Metroblog

But I digress ...

18 August 2006

This Explains a Lot About Iraq

President *** thinks the recent Israeli war on Lebanon was a win.
"The first reaction, of course, of Hezbollah and its supporters is to declare victory. I guess I would have done the same thing if I were them," Bush said. "Sometimes it takes people awhile to come to the sober realization of what forces create stability and what don't. Hezbollah is a force of instability."
As opposed presumably to the IDF, which stabilizes countries by waging proxy wars against what it so charmingly terms "civillian targets".

I know a destabilizing force that would not be missed, or are Iraq and Afghanistan stable yet?

And I know how to get rid of it. ITMFA!

*** was defending his criminal wiretapping program--No, no, he's not listening to criminals--unless you count the cabinet. He came up with this program to bug people. Any people. At all; without reason, without warrants, and without limit. In clear violation of the constitution he swore to "defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic".

He needs an issue he can win on for the Senatorial elections. Only 37% like how he's running the economy (the single-biggest vote-loser he's got, and he's got a passel of them). About the same number and falling like what he's up to in Iraq. No-one wants to modify the Constituion for him (on gay marriage or that polished perennial flag-burning). So what's a guy to do?

Listen to his neighbours, apparently. And repeatedly chant the mantra "We're at war!"--only he always forgets to add "because of me!"

Oh--and keep an eye out for another "terrorist plot broken up" OR a "successful terrorist strike" before mid-term elections. Two months to go.

I'm not "hoping" for one and I'm not even saying that the *** White House is deliberately "catapulting the propaganda" by making splashy headlines with TWAT whenever they're in trouble, but it's an amazing co-incidence.

And all it would take to confirm that suspicion for me is another distracting "success in the war on terror" being trumpeted just as the GOP machine starts to creak off to the junkheap it properly belongs on.

4 Comments:

At 11:27 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Metro -

Innocent folks aren't having their phones tapped. I know you hate Bush and would love to believe it, but it's simply not true.

I'm not saying the guy hasn't been disappointing on a number of fronts, but we are fighting terrorism now, whether or not that was the reason we chose to go to war.

We simply have to finish the war we started. I just wish people understood that innocent people are going to die, be taken advantage of and stripped of their rights to a trial should they be deemed enemy combatants.

This war is tame compared to others, where we killed thousands and thousands of people to end WWII. At what point did someone decide that the rules needed to be changed and that innocent people were hands off?

I'm not saying it's right, but it has proven to be effective in the past.

 
At 10:50 pm, Blogger Metro said...

Oh 'nonymous, 'nonymous how you do get around.

#1 Let's start with the McPaper of record. I assume every one of those "tens of millions of Americans" is guilty of terrorist offences?

That's just USA Today. If you want a more trustworthy source then try the WaPo or the Times (NY or London).

Innocent people quite clearly are being bugged. And all it takes is a regular read of the headlines to know it.

#2 The current occupant of the White House doesn't rate my hatred. My utter contempt, sure, but he's done so much to deserve it.

He's sure not winning "The War Against Terror". It is in fact unwinnable--not least because the US actively uses terror in it's own wars: what else was the "shock and awe" thing about?

In fact--how's he "fighting terror"? So far as I can see he's spying on his own people, comitting complicity in the deaths of others, and actively assenting to the torture of others yet.

In what way do these things help?

#3 The war "we" (I assume you're in the cabinet?) started is unwinnable. The very best option right now is that the POTUS decides to make the responsible and suicidally unpopular choice to send in the number of troops he was initially asked to commit--roughly thrice the number of boots currently on the ground.

Innocent people indeed have died, have been exploited, have been stripped of their rights in this lousy business. Are you saying that that's better compared to the wholesale murder of thousands?

Especially when every dead son or brother, every orphan left, and every angry citizen who has been the victim of any or all of these things breeds a potential terrorist, hating the West and seeking to strike back in any way he or she can?

The rules haven't changed. Only in the last two decades has this cynical "oh we'll kill a bunch of innocent non-combatants" attitude begun to prevail in public.

It's not right--it's wrong. There are and have been better ways of fighting terror--not least would be NOT punching holes in nuclear weapons treaties.

#4 Most of all, this "war on terror" was hung on a lie, has bugger-all to do with Iraq, and hasn't done $#!7 to "stabilize the region".

Bush should be impeached for a number of reasons, but lying to his people in order to springboard his personal agenda in Iraq is the first and foremost.

Finally--favour me with an answer--in what situation and in what era has murdering civillians outright proven effective? The last person I can think of who practised that sort of thing was displaced by a foreign power because he had WMD ... or something ...

 
At 5:12 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Finally--favour me with an answer--in what situation and in what era has murdering civillians outright proven effective?"

Ask some harder questions man.

HIROSHIMA AND NAGASKAI. Two bombs. 214,000 PEOPLE.

It ended the largest war in world history. Come on....

I need to start a blog called COUNTER METRO...what you should know about history!

 
At 10:05 am, Blogger Metro said...

The atom bombs are an exception. The war ended not in itself because civillians died, but because the Japanese saw the awful power of the atom bomb. Not to mention that their war machine was stretched already to the snapping point.

Was it smart to drop the bombs in major cities? Or would an offshore drop have gotten the point across more effectively and with less loss of life (that being one of the great arguments in favour of dropping the bomb)?

But let's give it to you: Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II.

Where would you drop an atom bomb to end TWAT? Washington, perhaps?

Oh, and in response to your question:
"At what point did someone decide that the rules needed to be changed and that innocent people were hands off?"

There's this thing in history (you presumably would know it better than I) called the Geneva Conventions, which defined very narrowly the rules under which civillians could be deliberately killed in war.

And while I may not know about history, my timid friend, at least I know what's going on right before my eyes.

Do you still feel that "the innocent have nothing to fear" from ***'s illegal phone taps?

Oh, and from your comments it seems so but I must ask: are you credulous enough to believe that the Iraq adventure and TWAT are the same thing?

 

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