someone for cutting the funding of the troops, blame the man who vetoed the funding bill.

     and kolran, are only democrats to blame for not supporting the troops? if you actually think so, then you are in serious denial.

157. The Other Side Says: May 20th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

     further proof that bush talks the talk but can’t walk the walk: he is threatening to veto a bill that would increase soldier salary 3.5% instead of 3.0%, which he wanted. thats 0.5% increase to pay our soldiers who already are paid little. also, bush would veto a $40 monthly payment to the families of the deceased. just add this to the growing number of actions that the administration has done against the troops. and to think that liberals are still be lauded as not supporting the troops. this is proving once more that the troops are merely talking points that bush uses to try and scare the public into submission.

158. nutslikebush Says: May 20th, 2007 at 6:30 pm

     Kolran,
     You missed the central point of my earlier comment. It is not religion or any particular political doctrine that links those characters to one another (and you). It is a fundamental desire to destroy (physically, politically, or/and spiritually) everything that differs from them. You can’t tell me that such a primitive urge doesn’t motivate Bin Laden, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Falwell, Stalin, and you. You may not have killed for your ideology yet, but I sense that you would if given the opportunity.

     ps. I hate to shatter your view of me, but I am neither an atheist nor a “pro-abortionist” (as you called me). In fact, I am an adoptive parent. You call me “liberal” but I am really just a reasonable moderate - which I know fits the right wing’s current definition of liberal. Again, everything that is not you, is the enemy and must be destroyed (just ask Rush, that is his only message).

159. 3DRANGER Says: May 21st, 2007 at 5:56 am

     I am a vet and I have come to the rationalization that even though you argue why we are in Iraq, what we should do in Iraq etc. makes no difference at this time. We are here, lets debate about how to accomplish our goals in Iraq as a UNITED STATES not as a bunch of complainers. The longer our troops stay in Iraq without proper and total support from America the more of our troops will die. It is a fact if we pull out of Iraq without achieving our goals we will only create more enemies and the terrorist will win a big propaganda victory. At this moment I don’t care how or why I got here, I wanna how we can make the mistakes right and to make the middle east more a safer place for the world. I think all political parties are flawed, seriously if this war was run by the military alone it would probably be finished by now with a lower loss of life and trained soldiers wouldn’t be acting like policemen. MICHEAL MOORE is an
     idiot, I DON’T THINK HE MADE THAT MOVIE FROM THE HEART BUT TO SIMPLY FILL HIS POCKETS. That did nothing but devide the country even more and gave the terrorist more fuel to recruit more terrorist. For all the people who don’t like America, think of this cenario. If let’s say the U.S. embassy in China said today only U.S. visas will be given out - you’d have a trillion people in line. If the China embassy in the U.S. did vise versa I doubt you’d get that many people. Secondly, I never heard of an American drifting on a piece of plywood to escape to cuba. Stop hating America when you all want to live here.

     So to recap - stop crying about how and why we are in Iraq, at this present time that information will not help the present. After it is all send and done, then debate all you want, knock yourself out. The fact is we cannot help the situation in Iraq if we are not united and focused in America.

     Micheal moore - is an opertunist, he is not patriotic or nonpatriotic he just wants to make a buck. Personally, I don’t like him, but because men and women have fought and died to establish and secure our rights I have to respect his choice of motivation.

     Every country has problems, but what makes America different is everyone wants our help - they might not admit it but when things need to get done they always ask America to do something. America is damned if we or don’t. I would love for America to close it’s borders and help it’s own people for a change, but I say this for Liberals they can’t make up their mind. You want to help our people here then you want to help the illegal immigrants, if they’d stop crying for a second or two we might get something done.

     People who hate America - stop coming here, to hate America is like saying you hate the world, we have every nationality over here - each a citizen or naturilzed citizen. If it’s really bad here, why the F*^k did you come here. I am happy to be American and thank God I am not some poor Chinese kid in communist China getting run over by a tank because I don’t like my government.

     The real joke is the terrorist laughing at Americans, “look at these Americans so pasionate in their complainning they are so devided their country is weak with their individual rights.” The terrorist will beat us because they are united, and they are united because they have no rights!

     So America, who do you want to win, the terrorist or us. Keep your eye on the target America.

     Now finally, Libs vs Cons - Reps vs Dems - you are both right and wrong. Leadership was bad but crying about the past mistakes doesn’t help the present. I am going to vote for the president who has a solid plan for the present and the future!

160. 3DRANGER Says: May 21st, 2007 at 7:36 am

     “What does supporting the troops mean?” That is a very good question, For me it would be to put aside finger pointing and leave politics out it! For Americans to take a step back and realize this is a bad situation, a situation that the military needs to perform without political red tape! War is not pretty, it never makes sense but it only gets worse when politics is put in the mix. Supporting the troops means let them do their job, give the funding and the support they need to accomplish their mission. Don’t nit pick their mistakes, war is crazy, mistakes will be made, don’t judge them unless you wear their shoes. Understand their enemy, realize their enemy is our enemy. And seriously America says they support its troops but everyone from libs to cons have come short…

     Now imagine this war as a accidental pregnancy, libs will complain about why contraception wasn’t used, you said you didn’t come inside etc. - baby is still here, cons will say it was an accident, I pulled out etc. - same outcome baby still here. If they come to grips that the baby is there irregardless of how and why maybe they can take care of the babies future. It just seems as Americans we are to concerned with placing blame, if Bush admitted he made a mistake and step down would it make things better in Iraq, hell no. Plus I truely believe most politicians would rather have Bush handle this mess than try to do it themselves. Iraq is that accidental child, but if we concentrate on the future of Iraq we just might be proud of ourselves when it grows up and is a democratic place were people can live in peace. But if we neglect Iraq or dump it will grow to be a menace to the world and we might have to go back again not as liberators of Iraq but destroyers of Iraq…

161. The Other Side Says: May 21st, 2007 at 4:42 pm

     iraq was not an accident, and the reason to discuss what has happened is to avoid the same mistakes in the future. evidence is beginning to arise because of former administration officials coming out of the woodwork, and it will continue. it is a shame that we are finally hearing this information now because we never had the chance to debate it before. furthermore, bush and his administration are so secretive that we never know if the policies he passes are really what he says they are.

     even through morally, staying in iraq and fixing our mess would be best, i’m not sure how much longer our military can sustain their current troop levels. because of our terrible foreign policy, we have barely any friends helping us in iraq. this war is beginning to be dictated by logistically, how long our troops can hold out.

162. nutslikebush Says: May 21st, 2007 at 10:58 pm

     3Dranger,
     What should we do when we think that the path that the president has chosen is not a path to victory but is really a path toward our ultimate defeat? It seems that some folks on this site would say - “just keep your ideas to yourself.” But as one who believes in exercising my full rights and duties as a citizen of the US, I can’t accept that answer. I think that Bush has led us into traps that al-qaeda has set for us and that we are more vulnerable because of Bush’s approach to the war on terror. I also believe that Bush’s strategy has only strengthened the terrorists. The US invasion of Iraq was the best thing that ever happened to al-qaeda and militant Islam in general.

     Here is an article by General Yingling published last week in the Armed Forces Journal. I found it very thought-provoking and I think it is just the sort of critical analysis that we need, lest we make the same mistakes over and over again. The point of criticism is to determine where we went wrong and to learn from our mistakes. Embrace the spirit of criticism - without it, everything decays. Much learning could come from this Iraq debacle. I hope that this article is useful to you. Paste the address after the http://www.

     armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

163. Kolran Fett Says: May 21st, 2007 at 11:28 pm

     What 3DRANGER said.

164. 3DRANGER Says: May 23rd, 2007 at 3:02 am

     Nuts, I agree that things should have been handled better in the beginning, but the president is just a man, we elected him, his job isn’t easy, he isn’t the best president, he makes mistakes like any normal man would make -morally or ethically. He might have been motivated by personal interest but what man isn’t (not defending Bush - just putting things into perspective). I need you to realize the problem we are facing is bigger than whose fault it is, and it doesn’t make sense to waiste resources on past mistakes when we should take care of the pressing problem now, which is Iraq, when Iraq is resolved then you should work on the learning and prevention process. You will have more resources and information and time for that. Plus when Bush is out of office it will be easier to persue him. We are only making things worse by going against our government now, it is pretty obvious they made a mistake but we need to support them so they can make it better, and pulling out would just make it ten times worse. This war situation is an accident because no matter how you plan a war or military action it never goes according to plan, trust me I know. I train for a mission months in advance, and even if the mission is a success s%^t happens. But I am still alive because me and my team assess problems at hand not “we should’ve did this or it’s your fault”. When we make it back to base then we go over our mistakes and how we could do it better.

     It is ok to complain, it’s ok to disagree but you should pick the more appropriate time to do so. Doing it now just holds up the flow for the military and you need to give the troops assurance they are going to be able to fight with everything they got, when you bicker and hold things up, their focus is unsure. Don’t forget our soldiers are still there trying to do their job. Let them do it, let them accomplish their mission.

     Another example first time in somolia, we lost 18 men but we were so close to making thigs better over their, yes their were mistakes made such is any military action. The bigest mistake - Clinton pulled us out so the whole action was worthless. Now there is talks on sending us back again. The same thing will happen in Iraq, don’t send me back, let the troops finish it now.

165. 3DRANGER Says: May 23rd, 2007 at 3:38 am

     Nuts and Libs, I know I probably will never convince you to keep America united, but your beliefs are your right. But if you would only realize that helping Iraq achieve peace and yes it is a very hard task, the world be a better place and the safe havens for terrorist will diminish. It will show the world and other countries like Iraq that peace is possible. If you let this mission fail no one will want to change. It will be a sad world to live in. Like I said before maybe we went in to soon, the president was wrong, we were misled etc… The fact, the true fact of the matter is we are here in Iraq! Our salvation lies in Iraq’s salvation. So irrigardless of who is president we need to finish our mission in Iraq, because I garauntee if we leave now we will only make more enimies and we have to go back to Iraq and it will be ten times more worse and dire…

     Are libs scared to see us succeed in Iraq? And what would you do at this point and time that the government and the troops are not doing. Give me your solutions not complaints. Then maybe we can come up consensus. Please, no comments starting with I would’ve did this in the begiining, because the beginning is gone and we are at the present!

166. shannon Says: May 23rd, 2007 at 7:29 pm

     What the F? We have succeeded in nothing. They are still fighting, terrorism is alive and strong, and we are bleeding ourselves dry.

167. SPC. Blakely Says: May 23rd, 2007 at 10:10 pm

     Hell, I guerentee you Iraq would be alteast 10 times better if the ROE (Rules of Engagement) were changed back to the way they were when the war first started.

