Clear and and as forceful as a slogan. It's all there except there can be no opinion short of treason that should make a person "not deserve to be an American." Having stupid, vile opinions is a guaranteed right

Are you saying my opinions are stupid and vile? I think not standing up to our enemies when they clearly threaten our way of life - IS TREASON.

when do i get my free jackboots?

Blow it.

You guys are MARRIED and you're spitting at each other on the board? What is this, James Carville v. Mary Matlin?

If so, go for it! I love it!

sorry, i can't...i'm too busy "hating America" at the peacenik rally

>Blow it.

Dawn, dear, read carefully before you coil and strike: I said "having stupid, vile opinions is a guaranteed right" in response to your saying that if they don't agree with you on this then they cannot "call themselves American." Obviously, I do agree with your opinion of the Iraq situation, just saying that being tolerant of "stupid, vile" opinions (ie, those that do not agree with your own, and my own in this case) is a key part of being American. Okay?

You sound young. If you're not then I feel even more sorry for you. You have a lot to learn.

I was going to post an arguement, but that would be futile.
http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/
In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one's own mind.


George Orwell wrote that in the 40s, not much has changed.

By the way, when the USA signs onto the treaty to ban landmines, please let me know.

Oh, what the hell, I couldn't resist, it's like eating peanuts. From today's Salon a profile and excerpt from a new book on the differences in world view between the US and UK

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2003/02/05/walmsley/

War games
An excerpt from Jane Walmsley's guide "Brit-think, Ameri-think."


Feb. 4, 2003 | Ameri-think

In spite of the fact that the U.S. is arguably the most powerful nation in the world, Yanks are not a warlike people. America was founded by pacifist religious groups who had broken ties with Europe, and the legacy remains. Throughout their short history Americans have formulated or signed many policy documents meant to reduce the possibility of conflict: i.e., the League of Nations Charter, the Monroe Doctrine, the present U.N. Charter, and the Marshall Plan. They have entered both world wars late, and with considerable reluctance. In the sixties, America made Peace and Love fashionable; and by the early seventies, aversion to war was so widespread that Nixon was forced to extricate America from Vietnam. Yes, average Americans hate fighting ... yet, they are perceived by others as a trigger-happy and hawkish nation. This is because:

1. They are the world's foremost nuclear power (Might makes Fright).

2. They once "nuked" Japan.

3. They're moving further to the political right, in pursuit of

4. a Republican president who is unfamiliar with the map of the world, and thinks Greece is a musical.

5. The successful development of Star Wars will leave the US holding the nuclear trump card.

6. Yanks may not like fighting foreign wars, but they carry guns and spend a lot of time shooting each other.

7. They fight wars in Third World countries by proxy, using CIA operatives with slush funds instead of military troops.

8. In matters of foreign policy, they have been known to support right-wing regimes that seem to prefer genocide to Communism.

9. They are fully committed to the American Way of Life, and have scant time or tolerance for alternative points of view; and, more important,

10. they have 45,000 nuclear warheads, and will not put hands on hearts and promise not to use them.

I am both young and confused. But I HAVE GIVEN BIRTH - so fuck you.

While Dawn may be in some ways politically unsophisticated, she boiled the situation down to its bare essentials quite well, other than the "un-American" part. Sometimes black and white is the best way to look at a problem to avoid the Hamlet factor of gray.

And Jim, I'd be interested in hearing what these familiar complaints have to do with the matter at hand. It's like, "and you're ugly too." That might be so but has nothing to do with the merits of the debate.

The matter at hand is disarmament, international rule of law, and the goal of the UN as a body to prevent war.

The United States cannot simultaneously expect letters of marque from the UN, while at the same time refusing to respect international agreements on weapons (ABM treaty and Land Mines, along with the 1972 treaty on Chemical and Biological weapons).

While I agree that Iraq should be disarmed, I don't think bombing the fuck out the civilian population is the way to achieve that goal.

Plus the escalating arms race between India and Pakistan needs to be neutralized, the stocks of biological weapons in Russia and the USA need to be destroyed, and the Saudis (who have blackmailed the USA into attacking Iraq) need to be brought to justice. This last can only be done by an international court, which the USA refuses to ratify.

Oh, and you're ugly, too.

Who said they were planning to bomb the fuck out a civilian population? I don't recall Powell saying, "Oh and by the way, people of Iraq, best dig a hole, cause while we are wiping the evil dicator and your ELECTED president/tyrant off the face of the planet, for fun, we will bomb the fuck out of you."

I guess I must have switched channels when he said that.

Oh yeah, and it takes one to know one.

Just the same as Powell didn't say Let Loose The Hounds of War! He made the case for disarmament, not war.

http://www.longstoryshortpier.com/archives/squawkbox/000227.html

It's called Shock and Awe, in fact, tune into As It Happens (http://www.cbc.ca), they are interviewing the author this evening.