     Hell, they have us stopping at trafficlights and obaying the speedlimits. you know, shit that paints a target on your 5 ton or your HMMWV, or what ever the hell your convoying in.

     you said that america being divided is killing the troops, it’s a false sence of morality thats killing many of us. I don’t know if any of you have ever seen the video’s they like to put on thier websites, I’ve seen to many to count mostly because of my MOS, but they like to gloat about their IED’s and how they kill the infadels and all that bullshit, but alot of their IED’s go of on slow moving convoys, or Halted Convoys, etc…

     basicly we created their current TTP as far as planted IED’s go. But theese are clever bastards, I’ve heard of them taking an air to surface missile and using it as an IRL, they’re clever, but they’re ultamatly beatable. The big problem is targeting the upper tirs, when what we should be doing is targeting the lower tirs, the criminals, the mercs, etc… a vast majority of the insurgent fighting force is made up of soldiers for hire.

     success in Iraq isn’t going to be easy, it’s all about precision movments, we’re not fighting a war where we can just capture or kill a general and the rest of the enemy surrenders, we have to target infrastructure.

168. The Other Side Says: May 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 pm

     to become the president of the united states of america you are held to a higher standard then most men. your actions have a greater influence then most men. therefore, the president needs to think about things from every angle. just being human cannot be an excuse for the leader of the free world. the administration didn’t look at the situation from any angle but their own when they invaded iraq and they still aren’t doing it now. bush talks about bipartisanship, but he never wavers from his discussions with democrats. so, now the democrats gave him his money for a few months without timelines. but in september, if little progress is made in iraq, he will have to actually change.

     this war, again, is not an accident. even bush 1 knew the threats of invading iraq. things didn’t go as well as the neocons planned because they didn’t listen to the possibilities of a post-saddam iraq that turned out to become realities. trusting your government too much leads us to the mess we are in now because it suppresses a debate that is needed to make the best decision for the country. looking back shows us that bush and cheney aren’t trustworthy.

     we all want success in iraq, but what does that mean? first it was a sustainable democracy in iraq and now its less violence. but how can we achieve either without a strong iraqi government or an end in sectarian violence? we don’t have the resources anymore to end the violence and police the are for years.

169. nutslikebush Says: May 24th, 2007 at 9:04 pm

     3Dranger,
     People in the military should hope and pray that those of us on the home front engage in vigorous citizen debate and challenge our politicians to do their jobs better, just as we should all challenge ourselves continuously to improve. That is what makes our country great, public debate. You previously said that our debates make our enemies laugh at us. Well I say, let them laugh. Because if they are laughing at our debates, they are laughing at the process that will ultimately lead to their demise. Laugh away, I say. Laughing AT someone doesn’t hurt them, it destroys the one who is laughing.

170. 3DRANGER Says: May 26th, 2007 at 12:21 am

     Well nuts while your debating, the terrorist are laughing and mean while me and the troops are getting shot wondering if we be able to do our job with full support. I would laugh, but it wouldn’t be safe right now. Think about it…

171. Kolran Fett Says: May 26th, 2007 at 5:19 am

     That’s kind of backwards, nutslikebush. You must have a huge ego if you think that the troops should be praying that you will challenge why they are risking their lives

172. shannon Says: May 26th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

     Kolran I swear to god you get the DA award of the day. Without the public challenging our government this country WOULD be a communist state, it is already bordering on one. I would hope that someone would like to challenge this system all of you think is so wonderful. We have a monkey in office who has killed our troops. You all want to bitch about the funding and the problems in the war NOW but perhaps you should research how long, exactly, this has been a problem you pompass *ssh*le

173. Spc. Blakely Says: May 26th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

     Nuts, I gotta say I’ve heard some crazy things in the last 3 years, especially in the Army where trust me everything is it’s own backwards bizzaro world, but what you jus said, ranks pretty high up there with wierd, you and koloran both say some of the wierdest damn things ever.

     but on to more important things. The terrorist believe it or not, aren’t united by anymeans.

     the insurgency in Iraq is made up of about 20 - 30 different groups all fighting with different agendas that often clash. it’s quite funny to watch from my perspective because my MOS lets watch as theese bastards seem more interested in killing eachother than they do us. The whole sunni shia rift plays into it to.

     The insurgency in Afghanistan too is divided. The Main group was the Taliban gurillias, who don’t like to blow themselves up, they like to rush a fire base, or attempt to rush one. Al-Qaeda on the other hand Loves to blow themselves up they like to play the part of the ghost cell. However, Al-Qaeda has been preasuring th Taliban into more suicide attacks, which leaves them struggling with, for lack of a better word, their “morality” And the taliban has even gone to the point they flat out condem the suicide attacks.

     my point is unity is a problem on both sides of the conflict. And both sides are trying to minipulate that factor. hence why when theres an election they like to step up the carnage a little bit.

     I like the fact that there is a debate about it, I just wish the democrats were more interested in fixing then just cutting our losses and pulling the plug.

174. The Other Side Says: May 26th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

     i agree with nutslikebush. i agree with al gore and his new book. gore said that one of the problems with america right now is that the conversation that spreads information and drives a democracy is being lost. television and celebrity bs are dumbing down the nation. people intimidate others to not question policies or actions of the electorate. if people do ask questions, like will we really be greeted as liberators, they are labeled as unpatriotic and against the troops. therefore, we get stuck in iraq with no forethought and people still believe the bs spewed by fox news.

     which leads to the backward thinking of kolran and 3dranger. nutslikebush wants a debate on iraq and a change in strategy, because there is no end to this fiasco. but he is demonized for wanting to influence the solution. as a result, we need to have this conversation and not be afraid that people will label us unamerican. we need to challenge what this administration does because they never have been before. how can we trust the judgment of bush after all the screwups he’s done? thats why we need this debate, bush’s credibility is nothing and we need to fix his mess.

175. Kolran-Fett Says: May 27th, 2007 at 5:09 pm

     The Other Side, how can you agree with Gore when he is a celebirty spreading bs? And how can you mention fox without mentioning CNN? How can you mention Bush as screwing up without mentioning rumsfeld, the congress, or the senate? I don’t care if you disagree or agree with the strategy in Iraq, the fact is that we are going to push hard and try to win until the next election, and then whoever gets elected is gonna pull out. It’s not up to us to win this war, our troops and commanding officers will have to win the war in the time period they’re given. If they don’t all the leading politicians of this era will be looked upon as idiots. Make sense? The only thing we can do (as you have done) is sit here and condemn Bush. A lot of good that does. I do concede to your points on free discussion, however. I just wish we could get off of the topic of Bush.

     -Kolran Fett

176. The Other Side Says: May 28th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

     we should move past what bush did, but we can’t forget what he and his administration did before and during this war. he is beginning to revert back to his pre-war tactics of using fear to suppress the dissenters. haven’t you seen him envoke the “al-qaeda in iraq will fight us here” motto? or try and justify iraq as central to the war on terror? al-qaeda in iraq is too weak and too disorganized to attack us, we need to worry about osama in pakistan as the real threat. there was no al-qaeda in iraq until after we invaded yet bush uses their current presence as proof that he was right to invade.

     fear is a powerful thing when you’re dealing with the uneducated masses, as al gore discusses. at least now people are smarter and aren’t going to be fooled again. i mentioned fox news and not cnn because fox is so overtly bias that it neglects to address any counter points from the bush administration, which is dangerous. studies have been done that show that viewers of fox news are far more misguided on their opinions than even people who watch the daily show (they think that iraq had wmds and that the us is positively viewed around the world). no one can defend fox news as fair and balanced. the scary thing is that they continue a message that, like what the bush administration does, strikes at the fears of people.

177. 3DRANGER Says: May 28th, 2007 at 10:53 pm

     The people with backwards thinking is people like you The Other Side, I want to get past Bush and concentrate on Iraq, you want to cry about Bush, why we went to Iraq when like I said the problem is Iraq. I am thinking forward, fix Iraq then you can cry about Bush and whatever you like. As a soldier I demand you concentrate on helping me fight this war, and I seriously got over why I was sent here, or it should’ve been done like this, blah, blah… I said it before, Iraq is now, not yesterday and we are in Iraq, you Libs still haven’t answered my question what is your solution to 100% win win situation for Iraq - impossible correct but you complain and demand it. What is your 50% win win plan??? Give me a solution that makes sense and please enough history lessons, because Iraq is now not yesterday.

     I think that is what I dislike the most about most libs, you guys always complain about everything, everything has to be 100% to your rights and you have the right to 100% your satisfaction. But most you haven’t earned that right, most of us as a matter of fact haven’t given 100% to this country. S

178. Spc. Blakely Says: May 29th, 2007 at 12:13 am

     All politicians use fear to drive their ambitions, it’s what they do.

     Bush says that if we leave Iraq, then the Islamis Terrorists will kill us here. first off, 90% of them are insurgents not terrorists. second of all if Al-Qaeda wanted to kill us here they could. They have sleeper cells all over the world. They’re weakening, to be sure, Iraq is as much a black hole for them as it is for us, and they’re re-structuring. But back to the main point people are scared so they push it under the rug.

     Democrats, say that if we stay in Iraq, then we’ll be trapped and never be able to recover they say We’re distracted from the real threat and if we stay in Iraq Osama is going to hit us agian because we didn’t do enough in Pakistan, etc… while both sides are right to some degree, they both like to bend the truth and make it seem like if you don’t do what they say then it’s WWIII and every one dies.

179. Spc. Blakely Says: May 29th, 2007 at 12:29 am

     not to mention the whole “nazi” debate and how george W is rally Hitlers spawn and wants to destroy all american freedoms.

     you want to see totalitarianism in action, pay attenion to venezuala.

     actually, you want to see somthing even funnier than that, pay attention to the relationship between Venezuala, Iran, and Hezbolla.

180. nutslikebush Says: May 29th, 2007 at 3:06 am

     Blakely,
     I don’t see in your comments any indication of what you consider nuts about my previous statement. Do you think that civilians should not be involved in the debate about the retarded things our country is doing in Iraq?

181. nutslikebush Says: May 29th, 2007 at 3:17 am

     Fox New (aka, Faux news) is in the business of making money. They just spin stories in ways that they think will draw a particular demographic. Lisa Simpson asked the pertinent questions in this episode.

     youtube.com/watch?v=pFtsfDjOGjs

182. nutslikebush Says: May 29th, 2007 at 3:19 am

     Part of the same episode.

     youtube.com/watch?v=Nc-OQRO1BOw&NR=1

183. shannon Says: May 29th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

     hysterical oh my God!!!! What truth. I have never understood those things either. Fox is responsible for The Simpsons, Married With Children, Mad TV, and so many other shows that were under constant scrutiny from the Right.

184. The Other Side Says: May 29th, 2007 at 4:42 pm

     people didn’t look at history four years ago and that resulted in iraq. 3dranger is either in deep denial or his partisian bickering is blocking his rational thinking (look at how much he hates liberals). you and bill o’reilly cannot tell me what i shouldn’t do regarding iraq during wartime because what gives you that right? i know you’ve fought there, and i commend that, but your word cannot debunk the mounting evidence against this occupation.

     it seems to me that you think that giving 100% means serving in the military and fighting in a war. some people don’t do well in that situation, so they stay behind and DEBATE THE WAR. those people want to make sure what our country is doing is morally correct. not all of us can fit your hawkish-conservative beliefs so we try and maintain a civil democracy at home.

     the democrats are being forced to clean up the mess that conservatives created, and they are still being attacked. thats amazing. iraq is broken to where there is no 100% winning solution so stop attacking me for not having a strategy for one of the largest bunglings since vietnam.

     bush wanted accountablity for everything in his administration (still waiting for him to hold the plame-leaker accountable). to see the carnage that bush and his administration has created with no accountability being placed is pathetic.

185. Spc. Blakely Says: May 30th, 2007 at 3:16 am

     That question is a bit complicated nuts.

     Yes, they should be involved, but it’s impossible fore 99% of civilians to fully grasp what exactly is going on over there. For 1, this is an Intel driven war, and at the bare minimum alot of the information is classified SECRET. and most civilians don’t have the neccessary clearence to view that information, and trust me for that I thank god every day.

     but as far as me not understanding how people debating back home destroys terrorism, forgive me, I prefer to destroy it through targeting Packets and Hellfire Missiles but thats just me, maybe the civilians back home can talk the terrorists to death or somthing I don’t know.

     Debate is good so long as it isn’t pointless and unending like it is today. No one can agree on how to kill theese bastards or even if we should kill them. IF you work together and you reach a logical conclusion both sides agree apon, then yes killing them comes alot easier.

     but since you and I’m guessing 90% of the people here don’t have a security clearence, the best I can tell you is don’t listen to a god damn word comming out of CNN, FOX news, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, President Bush, Dick Cheney, The New york Times, The Washington post, etc… just throw them all away. You can get basic information from them such as the recent “Al-Qaeda” torture camp found, but the statements given by the Military are quite misleading and for a very good reason, they’re almost completly different than what a classified source like SIPRNET will tell you, and thats as far as I’m going to go because I’m skating a fine line by even talking about this shit.

     so nuts, Fox news isn’t the only source for disinformaton. pretty much every media outlet is.

186. 3DRANGER Says: May 30th, 2007 at 9:05 am

     The other side, I am glad you just admitted your pretty much just a mouth, and no I am not nieve. Like I keep saying, I don’t care about your debating, I would like for you to atleast debate about how we can do it better in this current situation instead of looking for whose fault it is while we are here now. Whose fault won’t stop the bullets from flying at me or the troops. Concentrate on our troops wellfare for right now. We are in Iraq now so make sure you give the troops everything to fight with over here, don’t have us fight with one hand tied behind our back while the insurgents have free rain. That is what I mean by support, let us fight this war, because it is a war not a basketball game. SPC B, what I mean about the complainning hurting the troops is that it gives more propaganda fuel for our enemies, which they use to demoralize our troops and our Iraqi supporters. “Why should you support the Americans many of their people want to leave Iraq, Their promises are lies, they will desert you but we will stay and we will punish those who support the Americans.” See how it makes it harder for the troops to get good intel. Plus while I am dogding bullets your sitting down at starbucks complainning your coffee is too hot, then you want to run your mouth and point fingers. What you should be debating is “Our troops are in Iraq our American brothers, sisters, family members are in Iraq, how can we help them achieve their mission how can we insure if we decide to leave that we will not send them back.” That is how you can prove to me and the troops you support us. Complainning about it’s his fault, their fault it doesn’t do anything for me. As a soldier and I think even you to SPC B you agree with all the politics being played the troops are getting the least amount of attention and support from it’s people and it’s government. And why you ask because Libs want to nail Bush like that will stop them from shooting at us. Like I said before get bush after it is all send and done, but for right now either let us fight this war and come to grips it won’t be a 30 minute half with 5 time outs and the other team doesn’t have a copy of the rule book, or if you want to pull us out you better not send us back and if you do you better put down your starbucks and pick up a rifle because you had better be coming with me!

     SPC B you probably have a hundred people googling SIPRNET, lol. That is why I try not to throw any acronyms down.

187. Kolran-Fett Says: May 30th, 2007 at 10:29 pm

     Wow, nutslikebush, you use episodes of the Simpsons to back a point. If you ask me, that’s just really sad. Then Shannon said Fox is responsible for the Simpsons, I am confused. If that were true, why do they bash Fox? (sorry, I’ve never watched the Simpsons in my life)

     -Kolran Fett

188. nutslikebush Says: May 31st, 2007 at 3:26 am

     Blakely,
     A part of the problem that you left out is that the people with security clearance and soldiers on the ground really have no idea what is going on either. Most of all, the president and the administration have no idea what is going on. They totally failed to do their homework before the invasion and they handed us an unsolvable problem. Should they be held accountable? I think so. The ancient Greeks had a system for handling leaders who made serious tactical and strategic errors. The ancient Greek system seems appropriate for the current situation with the US leaders.

189. nutslikebush Says: May 31st, 2007 at 3:27 am

     Kolran,
     You are right about one thing. As you said, you are confused.

190. Spc. Blakely Says: May 31st, 2007 at 3:31 am

     LOL. Yeah, If I wanted, I could probably have them trying to translate a whole message in acronyms. SIPRNET is just a hard on to get around because “Secret Internet” just sounds cheesey.

     I see your point, but I dunno how much experience you have over In Iraq, but you should nkow, they’re alot worse off then we are, shit, they don’t just demoralize eachother, they fucking Kill eachother. when I was over there back in the day when deployments were only 6 - 12 months, a few of the splinter groups in Tikrit would focus more on powergrabbing than killing us. That and the poor IP forces (Iraqi Police) They got hit pretty hard, mostly with the hope of stopping their recruitment, but that, and random mortoring of our firebases, were the only things they agreed upon.

     Trust me the partisan bullshit, while tiereing and unending is nothing. I honestly don’t care about the politics, I just do my job, hope I kill as many of them as I can without geting a leg or an arm blown off.

     as far as support from the people goes I dunno where you are but every where I seem to go I get every one and their mother comming up to me wanting to shake my hand and buy me a drink, or pay for my breakfast, or just plain thank me for everything I do, which they shouldn’t in my oppinnion, they should save it for the real heros.

     As for the picking up a rifle part, I think every American who thinks they know how to fight this war, or thinks the president doesn’t should join the military and fight the way they see fit instead of bitching about it. but alas, theres alot of cowards out there so I’ll just have to put up with the shitbags they like to recruit nowadays once I pin on my SGT stripes.

191. nutslikebush Says: May 31st, 2007 at 3:36 am

     3dranger. You pulling for the Sunnis or the Shiites?

192. The Other Side Says: June 1st, 2007 at 4:47 pm

     3dranger, more of the right-wing talking points won’t win the war. our prescense there is enough to fuel their hatred. de-funding the war won’t tie the troops, it just means there would be a slow responsible withdrawal.

     the situation right now is the result of this administrations actions. we need to look at that to move foward. also, there is no easy solution, because of the past actions of this administration. don’t attack me for not having a solution to a problem with no right answer.

     in your mind 3dranger, when can we hold bush accountable? never? if so, that would be a tragedy.

193. 3DRANGER Says: June 1st, 2007 at 11:51 pm

     SPC B I know what you mean, everyone shaking your hand, treating you like a hero etc., I just hate the Libs who protested the war at my friends funeral, imagine you have a group of people mourning, mother, father, family, friends and team mates… Right behind you a bunch of Libs whose idea of protesting the war is yelling and screaming during my comrads funeral. Those ignorant bastards had a sign that said you can choose to not be murderers for America. Another sign said terrorism was a hoax created by the Bush administration. That was just some dumb Micheal Moore crap. SPC B you know how HOOAH we can get, so it took alot for us not to smash those jerks, but this is only one reason why I really don’t like most Libs. They demand their rights at the convience of anothers blood. But they complain like they fought a thousand wars.

     I don’t know about you but I’m in country, I am knee deep in Iraqi crap. Shite/Sunni man they both shoot at us. I am just thankful that for the most part they are attacking each other to give us time to breathe. But they are all fighting for power, religion is just some lame excuse for them to gain support. Most of the IED makers do it for money not for Allah, thats how they make their money. That’s why I believe we can succeed in Iraq, we just need to give them another way to feed their families. But hey it won’t be easy and it will take some time but I am here where my mouth is!

     Another thing that urkes me about libs is how they admit they are not suited for fighting etc., but they want to tell the military how to train the troops. When I went through Infantry school, Airborne school, Ranger school it was Hooah all the way, now they have stress cards, verbal guidelines etc. So to me it seems like the Libs do nothing but make it easier for our enemies to fight us. Libs always say they complain to make America better but every chance they get they talk crap about this country, and at the same time can’t prove what they actually put into this country. I also don’t think serving your country means you have to join the military. Like I said before support to me means you make sure as a nation if soldiers are sent to fight a war, right or wrong you make sure they can fight with everything we got, not with one hand tied behind their backs. When we are sent wrongly debate about how we can correct the situation or accomplish our goals instead pointing fingers. If as a nation you decide to pull us out, but decide to send us back you volunteer and spill some blood. But for Libs I know, I know your not suited for fighting and besides your mouths only help our enemies so I don’t think I could feel secure with you covering my six…

194. Spc. Blakely Says: June 2nd, 2007 at 3:36 am

     your right nuts. I’m a military Intellegence Anyalist in the United States Army that has spent 6 months in Iraq, 6 Months in Afghanistan, seen Combat in Both, Spent my entire MI Career studying the Middle East, Asia, and the groups envolved in this war.

     I have given TS Briefings to 2 and 3 star Generals on our situations around the world as well as enemy tactics weapons leaders ethnictiy etc… Tell me to brief you about Al Qaeda, you best set aside 8 hours a day for the better part of 2 weeks and I’ll tell you everything you ever dreamed of knowing about our enemy right down to Osamas Favorite Color.

     Don’t even Get me started on Iraq. Trust me It’s our Job in the MI Corps to know everything about a place before we go to war, And trust me there are documents out ther both Unclass, and secret, that depict simular situations to the one we’re in now that were given to our commander in chief before the war began, Our great wise Secretary of Defence at the Time decided to toss that information aside for the Bullshit information that he liked.

     but despite that Nuts your right I don’t know anything thats going on in Iraq even though I’ve done my duty there before and will probably do it agian. My eyes have gazed upon Information that you cannot posibly comprehend. but I don’t know whats REALLY going on in Iraq but obviously you do, and I can tell you got it all from unclassified sources. so please Nuts since you seem to know whats REALLY going on in Iraq why don’t you brief us all, I’m very interested to know ALL about Iraq Nuts.

     oh and as for the greek system of dealing with leaers. believe me when I say, I’ve seen enough Killing to last me a life time, watching a trial of times set when all people did was kill eachother, isn’t my Idea of Peace.

     but never mind that, who am I to argue with the great Nutslikebush?