Military planners never say they are "planning to bomb the **** out of a civilian population." Usually they say they are taking extraordinary precautions to prevent casualties, and that they are bombing to fight terrorism. That's what Hitler said in 1939 when he bombed Poland.

Explain, O Princess of Pain, how the following does not in fact constitute "bombing the bleep out of civilians":

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews/main537928.shtml

http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/07_14_44.html

In the last war the British Empire lost nearly a million men killed, of whome abou;three-quarters came from these islands. Most of them will have been under thirty. If all those young men had had only one child each whe should now have en extra 750,000 people round about the age of twenty. France, which lost much more heavily, never recovered from the slaughter of the last war, and it is doubtful whether Britain has fully recovered, either. We can't yet calculate the casualties of the present war, but the last one killed between ten and twenty million young men. Had it been conducted, as the next one will perhaps be, with flying bombs, rockets and other long-range weapons which kill old and young, healthy and unhealthy, male and female impartially, it would probably have damaged European civilization somewhat less than it did.

Contrary to what some of my correspondents seem to think, I have no enthusiasm for air raids, either ours or the enemy's. Like a lot of other people in this country, I am growing definitely tired of bombs. But I do object to the hypocrisy of accepting force as an instrument while squealing against this or that individual weapon, or of denouncing war while wanting to preserve the kind of soceity that makes war inevitable.

- George Orwell, Tribune, 14 July 1944

I am still confused. Do you mean Queen of Pain as in I am the Queen of inflicting or receiving?

Cause I can definitely kick some ass, especially if anyone comes near my children.

I suppose I equate defending the freeworld from the likes of people like Hussein to defending my family. Shouldn't we all?

Jim - I am not sure what your point is. Could you be a little more concise and use less quoting of sci-fi writers please.

I mean inflicting, esp. on the innocent Iraqi victims of Shock and Awe (see my CBS News link above).

Speaking of which: U.S. military planners anticipate launching zillions of missles at Bagdhad, "rather like Hiroshima," to use the defense guy's boast. Bagdhad is a city of 5 million plus people.

So what, O Dawn of the Darkness, is the moral distinction between Osama bin laden flying planes into New York high rises, and Rumsfeld flying planes into Bagdhad high rises?

The answer, sweet pea, is that there is no moral distinction. And so if you support the Pentagon's plan, you are the exact moral equivalent of those Arabs who cheered bin laden.

So there.

If the world is mad at America for anything, it should be for the invention of the phone-in talk show. The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around. (Being ignorant myself, I'm not mad personally.)
-- P.J. O'Rourke

Well, so much for changing my conceptions of what 'murricans know about the rest of the world. Co-incidentally, I just finished reading "An Empire Wilderness" by Robert D. Kaplan.

On the US military and foreign policy at Fort Leavenworth:
"During another discussion a visiting Canadian officer said, "The biggest threat to Canada is that the United States will collapse on itself. Canada's problems are out in the open, but the degree of turmoil in the U.S. is not admitted." Canadians have always sneered at the "disorderly" United States, but I noticed that protests from the American officers to the Canadian's remarks were muted."


But that digresses (look, something shiny!)

Could you be a little more concise and use less quoting of sci-fi writers please.


Of course, since we are only talking about wholesale slaughter. Eric Blair was many things, but "sci-fi writer" was not one of them. Blair was an ex-policeman who served in Burma, fought in the Spanish Civil War (Picasso created Guernica after the fascist bombing of the civilians of that town, a reproduction of which hangs in the UN Security Council. This week, the UN covered the painting with drapes before Colin Powell's presentation, maybe it was an irony thing) and wrote as a journalist, essayist and novelist under the name George Orwell. Orwell was 47 years old when he succumbed to tuberculosis in January 1950.

The point? When he writes about the consequences of bombing civilians, he is writing about events he experienced first hand. You could do worse than to read his essays on "Politics and the English Language" and "Notes on Nationalism". Despite the passage of more than 50 years, not much has really changed.

Sometimes black and white is the best way to look at a problem to avoid the Hamlet factor of gray.

Well, it's always easier to look at things simplistically and boil them down to absolutes than it is to look deeply at things...

You can do all of the deep thinking and investigating you want - which I have been doing for a year and a half now - and it still comes down to yes or no, black or white in decision-making terms.

Mike, I am always sympathetic to the plight of civilians, and their peril is always the worst part of war on a moral level, but I am very surprised and disappointed that you would compare an unprovoked terrorist attack whose only intentin was to kill innocent civilians, and a war of self-defense and liberation where every reasonable precaution will be taken - as it clearly was in Afghanistan and elsewhere - to avoid civilian casualties. This is perverse and disingenuous and I have a hard time believing you really believe it. I am shocked - you are not Chomsky.