195. 3DRANGER Says: June 2nd, 2007 at 8:49 am

     Roger that SPC B, like I said Libs like nuts talk like they got information from Jesus himself. Real informaton is not a google search, real info is your ass behind enemy lines being face to face with the enemy, so nuts don’t tell me or anyone else in the military we don’t know what is going on in Iraq. We know whats going on in Iraq, you don’t know what is going on in Iraq, I don’t know what is happenning in America…

196. 3DRANGER Says: June 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 am

     The Other Side, Like I said before, I don’t support Bush, I would prefer the nation concentrate on the Big Problem IRAQ. If you hung Bush Today we will still have Iraq. Get the point already! In your mind I guess Bush molested you when you were young that is why you want to nail him so bad even though we have U.S. Troops who need Americans to make up their mind about Iraq. So make up your minds-let us fight this battle with the nation behind us or send us home. You also said you don’t have a right answer so let the president do his job…

197. nutslikebush Says: June 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 pm

     Blakely and 3d,
     You don’t get it. Going to Iraq was and is the most phenomenally stupid waste of human life and resources possible for the US. That is all that needs to be understood about Iraq.

198. nutslikebush Says: June 2nd, 2007 at 10:48 pm

     Blakely,
     Shit, Bush didn’t even know that there were different muslim sects in Iraq; Sunnis and Shiites. I think that it is his fault that he was not properly educated for the job that he holds. He went to the best schools that money and influence can get you into but he F’d off the entire time and didn’t get an education. So his mind was not prepared for the tasks that he was handed. Thus, he makes stupid blunders, including the worst blunder in the history of the US.

     As for you being capable of giving an 8 hour briefing on al-qaeda, here is a question for you. How much has al-qaeda grown since the invasion of Iraq? Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a boy scout troop before we invaded. Don’t you think that invading Iraq just strengthened al-qaeda and other similar groups? Don’t you think that when the president says things like he said last week (i.e., that we will occupy Iraq for at least 50 more years, following the Korean model) that he may as well hang recruiting posters for al-qaeda?
     You want me to tell you what’s going on in Iraq? It is a long, sad story. So let’s just look at the recent past and ask how we got into this situation.

     127 military personnel died in Iraq in May.
     PKK guerrillas from Turkey are moving closer to attacking Kurdistan.

     Baghdad was hopping yesterday.

     BAGHDAD - One U.S. soldier was killed by small arms fire in Baghdad on Friday

     One U.S. soldier was killed and one wounded when their patrol was attacked with small arms fire in Baghdad on Wednesday, according to the U.S. military . . .

     BAGHDAD - Ten people were killed and 30 wounded when mortar rounds landed on a residential area in Um al-Maalif, a Shi’ite district of southwestern Baghdad, police said. . .

     * BAGHDAD - Fifteen bodies were found in various parts of Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said. . .

     KIRKUK - A suicide truck bomber in Uweidla village near Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, killed five people and wounded 25, police said.

     BAQUBA - Six decomposing bodies were found dumped together in the Tahreer district of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. . .

     FALLUJA - Six suspected insurgents were killed during U.S.-Iraqi raids targeting al Qaeda in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, on Thursday, the U.S. military said. Another suspected insurgent linked to al Qaeda was detained during a follow-up raid on Friday.

     Interestingly, there were Sunni on Sunni clashes in the Amiriya district of Baghdad. Within-sect fighting is not uncommon in Iraq. It does not necessarily mean that either Sunni side will end up allying with al-Maliki, but it does actually give al-Maliki and the US a little bit of operating space.
     The US military is reaching out to al-Sadr militants and attempting to negotiate peace with some insurgent groups (there are many different insurgent groups and no central command. So success with one doesn’t mean too much. Nonetheless it is a step in the right direction).

     As of yesterday there are about 800,000 internally displaced Iraqis and around 2 million Iraqi refugees.

     As of yesterday, about 3480 US military have been lost (forever), tens of thousands have suffered wounds that will diminish their quality of life, and the US has spent over $431 billion on this war.

     Now how did we arrive at such chaos, you may be wondering. The mistakes all have their roots in pre-war planning errors. The INC provided consistently bad Intel. We blindly trusted in Chalibi (who according to a 4 star general friend of mine who has had dealings with him going back 30 years, is a crook through and through. But Wolfowitz loved him). Bremmer was clearly the wrong man for the CPA post-invasion occupation job. The CPA was poorly staffed, not only in manpower, but the CPA team was “the B team”. The de-Baathification of the Iraqi army was a major mistake. Not understanding al-Sistani, huge mistake. In fact, al-Sistani was the key player in forcing early elections and gaining Shiite control of the Iraqi parliament. They were not ready to build a government yet, and the seeds of corruption were planted early in the Parliament, Iraqi Army, and Iraqi police.

     Like you Blakely, I could go on for days and days analyzing and doing a postmortem on this lost war. I predict that one of two things will happen in the next two years. First, Iraq may be partitioned into three separate countries. But Saudi Arabia does not want a shiite dominated country on its border. Nor does Turkey want a Kurdish country on its border. Both of these situations could lead to serious regional conflicts. The other possibility is that another Saddam-like “strong-man” will emerge and will get the tacit approval of the US and Iraq’s neighbors to use violent force to control the three sects and rid Iraq of al-qaeda. At that point we will be back where we started - with another Saddam.

199. Spc. Blakely Says: June 2nd, 2007 at 11:32 pm

     3DRANGER,

     Try vasoline, it helps cover up the smell.

     Im currently state side right now, at Ft. Campbell Kt, just finished Airassault School (don’t get started on no rivalry now Airborne)

     But yes, I know how rangers get with their hooah training, and I gotta give a hat tip to you because I work with 5th Special Forces Group I’m just support staff Im not Special forces qualified right now, but I’ve seen the training them and the Rangers go through and it’ts tough. So I can Imagine the kind of restraine it must have taken not to go go put those protesters in the rear naked choke.

     When I went to Iraq, back when I was just a little Pv2, I was part of the 101st Airborne. We were based out in Tikrit, but we operated FOBs everywherearound Tikrit, Sammara, and Balad. We captured and detained 5 cell leaders, and Killed 2 (for lack of a better word) Higher leaders. and do you know where we got the information on the 2 we killed? from the 5 we detained.

     The otherside, To say that people there hate us is a gross misconception. if it were the case you’d see alot more Human Intellegence Collectors dead. The Recent Totrure camp found north of the ANBAr providence, is the perfect example, we had Iraqi Villagers come up to us and tell us of it’s existance, now if they all hate us so much, then why oh why did they tell us of and Al-Qaeda operation instead of trying to kidnap us and send us there screaming “Allah Akbar!!!” the whole way.

     I hate it when all you and nuts do is talking about holding leaders respomcible and how theres ” no right answer” and its an “Unsolvable problem” when you’ve never fucking been there. you two don’t know shit about Iraq. the ones that actually want to destroy us like Zarqawi (before we smoked his ass) etc… They represent the higher pillars of the insurgency, 99% of the logistical operation from theese people come from people who just want to get paid in a society thats deminished. we had one guy throw a brick into a FOB one that with a note that said he was sorry for what he was about to do but it was for the safty of his family, that was just before he drove a vehical borne IED into the base.

     The Enemy doesn’t have the popular support of the people in Iraq. They resort mostly to extortion, kinapping and other violence to fight us. That ot me means this war is winnable, we just got to figure out how to properly rebuild the country, and they’ll quicy run out of volenteers.

200. nutslikebush Says: June 3rd, 2007 at 4:38 am

     correction to previous post: Turkey is moving closer to attacking PKK guerrillas in Kurdistan. Turkey accuses Iraqi Kurds of terrorism in eastern Turkey.

201. nutslikebush Says: June 3rd, 2007 at 10:32 am

     Blakely,
     You are forgetting that the enemy in Iraq is the Iraqi people. They are the ones shooting at you and planting IEDs by the side of the road. The Sunnis are the insurgency and the Shiite death squads are terrorizing Sunni citizens and a few “foreign fighters” (excluding US and coalition troops, which the Iraqis consider foreign fighters too) are thrown into the mix.

     Remember, in Arab and Persian cultures when they give you the thumbs up sign, that translates to the middle finger in our sign language. Many US troops have mistaken the thumbs up as a sign of support when it means just the opposite.

     But I am sure that you had years of cultural training and speak both Arabic and Farsi fluently because if you don’t there is no way that you can be an effective intelligence analyst in Iraq.

202. nutslikebush Says: June 3rd, 2007 at 12:38 pm

     Blakely: The small matter of “figuring out how to properly rebuild the country” that you mentioned turns out to be the most complicated problem that the US has ever faced in its history. Just exactly how do you properly rebuild an entire country that has the tremendous variety of problems that Iraq now has? They are in a civil war, have no infrastructure, have a useless government, are easy targets for outside shit stirrers, etc. What you are actually saying, if you really think about your own statement very deeply, is that you really do agree that the problem is unsolvable. But in your post you just gloss over the difficult part as if someone is going to come in and wave a magic wand and make all of the hard part just go away.

     There is no way that the military can solve this problem. I don’t blame the military. This is not their problem to deal with. The military is the wrong tool for the job and always has been. Now this is entirely up to the Iraqi people and, unfortunately, their pathetic excuse for a government. And many of them are corrupt and in cahoots with various factions of the multifaceted insurgency, jerks like Chalibi, or Iran. But you can spill their blood and ours for a century and the problems created there since our invasion will still not be fixed.

203. Spc. Blakely Says: June 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 pm

     oh and another point of fact Nuts,

     DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING TELL ME WHAT I DO AND DO NOT KNOW!

     You’ve never set foot in Iraq.

     Youve never set foot in Afghanistan

     you’ve never had to smell the stink of a warzone

     you’ve neve had to sit in the back of a 5-ton hit by an IED,

     you’ve never Killed another human being

     Don’t tell me that Iraq was a waste of time and human life, like I don’t fucking know that already.

     Dont try and convince me of Shit I’ve known well before CNN and FOx news could even get their hands dirty, let alone the google searches you’ve been trying to pass off as “credible” information.

     You want to be an Anyalist big shot? you think you can do my job better than me? then quit fucking telling me google highlights and start connecting the dots.

     quit trying to convince me of the wast of time this war is, and start trying to link the things you’re reading together.