Let's not forget, the terrorists who flew OUR planes into OUR buildings DIDN'T call ahead to let us know.

The Iraqi people have been preparing for war for a couple of months now.

Had we had warning of such an attack, I think we would have cleared out of those buildings right?

Mike - Even my shameless ass thinks you went WAY too far with that comparison. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME ON YOU.

Move to France if you are going to be so ridiculously without a clue.

I MEAN REALLY!

Dawn, your comments are sickening. By what law do we risk the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians? They are not for us to kill; this is Saddam's job. Also, you act as though he poses some sort of threat to the U.S. and to those around him. When has he ever taken aggressive action toward another nation? And to the extent that he has, can you blame him when people like that Jew who died on the Space Shuttle keep blowing up his nuclear-bomb-making factories? Perhaps if certain imperialist nations minded their own beeswax, he wouldn't feel so threatened. Food for thought.

We can and must work to find a way to disarm him without the use of force. I believe if the UN were to pass a unanimous resolution ordering Saddam to disarm, he would do so. And if he didn't, we could try him in absentia in the International Criminal Court. While we wouldn't actually be able to enforce the verdict because he would have atomic warheads by then, I for one would jerk off vigorously at the thought that we had used the proper channels of international law to achieve a hollow, meaningless, purely symbolic victory.

The simple fact is, before we undertake to use force, we owe it to our enemies to let them build up the strongest possible arsenal. If that means we lose a few more Americans in the process, so be it. We are, after all, hardly better than Nazi Germany; and wouldn't you secretly enjoy seeing those hook-nosed Zionists finally get taught an atomic lesson? The wages of occupation are bitter and radioactive! And before you make the argument that they have civilians too, let me remind you that they all serve in the military.

Hoping you will see the light,
N.

Well-put NC, I would take it one step further and say that we should never fight anyone with greater firepower than our opponents possess. After all: fair is fair. If we go after cannibals in New Guinea who have sticks and rocks - sticks and rocks it is for us. Since we are never any better morally than those we oppose, why should we have any military advantage?

Eric--Alternatively, instead of lowering our military capacity to meet our opponent's, we could raise his to meet ours. I have often wondered why it is that the Zionist entity is permitted to harbor hundreds of nuclear weapons while totalitarian Arab dictators are not permitted one. Imagine how much safer the Middle East would be--and how much goodwill we would amass!--if we were to donate one or two hundred of the fucking shitload of nuclear weapons we currently possess to the governments of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Ten or twenty "Jewkiller" missiles aimed at Tel Aviv could mean the difference between the unceasing tensions that plague the region today and a golden age of brotherhood. Bush! WILL YOU LISTEN?!

Sorry, wrong link in that last post. Here's the Saudi link.

Bush's purpose is not to liberate the Iraqi people. Only intellectuals believe this, including pro-war liberals like David Remnick and Eric, and a few neoconservative super hawks.

Every one else, including the White House, knows the war is primarily about oil. However, it is not about securing fuel for our SUVs or other such nonsense. We don't need the oil. What the U.S. government desires is the strategic advantage the oil confers. Control Middle East oil and you control the world.

In addition, the war is being fought to aid Israel in its crushing of the Palestinians, and to further the Bush Administration's domestic agenda. By keeping the public focused on Iraq, the White House diverts attention from its economic mismanagement and staggering corruption. Karl Rove has explicitly said so to associates off the record. As Anatol Lieven has noted, this is the classic strategy of an unelected right wing oligarchy facing a threat to its legitimacy.

None of these are noble aims, to put it mildly, and so the Administration's willingness to countenance civilian casualties in pursuing them justifies the criticism that it is a terrorist regime, albeit one presiding over the freest and most open society in the history of the world. That is not an unusual contradiction, unfortunately. Democratic Athens pursued a barbaric foreign policy, and so did free societies like Britain and France in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Eric is correct that I am "no Chomsky." Chomsky is far more intelligent and insightful than I am. I've read the criticisms of the Noamster on this board, and they are the usual slander and distortion.

Living in a "black and white" world? Yes. Killing civilians for political purposes is wrong, whether its done by private groups or by governments.

NC's comments, in particular his "Jewkiller" remark, are disgusting and anti-Semitic and I repudiate them.

Being anti-Likkud is not the same thing as being anti-Israel, which is not the same thing as being anti-Semitic. My wife is Jewish, and she is at the forefront of anti-Sharon activities in the U.S. And she is against the Iraq war precisely because it furthers Likkud aims, which are in contravention to noble Jewish tradions of economic and social justice.

Mike, we don't need to control the flow of oil, we already dominate the world, remember? Of course this neglects the fact that only a small percentage of the world's oil is in Iraq, and certainly you don't claim that we control the Saudis, or do you?

I am saddened by your cynical to the point of paranoia view of the world, and especially America's role in it. Chomsky may be a brilliant linguist, but he is a feverish, fascist-loving, hateful, dissembling paranoid when it comes to politics and world affairs and it is sad indeed that he has so many otherwise intelligent people in his sway.

As far as I can tell, Chomsky sees himself in a classic Socratic gadfly role, but real gadflies are honest and don't willfully distort every possible fact or interpretation to make their opponent (his own country) look as bad as possible.

NC was speaking facetiously to make a point. My wife was also born Jewish and she is simply pro-Israel, as am I. Israel is the only country anywhere near the Middle East where economic and social justice are even concerns - resolve the small problem of all their neighbors being bent on their destruction and economic and social justice can return to center stage.

"a feverish, fascist-loving, hateful, dissembling paranoid."

like I said, smear and distortion of Chomsky's views. if you'd like to back up this argument with specific quotes from the good doctor, I'd be happy to discuss them with you. You won't be able to do so because they don't exist.

Iraq is one of the world's major oil producers, and it is nowhere near capacity. Again, as pro-war Thomas Friedman of the New York Times says, anyone who maintains it's not about oil should be laughed off the stage. Wolfowitz and gang have openly argued that the U.S. should seize Saudi oil fields to secure its hegenomy. We have in fact enjoyed a special relationship with the Saudis since Roosevelt negotiated it with them in 1945: They give us access to their oil, we ignore their human rights record and support their foreign policy.

Since the end of the Cold War, this relationship has been slowly breaking down, to the point where it is now nearly broken. Which accounts in part for the rise of the neoconservative super hawks in the U.S.

NC speaking facetiously: Then I misread the comment and offer my apologies.

hawhahahawhawhaw - "hundreds of nuclear weapons"

my ass - try a few dozen. still too many, but it keeps 6 million from getting their pants shot off at a moments notice.

as an aside - do I have to remind everyone here about moral equivilancy? WHAT IS THE DEFINITION? Oh my - you have all forgotten!

Moral Equivilancy:
2 men stand on the side of a road
1 old woman tries to cross it
1 BIG truck races down the road at the old woman
one man pushes the woman infront of the truck
the other pushes her out of the way
both are guilty of pushing the woman.

The bottom line is this: only when Mumia is elected prime minister of Israel will there be peace in the Middle East. Together we can make it happen. Dare to dream.

Re Chomsky: the infamous MIT speech is as good a place as any to start http://www.zmag.org/GlobalWatch/chomskymit.htm

It is full of distortions, interpretations presented as fact, flat out lies, all dripping with contempt for all things American and/or Jewish. I just skimmed it for the first time in a while and it's worse than remember. He was, shall we say, wrong on Afghanistan, the motivations for 9/11, etc. etc.

His philosophy seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of totalitarian socialism. I vote no.

Mike - At what point did our elected officials say that in order to rid the world of the malignant wart that is Saddam that is must be done so by killing as many civilians as possible.

Is that why you feel the way you do? Because you are concerned about Iraqi civilians?

Gee, I am almost willing to bet that Saddam, in his sadistic desire to watch and enjoy the suffering of the Kurds, and for that matter his "own" people, has killed and will put them in harms way at much greater and higher number than the U.S. military could, EVEN if it wanted to.

I firmly believe that our government/military officials have very little desire to harm innocent civilians. Do you REALLY think that?

Oh, and Chomsky - he is just a freaking lunatic. I don't care how erudite one is on any given subject, because if your bias is wrong, its wrong- period.

Just because an autistic person can quote every third word from the Gettysburg address, doesn't make them a rational person.

Go Dawn!! I'm with you all the way!! Don't let these idiots get you down.

I think the bobmbs are fixin' to drop!!

Dawn--In criticizing Chomsky you have, once again, played right into the hands of the Zionists. Let me put it to you simply:

1. Iraqis and Palestinians = dark-skinned and impoverished
2. Americans and Israelis = white and wealthy a.k.a. The Man
3. This being so, in any conflict between Americans and Iraqis or Israelis and Palestinians, the side of the Iraqis and Palestinians is morally superior.

I hope you will come to see the truth in this analysis. If not, you are a racist.

I am a racist then.

What the U.S. government desires is the strategic advantage the oil confers. Control Middle East oil and you control the world.

And this would be a bad thing? Because...? Help me out here, Chompsky.

Nice logical table, NC! I like the ease of following steps 1, 2, and 3.

I'm glad to know Americans are racially homogenous. I was a bit unaware of this, but had been suspecting it for some time. I guess it explains why we don't have any racial tensions in the U.S. I'm also glad to know that Iraqis' dark-skin and economic difficulty boots them right out of any historical legacy they could claim about being white. I guess the Iranians had better drop that Indo-European language they're speaking, too. Though they'll probably find it shocking, I'm glad someone's watching over our racial purity, and not allowing poor folks with dark skin to slip in on us.