     I mean shit, I can tell you theres a connection and an Enemy Tactic tequniqe and Procedure in those stories. The Small arms fire and the mortar rounds are all conected nuts, theese people don’t do anything randomly, why don’t you dig a little deeper then come to me with a better prodictive anyalisis then the bullshit you’ve been trying to feed me

     and Nuts, you’ve barly scratched the surface, infact your barely even touched the surface.

     You’re thinking ENTIERLY too small when you’re dealing with al-Qaeda, which Is a global terrorism network with Cells all over the world, Not just Arabian and Middle eastern people either, Al-Qaeda has surfaced with Russians, Hispanics, Africans, Pacific islanders, Europeans, Asains, Americans, etc… when you think of al-Qaeda you think of a bunch of Haji’s with Ak-47’s screaming “Allah Akbar!” as they run into a shop and blow themselves up, but in reality, they’re SO much more than that.

     And don’t pretend you know everything thats going on in Iraq because I can tell you don’t.

     Iraq hasn’t strengthened al-Qaeda at all. In all their videos they release they like to talk about how they’re recruting thousands of muslims to destroy the infedels etc… but in reality most of them aro bought out, or blackmailed into it, or do it because they have no other way to support their family. They’ve had to set up torture camps and resort to kidnaping and ransom to finance their war in Iraq.

     The reason you so so many more fighters in Iraq is because they’re all previous Al-Qaeda/ Mujhahadin warriors, being smuggled in from places like Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Yemen, Samolia, Sudan, egypt, Chechnia, the list goes on and on. they are all previous existing cells being “Deployed” to Iraq, You see them now because they’re fighting an open war instead of hiding in the shadows. They do the same thing in Afghanistan, but to a much lesser degree because their goal in Afghanistan is just a base of operations and attempts at training camps even though ISAF forces consitantly shut those down. They have little Intention Of taking Back the whole country like the Taliban seem intent on doing, in realit, they prefer to use the Taliban as a distracting force to keep Nato forces ties down. Iraq is their major Front, trust me we’ve spent alot of money on this war, but so have they. You’re looking at this war entierly too one sided, look at our casualties, then look at theirs, look at our expenatures, then look at theirs. You want to try and be an expert anyalist on this thing then start thinking like one. Stop thinking like an American and Start thinking like a fucking Jihadist, because thats what I have to do every fucking day, think about HOW they do all the things they do, it aint free, they don’t have people lining up to help them, so how nuts, how does it all get done?

     and their scraping the bottom of the barrel to find money, we on the other hand have alot more reasorces on our hands, its all about attrition, and eventually I asses that they will run out and eventually leave Iraq, but the insurgency will of corse continue once they’ve left the power struggles there are a constant, and Al-qaeda isn’t the only driving force behind this war, I’m not going to disclose any classified information here but I will tell you to pay more attention to Iran/Shia relations, Saudi/Suni relations, and Turkish relations through out the whole reigon.

     you were right, there are alot of insurgent groups with no central leadership, but most of them fight eachother, or run out of money and either die, or get re-absorbed into the group they splintered from.

     come on nuts, tell me somthing I don’t know then we’ll get talking, the stuff you posted is old news to me, I know things that won’t hit news stands for atleast a month, and things that will never reache them at all, maybe in 50 years when this is all history.

     Like I said before nuts, dig a little deeper, if you truly know people in the Military as you claim to, then ask them to cross referance information for you instead of believing everything you hear on CNN or FOX or Google or what ever the fuck your using.

     when you come up with somthing tell me and I’ll let you know if your on the right track otherwise quit wasting my fucking time.

204. 3DRANGER Says: June 3rd, 2007 at 10:48 pm

     Like I said SPC B the libs talk like they’ve been to Iraq. Oh, nuts you turd, I don’t need you to point out how many of the troops died in Iraq, and you list the numbers in such a meaningless and uncaring manner, you really disgust me. If you really cared about the troops or if you had a soul you would have known not to tell a soldier how many troops died like we didn’t know, we’re here you moron! But even in Iraqi chaos the news doesn’t show you or tell of who those soldiers were, how they felt about Iraq or the Iraqi people we met who actually stuck out their own necks to make us want to fight for them. So don’t tell me how many soldiers died because for a turd like you they were just numbers, but to me and other soldiers they were friends, comrads! Nuts if you really want to make a statement get off your ass and come to Iraq and talk to a terrorist and try to have a simple conversation and debate with him. Tell him you and Micheal Moore are friends and you hate America. But If your talk goes bad with them and they end up trying to kill you on TV, before you go remember that sweet feeling to be in AMERICA! And don’t forget to pull your number before you go!

205. 3DRANGER Says: June 4th, 2007 at 2:40 am

     SPC B funny you mention 5thSF, I had a conversation with an E7 buddy from 5th, he gave me this anology of Iraq and libs. Iraq is a huge dam that protects a village from a devastating flood. Bush was the town idiot if you will who damaged the dam that it sprung a leak that if not attended to right now it will certainly destroy the dam and the village. The military is the plumber, the libs 2 typical joes from the village. The delema is it will take all 4 people to secure the leak. The town idiot knowing he F.U. wants to stay and help fix the dam because he knows his ass is on the line (he’ll still hang), the plumber knows what needs to be done and tells everyone we need to fix the dam but we need everyone here to do so. One Lib Joe wants to go back to the villiage to get the police chief so he can arrest the town idiot even though the plumber just told him they have to try and repair the dam now(he wouldn’t know any better because he is not suited for such jobs - he’s just a mouth), the other Lib Joe wants to figure out a way to prevent the town idiot from doing it again. During all the debating between the Libs, the dam brakes and the plumber is instantly killed, the town idiot drowns but the 2 libs make it to safety. The village, it’s gone. Later the 2 libs wanted to come up with a plan to warn the village in case they were able to rebuild the dam and village, but they pondered, atleast the town idiot died. Then one Lib Joe argued that even though the town idiot died maybe they should have a formal hearing…. It goes on and on.

     Special thanks to the humor of 5THSF.

206. Spc. Blakely Says: June 4th, 2007 at 2:55 am

     Heres one for you Nuts

     Connect the Dots….

     3 US SOldiers go missing In Iraq.

     CNN interviews one of the mothers and releases the statement that she believes her son is still alive, when asked why, she states that she hasn’t seen a body yet.

     3 days later US forces find a body of a young soldier wash up in a near by lake, it’s later identified as the son of the mother interviewed.

     connect the dots Nuts if you think your such a great anyalist.

     also look at the attacks today june 2nd 2006, look at the ones in baghdad and tell me the connection between them,

     and last but not least, Look into the recent Al-Qaeda Torture camp, tell me why would they set up such a camp, who were the people they tortured, why were they tortured in the area they were.

     you want to prove somthing to me then anyalize mr bigshot, tell me somthing I don’t know then I might take you seriously but right now you’re nothing more than an arrogent joke.

207. Spc. Blakely Says: June 4th, 2007 at 3:05 am

     june 2nd 2007* my bad.

208. The Other Side Says: June 4th, 2007 at 3:11 am

     3dranger, the reason i keep referencing bush is because he, and his administration, began this mess and he, and his administration, has the power to solve it. i don’t hate bush, i think he is a good man with morals. however, he is stubborn beyond anything i have ever seen and his blindness to facts is killing people. and now, instead of listening to the iraqi study group, the country and congress, he does the exact opposite. how does he seem to know whats best as opposed to many other qualified people? thats my problem, this war needs a bi-partisan solution and bush is to stubborn and the democrats are pussies.

     and ranger, i can see from many of your posts that you hate liberals. its that partisanship that got us into this mess and continues it. and i see from a previous post that you want everyone in america to fight. does that mean a draft or mandatory enlistment at eighteen? i know my next comment may be out of line, but it seems like you think you’re better than me, and other liberals, because you’re in the military. i commend and respect every service person that puts their lives on the line for this country, but using that to win a debate is unfair. don’t take cheap shots at liberals because they didn’t decide/volunteer to serve. its our right not to serve like its your right to serve.

     finally, the people that protested outside of soldiers’ funerals were christian extremist groups that blame the military deaths on america’s acceptance of homosexuality, not liberal groups. don’t confuse the two because you hate them both.

209. shannon Says: June 4th, 2007 at 4:04 am

     Look it is a matter of economics, the American people saw the war in Iraq, intially, as a way of getting incentives. Those incentives being a country that is more stable and free of terrorism. Now the American public knows those incentives are yet to be seen! We are more unstable, we still have terrorist attacks, and we are finacially being bled dry. Now we all know that when you do not have incentives the plan fails. All we have accomplished is a destabilization in the Middle East, these people were better off without us, we have weakened them and will leave them for the wolves!

210. 3DRANGER Says: June 4th, 2007 at 6:09 am

     Nuts, I think I made it clear I didn’t believe everyone should join the military, my main argument on that is if you want to add your 2 cents about something you might want to do or actually experience what your trying talk about. Because when you talk and complain about things you really don’t know about it offends more than it helps. It’s like you standing over a life guard who is doing CPR and your trying to coach him on the procedure even though you’ve never performed it yourself.

     Yes, it is your right not to serve, but it is my common sense not to listen to someone talk about war especially when he chose not to serve and has never seen war first hand. That is why people who have medical issues go to doctors not accountants/true the accountant might have 80 hours of ER from the tv but I doubt you’d feel safe if he performed the operation. Have you been to iraq, have you spoken to our enemies, have you spoken to an Iraqi in front and behind closed doors, have you first hand knowledge of anything??? Sadly you have no as the answer to all those questions.

     Nuts I have all the same info you have, but you don’t have the info I got, so trust me on this one, let us fight this war, give us everything we need and I promise one day the world will be a better place, if I am wrong my ass is literaly on the line. Because right now all I have are the memories of my comrads and the bullets over my head, whose fault is the last thing on my head or my enemies. Now after the mission is done I would like the people who made serious mistakes to pay for their errors, but right now I have bigger problems to concentrate on.

     Try telling someone who lost a loved one in war that serving their country is a cheap shot, they might just kick your ass nuts.

211. nutslikebush Says: June 4th, 2007 at 11:34 am

     Ranger and Blakely,
     You idiots! American kids have no business dying in Iraq. Our children are being sent to their deaths because George Bush is a fool. It drives me mad to think of these youngsters being sent to Iraq and into that hell hole. I wouldn’t be waisting my time arguing about this if I didn’t really care about them. It is Bush who doesn’t care. I assume that if you are less than half my age. Thirty years ago when I was like you, still juiced up on adolescent hormones, I may have been eager to test myself in battle too (though I was relieved when I narrowly missed going to Vietnam, I must say). But I see now that these senseless wars that politicians start are the ultimate crime against our nation and its young people.