It's also happy to find out that that Jews are white and Palestinians aren't. This certainly gets rid of the need for all the DNA testing that still can't tell them apart. I guess this is the same logic that makes all Hispanics non-white, even though Spain is a former European superpower. I guess it's because they're too closely related to Irish or Italians or something. Must be those Mud people David Duke talks about.

Anyway, I'm glad we have some wise people around to warn Dawn about playing into the hands of the Zionists by criticizing a great thinker like Chomsky. Many Europeans also fell into this Zionist trap in WWII, and failed to promptly report the locations of suspected Jews to the Gestapo, which just caused a bunch of trouble for people doggedly trying to stop racial domination. I guess she just needs to be more careful about consorting with Jewish ideas, and should make sure she understands Saddam's moral superiority, which probably comes not only from his darker skin, but from the Arabic copy of Mein Kampf he keeps in his back pocket.

Come on Dawn, get with program and join the cause of countries that are being exploited and oppressed by rich White Anglo-Saxon nations. You can't just abandon your support for socialist workers, causes, and countries! I'll send you an application form for the National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI), and we'll get you free of those Zionist mind traps. Then you can fit right back in just like NC, who's obviously got the true faith.

Am I the only who realizes that NC was being a smartass? Hey people, I am the stupid one here. Did you forget.

The ironies are turning in on themselves - maybe we should start over.

It boils down to one thing - Bush will make it happen. Doesn't matter what the world screams at him to do or not do. It will happen. He's Da Man with his finger on The Big Red Button. He will make that phoncecall from the Red Phone at the 11th hour. He will find the smallest thing which will justify American presence in the Middle East, whether it be old and forgotten-about warheads, or hangers packed to the brim with weapons of "mass destruction". All this quoting backwards and forwards isn't helping anything. It's words. It's what one person said fifty, twenty or ten years ago. It's still just words on a wishlist. Dawn wants action, Jim wants peace, NC... still figuring that one out, I want justice... So on and so forth.

Dawn, I really believe you're formulating your own opinions and trying to express them. And it must be frustrating to be attacked.

However, when you post like Jen of the GreatestJeneration, do you really want those of us who don't agree with you to engage in any sort of conversation?

I've been across the blogosphere today and am just a little tired of being called an idiot, an anti-bush person, a peacenik and a myriad of other epithets because I am not convinced this is the right way.

If you want real discussion, then leave room for it. If you just want to wank and preach to the choir, then do that too.

But I'm not clear, Dawn. What DO you want.

It says a lot about people's perceptions of the anti-war left that my posts are being taken at face value. Folks, I'm laying it on here with a trowel. Mumia as prime minister of Israel? Hello?

Ren-
Did you read that Lilek's article or do you just have insider knowledge of the existense of the "big red button"?

Oops! Sorry NC! I've encountered so much nutty stuff lately that I can now accidentally take the wildest parody of an argument at face value.

I'm still trying to figure out the great oil conspiracy, though. If Saddam had gotten functional control of the world oil supply by invading Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc., he would've squeezed the west by raising the price to the moon, which would also of course make all oil companies rich as can be. (Who can't make a profit at $50 or $60/barrel?)

If the U.S. had control of oil prices and dropped the price through the floor, like Reagan had the Saudis do in the 1980's, our own oil companies will lose all their profits, and have to lay off lots of workers, just like they did in the 80's. The interests of the U.S. and the U.S. oil companies are in many ways completely opposite, so the conspiracy eludes me. Maybe oil executives now have a visceral hatred of profits or something.

There's just that gut feeling that it's all a vast oil conspiracy, so no matter what happens, it has to be part of the secret scheme. On the other hand, some geologists are now thinking that Sweden has more oil than Saudi Arabia, that the world supply is actually unfathomably large, and that we haven't been drilling deep enough to find it. However, the jury is still out on this one, but the Russians are pursuing it full bore.

Of course many people in WWII kept claiming we were only fighting the war to defend the interests of Royal Dutch Shell.

Jane,

That is an excellent question and one I am not exactly sure of.

The only thing that comes to mind is security. I want to feel secure about something, anything, because right now, I think a lot of people feel deeply insecure about their lives and enforcing our power over another is about the only thing we have left as a country.

hey, this is great! It's me against everybody, and i'm winning! That's because i'm the good guy!

Eric: thanks for "skimming" the speech you cite as Exhibit A in your indictment of the Chomsker. I actually took the time to read it. Nothing in it remotely confirms your view of him as "a feverish, fascist-loving, hateful, dissembling paranoid." You must be thinking of Rumsfeld.