     Blakely, you remind me of some of the reasons that I think that military service should be required of every American citizen. First, if the children of politicians had to served that would reduce the chances of us going into wars like Iraq. Second, when war is necessary we should have our best and brightest would be out there doing those jobs. If you are an example of the kind of person we have doing intel analysis in Iraq now, we are really screwed.

     You are a big talker, Blakely. If you knew half as much as you think you do, it would be twice as much as you really do.

212. nutslikebush Says: June 4th, 2007 at 11:36 am

     Blakely,
     You can’t even spell analyze. How am I supposed to believe that you are an analyst? Surely they make you spell the word right before they give you the job!

213. nutslikebush Says: June 4th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

     I just read an interview with Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of US forces in Iraq (Blakely’s old boss), that was just published yesterday by AFP. Now I think that Sanchez is a pretty credible source on the subject of Iraq. But if you don’t like what I have been saying at this site for the past two years, you will hate what Sanchez had to say on the topic of Iraq. Here are a few representative quotes by Sanchez from the interview.

     “I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will — not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat.”

     “I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time.”

     “We’ve got to do whatever we can to help the next generation of leaders do better than we have done over the past five years, better than what this cohort of political and military leaders have done,” adding that he was “referring to our national political leadership in its entirety.”

     Sanchez called the situation in Iraq bleak and blamed it on “the abysmal performance in the early stages and the transition of sovereignty.”

     “That’s something I am still struggling with and it’s not about blame because there’s nobody out there that is intentionally trying to screw things up for our country.”

     “They were all working to do the best damn job they can to get things right.” Despite those good intentions, Americans will be forced to “answer the question what is victory, and at this point I’m not sure America really knows what victory is.”

     Maybe Blakely and 3DRanger can define victory in Iraq for their commanders and political leaders, because they can’t figure out for themselves what it would look like at this point. All of the denial in the world won’t solve that problem for you Blakely and 3D.

214. nutslikebush Says: June 4th, 2007 at 3:23 pm

     According to the National Intelligence Estimate, the Iraq war is indeed fueling the jihadist movement. So, once again, Blakely is refuted by his own superiors who authored the NIE.

     hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/documents/terrorism/keyjudgments_092606.pdf

215. 3DRANGER Says: June 5th, 2007 at 5:15 am

     Nuts your the idiot, and no I am not a teenager and how dare you judge a person who chose to serve his country especially when you declined the honor. You remind me of the guys who would watch boxing matches and talk big about if they were fighting they would have done better. Then one day they actually get into a fight and loose badly. So face it you have no answers, no better way of doing it and you are not suited to fighting in Iraq, basically you have nothing to offer so what is your point besides it’s his fault. Nothing!

     If you really want to make a differance give me a better way of handling Iraq of the present or atleast give me a good idea about the course we should take, if it’s good I’ll take your suggestion to heart, but if all you wanna do is whine and complain do it in front of a mirror because if I wanna talk to an ass who is clueless we have a donkey at the CP.

216. nutslikebush Says: June 5th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

     3D,
     My sources know the middle east in general, and Iraq in particular, much better than the administration’s sources or the military’s sources. My sources predicted the very situation that we are now in way back when the administration was predicting that the Iraqis would be having parades for our military and throwing flowers and candy at you guys, when Bush was standing under that mission accomplished banner, when Cheney was saying the insurgency was in its last throes, when Wolfowitz was telling us that it would only cost about a billion dollars of US funds (oil would pay for the rest, he said).

     My sources, some of whom are Iraqis (I have friends from both the Shiite and Sunnis sects) and some of whom have devoted the past 40-50 years of their professional lives to studying Iraq, were “SPOT ON” at predicting every event that has occurred since Day 1 of the invasion. They were the ones telling us even before the invasion that Chalabi was not to be trusted, that Curve Ball was an unreliable source, that Sistani (who I was studying while he was exiled in Iran) and Sadr were the wild cards and needed to be understood.

     3D, my sources have been giving me reliable predictions about Iraq many years out on the horizon, not about who will blow up who today, but about the big picture. The military and the administration’s sources have consistently been proven wrong at every turn in Iraq. I have a hard time believing that your sources are more credible than mine, given the failure of yours and the accurate predictions that mine have made.

217. The Other Side Says: June 6th, 2007 at 12:57 am

     this reminds me of the debates on same-sex marriage. if you are closely involved with the situation, you’re going to have a lot more emotions than those disconnected. and like i said to shannon, that muddies the debate. using explicatives and capitol letters aren’t going to get points across clearer.

     though nutslikebush and i cannot empathize with the situations, that doesn’t mean we can’t be involved in the argument. using being in iraq as a trump card is, again, unfair. how can anyone then debate iraq? al gore says that the public conversation about important issues is being lost, and this is a perfect example of people trying to further that suppression. being aggressive, using fear, envoking the dead, arrogance; its like 3dranger and blakely went to the bill o’reilly school of debating. it also shows that they’re more worried about diverting attention from the debate and attacking the other view point. the mainstream media is always wrong and two people are always right. we cannot keep hoping for the situation to improve without changing. assumptions got us into this mess and it sure won’t get us out.

218. 3DRANGER Says: June 6th, 2007 at 8:03 am

     Nuts you have better sources so instead of complainning about past mistakes what do your sources recommend we do now since your sources are better. Like I keep saying I am not backing Bush, I don’t mind debating if it’s about the country moving toward a better plan for our situation now. I don’t want to take part in a debate that revolves around past mistakes and whose fault it is, we can do that when we figure out a good course of action for Iraq. Why can’t you just see me eye to eye on that. When our leaders make mistakes they should be held accountable but first make sure we have a plan and make sure we don’t put another dumb ass in office. I am hating on Libs because you guys seem to dwell on the past when the present is right here on your face. Let’s wipe the crap of our faces before whe wonder who did it. Give me solutions not complaints.

     Why can’t you say something like we need to establish a stronger Iraqi government by …. Then we can debate about how to achieve that. Instead you complain about mistakes and point fingers, I have guns pointing at me so do me the honor and debate a solution. When we are done with Iraq then be my guest and go get the president atleast then politics will not be able to use the troops as chips and the troops will not be in Iraq wondering whats going to happen.

     I am a soldier and I’ll admit I don’t have all the answers but to me what is important is my fellow troops and resolving Iraq to were we made a differance and we don’t have to go back. You owe it to the troops(all Americans) to use your resources, your energy to ensure that. Screw Bush, what about the troops, what did we do wrong, solve our situation, because Bush will not be the president forever but we will always be American soldiers.

     For your information The Other Side I went to Infantry School, Airborne School, Sniper School and Ranger School I didn’t go to basket weaving so forgive me if I offend you with the way I communicate. I actually only heard of O’reilly last month.

     Come up with a plan that is clearly better for America and I’ll help you get Bush out, but if all you wanna do is complain about the past and point fingers and point out you have better sources how does that help the troops, it doesn’t and your just waisting my time.

219. nutslikebush Says: June 6th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

     3D,
     What do you mean when you say that if I give you a suggestion about what to do in Iraq and you like it, you will do it? I thought that soldiers just followed the orders of their commanding officers, not suggestions gathered at a POLITICAL website where conservatives and liberals argue about whether Bush is doing his job well. Your IDEAS are as irrelevant as mine are, because what happens in Iraq depends on what our politicians decide to do. I am interested in making arguments that influence political views. Neither you nor I are in a position to affect military strategy - you are a pawn in that game and I am an observer who is watching the players move you and the other pieces around. My comments are about the strategies of the game that the sides are employing and critiques of how my side (the US) is playing. My main point is that we need a new chess player to take control of our side of the game because Bush and the conservatives are employing a horrible strategy.

220. The Other Side Says: June 6th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

     i finally did read the article that we have been posting on. i know it was written in the beginning of the war, but it was dead wrong. i guess, using buck’s definition of a traitor as attacking patriotism during a time of war, buck is a traitor to free speech. michael moore may have an ax to grind, but he is as patriotic as anyone and all this movie did was ask some tough questions about what bush was doing.

     i wonder what people will say about his new movie ’sicko’. hopefully bleeding heart conservatives will give the movie a chance instead of seeing michael moore’s name and crying wolf.

221. shannon Says: June 7th, 2007 at 3:44 am

     I saw an interview from Cannes and Republicans like ran up to Moore and gave him a hug!!!!!!!!!!!

222. 3DRANGER Says: June 7th, 2007 at 4:03 am

     Nuts I was speaking about my vote, if you had a good suggestion you’d get my vote or my political vote would go to the politician who shared that same veiw. I know my vote counts for something right… If you want to imply that my life is simply to kill and die for my orders how can I believe you really support the troops, I guess we are just dogs for our masters? You don’t care about the troops you just wanna do what comes natural, complain. You can’t get everything you want in life, sometimes you gotta work for it and bitching isn’t working.

223. nutslikebush Says: June 7th, 2007 at 12:21 pm

     3d,
     Actually, pointing out the flaws in the neoconservative approach to global policy (i.e., the use of US military might to create new states; watch out, Iran is next, then Syria?) is a lot of work. If you like military history and global political philosophy, let me recommend Jonathon Schell’s book, The Unconquerable World. It offers a perspective on the Iraq situation that directly challenges the neocon theory and explains why insurgencies are so problematic for occupying superpowers. You may find it thought provoking. I read it in 2005 and it had a major impact on my thinking about Iraq and US foreign policy in general.

224. nutslikebush Says: June 8th, 2007 at 2:55 am

     3D,
     I guess I need for you to define the statement “support the troops” for me. If you think that I don’t support the troops, then I think that we are defining some things differently. I have no quarrel with the military; just their civilian leaders. If I have to give up my rights as a citizen to be considered supportive of the troops, then that’s a problem for all of us.

225. SPC. Blakely Says: June 8th, 2007 at 8:48 pm

     Nuts,

     being an Analyist has nothing to do with spelling so ,

     1. go blow yourself
     2. Knock off the personnal attacks you sound like a 3 year old.

     you want a spelling wiz talk to a human reasouce specialist, 42A.

     and not all soldiers blindly follow the leader, we call those soldiers Privates.

     The ones that work to find solutions to the problems we call NCO’S

     and the ones that ignore NCO’s and attempt to bask in thier own glory we call Officers.

     trust me, any dumbass that even remotly knew the history of Iraq could’ve told you that the insergency was going to happen, I bet you there was a young Sergeant or Specialist, practicly screaming this at a general beofore the war started. Shit even a few generals Probably told the president and secratary of Defence that this was immanant, little tip though, Civilians are obsessed with self glory, and any oppinion that isn’t their own they tend to disregard.