Is Chomsky WRONG about certain things? Well, yes he is, just as you and i are. But if you're going to level demented accusations at him, it would be helpful to actually QUOTE him. To quote him, you'd have to READ him. Don't let me stop you.

Dawn: You asked where U.S. officials said they're going to kill massive numbers of civilians, or that they would be willing to do so, to take out Saddam.

I answered this before, above. I said it so nice, i'll say it twice: Military planners never say they are "planning to bomb the **** out of a civilian population." Usually they say they are taking extraordinary precautions to prevent casualties, and that they are bombing to fight terrorism. That's what Hitler said in 1939 when he bombed Poland.

Do I REALLY think U.S. officials would be willing to kill innocent civilians to achieve their objectives? Yes, of course I do. They've done it before, routinely, in Indonesia and Indochina, to take only two examples. Why wouldn't they do it again? The CBS News link above (and following) indicates they are very much willing to do so. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews/main537928.shtml


Here's a little test for you: Try to come up with a definition of terrorism that doesn't include core U.S. military strategy and policy. Some smart-asses have been placing ads in The New York Review of Books offering $1,000 to the first person who can do this. So far, no winner.

NC: I know Mumia. Mumia is a friend of mine. And let me tell you, you ain't--ah, forget it.

It just occurred to me that not a single one of you cheeseballs knows what Chomsky actually believes.

What for example, does he think the core purpose of U.S. foreign policy is? (I happen to differ with him a bit on this, but never mind that.)

Well, come on, let's hear it. No cheating! If you get it right, I'll let you borrow all my Rage albums!

Mike,

Unlike you, with your obessive compulsive disorder that forces you to examine your own anus every five minutes looking for your demented brain, we have lives.

What war are you winning? The war of wits? We choose not to fight with those who cannot defend themselves properly. It's a well known fact that anyone who subscribes to the vacuous FACIST, RACIST and HATEFILLED drivel of Chompsky is in fact a hopeless crack addict who worships the devil.

So you may now refer to yourself in the third person as "DEVIL WORSHIPPING HOPELESS CRACK ADDICT," then and only then will I take you even remotely serious.

As for killing innocent civilians in Iraq or innocent civilians in general, I think to US has earned the right to fight the war on terror as we see fit - we DID in fact suffer a FEW deaths on September 11.

Do you live in the US? Maybe for once Ashcroft will find a purpose for his life, and hunt you down as the US hating non-American, bordering on treason, scumbag that you are.

Mike, you unequivocally SUCK the big one. AND HARD.

We will go to war in Iraq under the authority of at least a half dozen UN resolutions since 1991. We will go to war in Iraq under the resolutions (3 at least)passed by the United States Congress on the matter, one being in 1998 authorizing Clinton to take action. The first Gulf War never ended. Saddam got a truce, and the terms of that truce had certain requirements. He has consistantly, by all UN and US accounts, failed to keeps these terms.

Iraq poses a threat to its neighbors. Saddam's thuggocracy has demonstrated that it will not cease to make war on its own citizens and it neighbors. The US has both a moral right and a right of self interest in freeing the people of Iraq and stabilizing the region.

The United States refuses to disavow the use of nuclear weapons. This is as it should be. There are other nuclear powers in the world, and other nations with chemical and biological weapons. Our nuclear weapons continue to be a response to that threat. If you want to look at a nation that is irresponsible concerning nuclear weapons, look at France. There is no possible reason for France to continue to develop and test nuclear weapons other than their use as a tool to dominate and subdue France's neighbors. France could have chosen South Africa's path to disarmament long ago, and has not. It could be lumped in with North Korea as a rogue nation, for no other reason tthan this.

The land mine treaty is another irrelevency. Land mines have a place in warfare, and used either tacticly or strategicly, save the lives of your troops and take the lives of your enemies. South Korea rests behind a buffer of land mines, for example. It is the ill considered and indiscrimate use of mines, including use as terror weapons and against civilian populations, that ought to be objected to, not the military use of mines.

Freedom of speech is precious in the United States, but the primary intent of that Amendment to our Constitution was to restrict the government. Americans still enjoy the beloved ability to hear an opinion and call the opinionator a "wing nut". I applaude Dawn for exercising her Constitutional rights both eloquently and effectively.

I say, "Nuke 'em till they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark."

Mike-
If you could possibly stop basking in the glow of your stunning "victory" for a moment and please elighten some of us cattle?

1. Um, yes, and would you care to provide QUOTE's to support your assertions, or would you rather just pedantically chastise others for not doing so. And since you seem to be somewhat of a scholar on Chomsky, could you succintly describe for me his stand on the "Critical Age Theory"? That's a linguistic thing from his supposed area of expertise. And since we're talking Noam, is there a reason he's not the head of the Poli Sci department?