     And don’t get me Started on Rummsfeld. of all the incompetent arrogent assholes unqualified to make military decisions, I’d say he topped the list. Thats one thing I do dislike about the Military, that some idiot with little or no experience can command the entire force, yet say a Sergeant Major with 30 years in, been through 3 or 4 wars, carrys battle scars proudly, is stuck mannaging Administrative work of A Battallion or Brigade, if they’re luckey, a Division.

     and 3D, Hooah to 5th SF, every one knows we’re well known for our humor…. kinda… not really, every one just thinks we’re all nuts,

     Lemme tell you them green berets are fucking crazy, I assume you rangers are too.

     Airassault!

226. SPC. Blakely Says: June 8th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

     Nuts, Just out of Curiosity, what are your Sources teTulling you About Turkey right now?

     and What about Israel?

227. ACCNationlist Says: June 9th, 2007 at 12:09 am

     Let me say this, why is it that liberals go on and on about freedom, but when the bullets start flying they are nowhere to be found. People like Moore have no sense of foregin policy and its inner workings. Yes, in the past we ( much like every other nation that still stands) backed less-than-favorable people. The media always blames Republicans for what happens. The movie sicko is such example. Mr. Moore because of overt liberal broad-mindedness overlooks the fact that Cuba only extends their healthcare( the best that is) to the elite. Same in the Soviet Union, a member of the politburo could get ahead, not the man plowing the fields.

228. nutslikebush Says: June 9th, 2007 at 12:52 am

     Blakely,
     Yep, actually I have to admit that I would prefer it if the bright folks were doing the analysis. Not the illiterates.

229. nutslikebush Says: June 9th, 2007 at 3:38 am

     Blakely,
     There is a good chance that Turkey will send forces into Iraq to go after the 5000 PKK terrorists that are setting off bombs in Turkey and killing civilians. The Iraqi Kurds have been harboring PKK terrorists for years and Turkey hasn’t attacked their camps in Iraq because they don’t want to piss off the US. But that won’t last much longer. Especially after the recent PKK bombings in Turkey.

230. shannon Says: June 9th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

     Okay, so statistically the war in Iraq has only made terrorist groups stronger!!!!

231. nutslikebush Says: June 9th, 2007 at 9:23 pm

     Blakely,
     My sources tell me that on Wednesday night/Thursday morning Turkish forces actually crossed the Iraq border in hot pursuit of PKK. It is getting interesting on that front - and dangerous.

232. The Other Side Says: June 10th, 2007 at 1:36 am

     accnationalist, it was the republicans who began this war. conservatives like to say that they are better at foreign policy, but look what happened in iraq. the administration needs to build up trust after the massive bumbling they did during this war. now iran is being mentioned and we’re stirring up cold war tensions. this aggressive foreign policy needs to stop until we leave iraq. our country has taken a giant hit to our credibility.

     3dranger, what about the timeline for withdrawal? wasn’t that a democratic plan? oh, but thats a defeat, i forgot. now we have to wait for september. i hope the surge works, but its not looking good.

233. 3DRANGER Says: June 10th, 2007 at 10:46 pm

     Nuts like you I prefer the right people for the job. Smart people for analyst not illerates and for debaters experienced with first hand knowledge not knowledge that flows out of the arse. I mean seriously if you are going to really debate about war you gotta have some first hand knowledge, and playing with action figures or reading a SGT Rock comic doesn’t cut it. It’s funny how you say you support troops but every chance you get you accuse us of being stupid, you tell us we are mindless killers give me a brake already. You only support your own ass. You mentioned you wanted me to again define what support the troops means because apparently you seriously don’t have a clue. I can’t entertain anymore debates with you because like debating with somebody’s asshole, all I get is bad air and crap on my face. Seriosly how dare you complain about spelling, I bet if you were in Iraq and as soon as the bullets started flying you probably couldn’t even spell the word shit because you would be too busy doing it in your pants. No, no more debates with you english professor your grammar standards are too high for me.

     The other side, that is a tough one, withdrawal… I wish that had a simple answer but in war that is probably the hardest to predict. I wish it could be tomorrow but I am not naieve. From the media aspect it looks grim, but at ground level we are seeing some ice break, some Iraqis are fighting back against the insergency. So hopefully we can jump on this opportunity. But defeat is not my main concern when talking about time line, it’s the fact if we pull out too soon with too many loose ends we might have to go back and it will be deadlier! I also don’t like the fact the enemy knows when the war is over, I kinda like the fact that imformation is still an American advantage. Not to get all sad and stuff but I have lost alot of close friends and my country is all I have left to honor their deaths. Obtain that reading a book…

234. nutslikebush Says: June 11th, 2007 at 2:20 am

     3d,
     You don’t have a leg to stand on in an actual debate. You are all fluff.

235. nutslikebush Says: June 11th, 2007 at 3:14 am

     3D,
     You have never managed to say anything of any substance in your comments here. Just toss around insults as if only soldiers have a right to have something to say. Well you are so absolutely wrong about what America is all about that you don’t even have a clue. You might get your paycheck from the military, but that doesn’t make you a good american or even knowledgeable about Iraq. I don’t generally feel this way about people in the military - only the idiots.

236. SPC. Blakely Says: June 11th, 2007 at 10:05 pm

     Lol, Iran, now theres an interesting topic. glad you mentioned it Other side. It’s funny to watch Irans Leverage agianst the U.S take hold, Recently the world was shocked to know about Iran Giving Weapons to the Afghanistan Insurgency, when infact the MI Corps, the CIA, and an ungodly amount of other Intel services already knew about that, classified at the time, it’s been recently de-classified, and passed off as new information, ironicly just after the US had a sitdown with Iran over weapons smuggling in Iraq. funny thing they didn’t mention to everyone is WHO they’re funding in afghanistan, now thats the real interesing point CNN and FOX failed to mention… ask your vault of infinant knowlage about that one.

237. 3DRANGER Says: June 12th, 2007 at 7:45 am

     I thought with your vast intellect you were above name calling, I guess Nuts your just as immature as the rest of us. Like I said your mouth is just a waiste of time, and fluff is what we find your backbone made up off. I will admit I was never known for my mouth but I bet your buddies have alot to say and praise about your mouth. So Nuts, is that what you usually have in your mouth. Jeeeze that was funny… I am laughing at a liberal…

238. SPC. Blakely Says: June 12th, 2007 at 9:54 pm

     nuts,

     spelling also has nothing to do with litteracy, if you were half as all knowing as you claim to be you’d know that, so get your nose out of the air you arrogent prick.

     It’s funny, for so much hatred of the administration and evertything it stands for, you Act EXACTLY like them, arrogent, personal, and any one who even rmotly has the slightest hint of a different oppinion, has the IQ of a monkey.

     that about some it up? Nuts like Bush indeed.

239. nutslikebush Says: June 13th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

     Here are some things that I don’t understand about Iraq right now. Perhaps 3D and Blakely could explain it to me (I am being serious. I will be nice to you from now on). Supposedly Iran is supplying ordinance to Iraqis. Who are they aiding? I can’t imagine that the Iranians (who are shiites) would supply al-qaeda (who are sunnis and their avowed enemies) or the sunni baathists. Are they are providing ordinance to Shiite militias such as Sadr’s group? Are they aiding other shiite militias? I also understand that some sunni insurgency groups are now taking on al-qaeda and just ask that the US military mostly stays out of the way while they battle al-qaeda foreign fighters and provide some back up when they get pinned in during firefights. Are we making deals with the devil when we support sunni insurgents who want us out of Iraq? Finally, what about the rumours that Russia is supplying weapons to insurgents? Any truth to that? Any help you can provide me would be appreciated.

240. 3DRANGER Says: June 14th, 2007 at 10:13 pm

     At ground level, my level they all look the same, I am a little relieved that atleast one of these groups hates the other more than us, so it is an opportunity for us to jump on. If we are able to work with them maybe we can open up a dialog to better understand them and maybe we can convince them to address their issues using the Iraq government not guns. But if it were only that simple. But again they are fighting mostly for power and to make money, religion is just a front and the hate for sunni/shiite/kurdish is big but mostly they want power, the hate mongering just helps them to stir up support. Russia, that I don’t know.

241. nutslikebush Says: June 15th, 2007 at 4:22 am

     3d and Blakely,
     It seems like we should offer Iraqis who want to serve in the Iraqi army and in local police forces $2000 a month (a fortune for them, but a small investment for us), take them out of Iraq for 6-12 months of intensive training. They can’t train safely in Iraq and they need to be away from their families and potential corrupting links with insurgents while they are trained and indoctrinated properly. 1 of 6 Iraqi policemen have been killed or disappeared. So that is not a safe occupation.

242. nutslikebush Says: June 15th, 2007 at 11:00 pm

     3D,
     I noticed that in an earlier post you said that Iran was also supplying weapons to Afghanistan (as Sec. Gates said last week). Here is what I want to understand about that situation. Iran helped overthrow the Taliban and the Iranian government is still anti-taliban (and anti al-qaeda too). Are the Iranians supplying weapons to the Afghan military (i.e., are they still our ally in Afghanistan against the Talliban?)? If so, why is that a problem? If not, who are they helping? Please explain.

243. Spc. Blakely Says: June 16th, 2007 at 12:34 am

     I havn’t been to Iraq in almost a year and a half now, so I don’t know too much on the workings of Al-qaeda’s Iraqi brigade other than the fact it’s starting to splinter and implode on itself. now, don’t confuse the entire Al-qaeda network as a sunni network, true it is predominantly Sunni and Osama himself is a sunni, but the higherups in AL-Qaeda don’t honestly give two shits and a damn about Sunni v. Shia, their goal is to unite all islam agianst us, sunni and shia alike. AQ in Iraq is a different breed mostly because Zarqawi didn’t do what he was supposed to when he was sent to Iraq, instead of uniting the insurgency, he tried to empower the Sunni sect, probably the reason he’s dead, they enemy probably wanted us to kill him. that’s also part of the reson the insurgency likes to fight itself on an equil scale with us.

     but back to the main point, Iran has no interest with AQ in Iraq, they do help certian shia dominated AQ cells in and around asia and afghanistan, but not Iraq, their Interest in Iraq is impowering the shia to dominate and stabalize the country so they can have a puppet regime and “spread the revolution” Simular to what they’re doing in Afghanistan, but the funny thing about Afghanistan is, they’re funding both the Taliban AND the Northern Allience. so whomever wins, Iran comes out looking like the good guys, and they can gradually nudge them towards the shia side, because they’re building Shia mosques in a country predominantly SUnni, but Afghans concern them selves being muslim above being sunni or shia, they can gradually nudge their influence over there.

     Personnaly I love working on the Afghan war more than the Iraq war, Afghans know how to fight like real soldiers and not cowards like the Iraqies, plus, the enemy over there is decidedly alot more unified than Iraq, which is beging to fragment and break down, mostly because of a lack of strong leadership (we’ve captured and killed most of em’) and partly due to the enemys own ambitions and lack of dicipline. plus it’s fun to watch the 055 brigade get it’s ass lit up by our hell fire missiles.

     now, as for the Russians, thats 99.99% myth. The only russian involvement in either country that I’m aware of is private 3rd party dealers smuggling weapons into the middle east in general, not even Iraq directly. Mother Russia has alot more on it’s plate to deal with than trying to interfear in OUR war. They have their own terrorists to deal with as well as shifting their focus on loose nukes and orginized crime. It’s military downsizing is going mostly to China, who has recently just purchased it’self an aircraft carrier, and the latest and greatest in Russian seaborne avation. Thier recent Submarine activity looks to be modified russian technology as well, but I’d have to dig into SIPRNET to confirm that, and then not tell any of you unless you somehow happen to have a SIPR E-mail account.

244. nutslikebush Says: June 16th, 2007 at 3:31 am

     3D, Blakely, The Other Side: Trying to carry on a discussion like this is painful because it is so fractured and slow. We should just get shortwave radios and have conversations in real time.

245. 3DRANGER Says: June 16th, 2007 at 6:36 am

     I actually like the idea of trainning the Iraqis outside of Iraq and I am not to sure what they get paid now, I didn’t care actually but if that is what it takes I think it would be a good idea. Iran has alot of factions so you really can’t look at Iran as having only one agenda. Follow what the SPC said above for clarity.

246. The Other Side Says: June 16th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

     your right nuts, we’re starting to slow down right now. where is kolran to add some contraversial comments when you need him?

247. nutslikebush Says: June 16th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

     Blakely and 3D,
     Thanks for the info. I think I will get more out of these sort of exchanges than out of insulting one another. Just for some background; I have been having various discussion with people at this site for several years because I really want to engage people with whom I have political disagreements. Talking to people who think like I do is not very useful to me. Though sometimes it is frustrating and slow going here, overall it has been a positive experience for me.

     Obviously, I think that it is crucial for Americans to understand where we have made smart moves and where we have made blunders in our foreign policy. I assume that people who frequent this site already know of plenty of things that they like about Bush’s foreign policy. I want to challenge Bush supporters by bringing to their attention some mistakes that I believe that Bush has made which they may have overlooked. Here is a major one:

     After 9/11 the US and the Iranian Shiites had a common enemy in Bin Laden and al qaeda. The US was in a great position to develop an alliance with Khatami’s Iran against al qaeda. If the Iraq War had not happened and Bush had not declared Iran to be part of an “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002 (thereby undermining the momentum of Iranian progressives who were making significant steps in the direction of real democracy and freedom from Iranian theocracy) it is unlikely that the Iranian hardliners would have won the Iranian elections in summer of 2005. Recall that after 9/11 the streets of Tehran were filled with hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of demonstrators expressing their support for the US and disgust with al Qaeda. If Bush had approached the issues that were before him at the time in a sane manner, then the US position in the Muslim world could have been very strong by now. Unfortunately, Richard Perle, David Frum, Douglas Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz managed to get control of Bush’s middle east policy after 9/11 and it has been disastrous ever since. Regardless of what our soldiers do in Iraq, if we don’t find a way soon to stop the neocons in DC and get control into the hands of people who really understand the middle east then we will just leave future American generations buried deeper and deeper in that grave that we are digging in the middle east.

     If, for example, we attack Iran to attempt to stop them from developing nuclear weapons I fear that the disaster that we have now will be multiplied by 1000. Some LAL readers may argue that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. But a nuclear Pakistan, India, China, Russia and Israel are all unacceptable too. Unfortunately, the nuclear ship has sailed and every country with the economy to develop the industrial infrastructure that is required to build them will eventually have nuclear weapons. They are the ultimate political lever so any country would be crazy not to pursue them (and most middle eastern countries have attained a level of technical competence and wealth that would enable them to build a nuclear program in less than a decade). I don’t believe Iran would actually use nukes though - because their country would disappear from the planet five minutes later and they know that. If they build nukes, they will constantly feel the bull’s eye that is painted on their heads. Granted, the Iranian government says crazy things frequently, but their politicians are actually quite rational and calculating when it comes to survival.

     But what if they give nukes to stateless terrorists like al qaeda, or other such characters who are crazy and eager to have and use such weapons against us? That is unlikely for two reasons. First, they fear and hate al Qaeda as much as Americans do. Second, nuclear weapons are not manageable by stateless terrorists. The materials are incredible difficult to handle and transfer. All nuclear material leaves an unmistakeable and easily identifiable atomic finger print. So five minutes after it goes off (heaven forbid), we will know who supplied the material - we push a button and they are gone. This gives nuclear states a strong incentive to inventory their fissile material (it takes over 100 lbs of fissile material to create a small nuke. That is a lot of hard to get and hard to handle highly radioactive material).

     Iran is going to be in the nuclear club soon. The bad news is political - with the invasion of Iraq and poor diplomacy we have strengthened their hardliners and weakened the progressive pro-US movement in Iran. Once a country gets nukes they get to move from the kids table to the grown-up table. The US, Israel, France, Britain, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan may as well start making room at the table for yet another unwelcome member of the club. In their welcome basket we should include a card from the other nuclear nations saying, “Congratulations, with your admittance to this esteemed group the odds that your country will be annihilated have just increased dramatically.”

248. Spc. Blakely Says: June 16th, 2007 at 7:55 pm

     Afghanistan is the real interesting side. Iran is helping both sides of the Afghan war. yes, it’s true that Iran and the Taliban used to be mortal enemies, but Irans options are a little limited when it’s borders are flooded with Christian enemies, as is he Taliban when they’ve gone from ruling the majority of a country, to being just another insurgent group. In truth our invasion of Afghanistan is the best thing to happen for Iran in terms of the Taliban. Before they’re enemies, looking to kill each other, but now the Taliban is alot more desperate, and Iran is looking to take advantage of that. They supply them weapons o destroy the infidels, give them money to build Shia mosques (The Taliban is more focused on being Muslim then it is being Sunni or Shia) They build them Madrassa’s (Islamic schools) they build leverage with them.

     on the other end they do the same thing with the Northern Alliance, who, while still our Allies, is getting a little perturbed because before our invasion their war with the Taliban was based on their border areas, now it’s spread all over Northern Alliance Territory. they give them weapons to deal with the Taliban scum who’ve invaded their lands, they teach them how to use them, they help re-build the mosques and madrassas, which will conveniently be shia.

     It’s Interesting how Iran has learned manipulation from us.

249. nutslikebush Says: June 17th, 2007 at 2:21 pm

     Blakely,
     It sounds like we are in a “Cold War” with Iran. There are many Iranians who want to live in the modern world rather than the medieval theocracy that the Ayatollahs have created. We need to find ways to help them gradually overthrow the theocracy from within. The Iranians need to stand up to their own government - just as the Iraqis should have stood up to Saddam. They could have brought him to his knees if they had the courage to do it. If nobody shows up to work, the Ayatollah’s and President Mahmoud can’t last. Unified nonviolent resistance to the government works every time. Lech Walesa demonstrated how to do it when the Polish workers overthrew the brutal communists in Poland. That’s the model.

250. nutslikebush Says: June 17th, 2007 at 11:28 pm

     Blakely and 3D,
     It seems like a major issue is locating the insurgent’s stockpiles of explosives. Why doesn’t the military train 40,000 Bloodhounds to sniff out explosives and ship them to Iraq and let them lead our soldiers to the stockpiles?

251. nutslikebush Says: June 18th, 2007 at 1:38 am

     I understand that Muslims HATE dogs and find them offensive. But I would argue that IEDs are even more offensive than dogs.

252. Restifo Says: June 18th, 2007 at 7:11 am

     Michael Moore isnt a traitor. He is a douchebag profiting from free speech.

253. Spc. Blakely Says: June 18th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

     stockpile’s aren’t the problem.we find those everyday. All you gotta do is capture yourself a bomb maker or trigger puller some one at the low end ofthe spectrum, offer not to kill him, some food, water, etc… and he’ll tell you where their stockpiles are. The problem is, theres so many weapons in Iraq, you can have your cache raided by the americans, then go to one of the old republican guard bases and re-supply.

     As for Training IP And IM outside of Iraq, thats actually one of the best Idea’s I’ve heard in a long time. Your right, A warzone isn’t the place to train recruits, letalone the new Non-Commissioned Officer corse they’re trying to train Iraqies for nowa days.

     which is in it’self a doubble edged sword, because now yes the Soldiers get leadership at a ground level, but now that just makes the Iraqi Officers jellous for power. Training them in say, saudi arabia, might be a more appropriate place, though i say that might piss alot of extreamists off even more.

254. 3DRANGER Says: June 18th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

     Actually thats just one of the tasks for our soldiers, as for RANGERS our main goal is to locate, engage and destroy the enemy. Ofcourse, gather intel while we’re at it. 40,000 dogs to sniff bombs would be nice, but that is alot of dogs nuts. Plus to train a dog would take atleast a year or so, so America needs to start trainning. Hey I am all for alternative solution that keep our soldiers out of harms way, but though a good idea, at this stage of the war I am not sure if we could get the dogs in time to make a difference.

255. nutslikebush Says: June 22nd, 2007 at 6:56 pm

     3D and Blakely,
     Here is my crazy idea of the day. I have just been reading about how generals are telling soldiers to get out of tanks and Humvees and walk because the ammunition that the insurgents and al-qaeda fighters use can easily blow them up now and they make easy targets. But walking in 120 degree heat with 80lbs on your back sucks too. Why not equip soldiers with extremely fast motorcycles (either enduros or crotch rockets, depending on the setting), have them modified to have places to carry ammo, radios, etc. And train soldiers to ride like champs in boot camp. They would be a harder target to hit, fresher when they went into gun battles, and, I believe, more likely to make it back to their base when the battle is over. Crazy idea?

256. nutslikebush Says: June 22nd, 2007 at 6:59 pm

     also, you put a GPS locator on each one so that if it is stolen by the enemy you can dial in its location and either go get them or send a cruise missile to its location. Or even program it to self-destruct if stolen.

257. SPC. Blakely Says: June 28th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

     The problem with the perposal of motorcycles is a logistics issue. Accountability, security, cost of parts etc… it’d take a fairly large motor pool staff and each unit would require an additional unit of paperpushers to keep track of it all.

     as for the vehicles themselves, tey get hit by an IED, they’re fucking gone. In Iraq, it makes alot more sence to use convoys then it does motorcycles, convoys can take a hit better, and transport troops around all the same. usually when Soldiers in Iraq are on the ground walking, they’re raiding, or pulling security.

     In Afghanistan, they might work for quick raids, but the enemy likes to hide in the mountians where heavy armor and artillery can’t reach them. they prefer to go agianst Airborne and Airassault forces that rely on helos that they can shoot down.

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