2. So what is your position? Is it "Anything but America" or "Anything but Bush"? Or do you bother to differentiate? Please, if you could, propose an alternative course of action. Obviously, the US has had unsuccessful forays into nation building, but would you argue that Japan, Germany, or South Korea are failures? And perhaps you could explain why, in our thirst for empire, we abandoned the Philippines and Panama?

3. Lastly, I'm interested in your insights in the Targeting Process of US forces. As a former targeting officer, perhaps you could enlighten me on the evolution of rules of engagement, the air tasking order, and the D3A methodology as they pertain to the targeting civilians.

Take your time, and savor your big "win".

you say it like it's a negative thing.

now you see, the way this polemical, bare knuckled debate thing works is: when i say something like "i'm winning," you're not supposed to fly off the handle and go completely berserk. instead, you pretend calmly to be unimpressed, and then get back in the game.

the "i'm winning" line is an example of a classic tactic: throw napalm on a towering inferno and then watch your opponents consume themselves.

i'm here to argue, obviously, but i'm also here just to have fun, and right now, i'm having a blast. i frequently go on conservative boards like freerepublic.com in an even more incendiary mode, and often get kicked off. total fun.

i'd suggest making the discussion board more prominent on the page to encourage debate. Like many boards, including anti-war ones, this place too easily lapses into an echo chamber, a herd of independent minds, to borrow the phrase.

Oh silly me, so would you care to address any of my questions then? As you are a master debater and all.

As soon as somebody answers my question about Chomsky above, i'll be sure to do so after i get back from work tonight. yes, i do have a job, toiling as a wage slave in the bowels of Corporate America.

C'mon now, you're the one with the inside track on the guy, please, enlighten us. Why make us put up a rhetorical pinata just so you can bat us down? Again...

i asked the question first, so the ball is in your court. i play rough, but i play fair. don't be a wuss.

Are you asking what he thinks it is or what he thinks it should be?

That's ok, I'll go for both. One thing though, as you've already demonstrated that you have some difficulty recognizing facetiousness: I find you to be an argumentative lightweight and somewhat more impressed with your abilities than anyone else is. But that's just me.

Chomsky sees US foreign policy as a policy of terrorism in which we are currently reaping what we sow. His proposed solution is to abandon said policy of terrorism which will result in an immediate reduction in the level of terror. Additionally, it is his position that the US should comply/defer to the UN, ICC, or any other entity of international consensus in matters of foreign policy.

Man, that's heavy. Has he been given a Nobel Prize, yet? If no, why not?

Joe, did you say that Mike was a "master debater" or a "masturbater"? Because he certainly has honed his technique in mental masturbation.

Carry on.

Oh and also, mike, you can feel free to come over to my site and carry on this session. I have comments and readers with free will, they would be happy to engage you in pointless rhetoric.

Some of them are even freaky liberals with an even better sense of reality than you.

Joe and Chuck, you are invited too.

www.dawnolsen.com

Joe McNally: Nope. The "terrorist" foreign policy is an effect of the principal purpose. And Chomsky has never said we are reaping what we sowed. That's gross.

Anybody else? Eric?

Dawn: That masturbation line was hilarious. I am, indeed, a master debater. Don't knock it. It's debate with someone I love.

By the way, the Iraq War is NOT about the oil, about "the strategic advantage the oil confers"? Consider this:
http://oilandgasinternational.com/departments/world_industry_news/jan03_france.html

Mike-
Sorry, I was paraphasing, perhaps your understanding of Chomsky does not go beyond the literal. I invite you to go back and read his piece cited above.

Additionally "Every one else, including the White House, knows the war is primarily about oil. However, it is not about securing fuel for our SUVs or other such nonsense. We don't need the oil. What the U.S. government desires is the strategic advantage the oil confers. Control Middle East oil and you control the world." was a quote from one of your earlier posts. I assume this means you are backing away from this position.

Mike-
That nope is a swell answer, but would you care to refute?

Chomsky-"we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan is not the only one, in which we organize and train terrorist armies. That has effects. We're seeing some of these effects now. September 11th is one."

Sorta sounds like reaping what you sow to me. I think at the time Chomsky was also accusing the US of 4-5 million deaths in Afghanistan. Yeah, that happened.

And nope to his proposed solution?

C'mon work with me. He doesn't think we should defer to international orgs?

I guess you're probably not prepared to answer any of my other questions either...or at least seriously try.

Mike, Okay - I concede, you are only partially a dick. At least you are in touch with yourself (so to speak).

I think Joe asked you some questions, are you gonna answer? Cause I am waiting for someone to explain to me why I shouldn't think that Chomsky is indeed a mental case waiting for the ward to clear up space for him.

Do you hear crickets?

Joe - No I didn't. But everyone knows about The Big Red Button. It's not something new. Hell, there's even a website for it.

Yay, I'm winning! nigh-nigh!

Arguing that actions have consequences, as Chomsky does, is not the same thing as saying that one "reaps what one sows." The bond traders, janitors, secretaries, security guards and lawyers who perished in the WTC never recruited bin laden, armed the fundamentalists, trained one of the 1993 WTC bombers at the High Rock Gun Club in Naugatuck, Connecticut, dispersed terrorist training manuals like so much confetti over the Afghan and Pakistani hillsides, or in general conducted themselves like thugs and bullies. It was the Special Forces and the CIA and the neoconservative super hawks who did these things. Far from reaping any bitter fruit, these groups are as well-nourished as ever.

And even they could not be held responsible, in any direct sense, for 9/11. A useful analogy is with the Versailles treaty after WWI. Everyone agrees that the vengeful and punitive sanctions the allies imposed on Germany helped Hitler grow his movement. But it would be an utter moral grotesque to argue that the allies were "responsible" for Nazism.

Regarding oil, where did I ever back off from the statement you quote? I linked to an energy industry publication that all but admitted that this is indeed a war for oil.

On Chomsky's prediction of 4-5 million deaths, yep, he got that wrong. Care to provide us with your own W-L percentage?

I'm still waiting for someone to answer the question: what does Chomsky think the essential purpose of U.S. foreign policy is? Suddenly, the guns have gone silent. O Eric of Blog? NC? Hello? Hello? Anybody home?

Whow, it just goes round and round, a shit storm of irrelevance. You are all wrong. That is the last notice of fact, don't even think about telling anything else unless you want to confess to beating your own children.

McNally is a ball licker, Ren is a whipped little doggie. Dawn is less than the dawn.

What am I? Oh, that's right: a master debater.

heh, chomsky believes that american foreign policy is always trying to stomp out "the threat of a good example".

that's why he described the pair of brutal marxist dictatorial coups in grenada that overthrew a democratic government, brought in soviet military experts, and built an airport for soviet nuclear bombers to use as "a mild social revolution".

of course, america can't stand the "threat of a good example" coming from a group of "nutmeg farmers", so they stormed in and put a stop to it.

nevermind that four other countries in the region appealed to america to step in and do something because they were nervous about having a dictatorial military regime with close ties to the soviets in the area.

or that the vast majority of the inhabitants of grenada were happy that the americans returned their democracy to them.

chomsky has an astounding ability to describe the events of the cold war as if america was the only player in the game.

it's like writing a history of WWII without mentioning hitler except in a passing mention as someone only "nutjobs cared about" and tallying up every questionable thing that america or any of its allies did and attributing it to cold, calculated, intentional policy.

if you honestly believe that chomsky isn't blindingly dishonest, you need to start getting information from less ideological sources.

that was totally lame, Mr. Grenada Tourism Minister. sheesh.

8 zillion chomsky haters on this board, and not a single one knows what he believes.

oh, well, time for bed.......

Dawn's right (as usual). Mike is a dick.

Chomsky makes terrific sense... as long as he sticks to linguistics. When he goes off to play the poli-sci guru, he gets really, really lost.

I've read more Chomsky that Mike has, I'm quite certain. But Dick (oops, sorry, Mike) only reads the parts he likes. Sort of like skimming a novel for the sexy parts. Doesn't matter of the plot doesn't cohere... lots of spicy T&A to distract the tots.

Or maybe Mike-head will back up Chomsky by citing Howard Zinn?

Chubby-
Thank you for your well-reasoned and articulate input, there are some excellent herbal remedies available, from what I understand. Also, keep up the great work! I've been watching your progress on Tardblog. Lastly, don't you go worrying yourself about where I put my tongue.

Mike-
The talk of Chompsky is tiring me. I'm not necessarily a Chomsky-hater in that I've studied quite a bit of his linguistic work. I think it would be more accurate to say that I'm a Chomsky disregarder. I truly don't think he's adding a whole lot of value to the discussion. So, please don't hold your breath waiting for some analysis of his keen insights.

Sorry that I misconstrued your intent regarding your quote. I just assumed that, seeing as how you have the whole internet at your disposal, you could do better than cite a blurb that is based on reports from the Teheran Times. My bad.

Not sure what my W-L percentage is based on the fact that I tend not to prognosticate. I did figure that we'd kick booty in Afghanistan so I guess I'm 1-0.

Have a great weekend!

Hey Chubby,

Are you looking for someone to lick your balls? I bet McNally, Ren and myself would be happy to kick you the balls. You are a nitwit. I should have known you were a Carruthers toadie.

Mike, I think a lot of people have taken debating with you seriously. That should give you a sense of pride. Obviously you put up a good fight. Are you going to pull a French manuever on us and surrender?

That would be really pathetic.

I am not a erudite on Chomsky. But Juke is. I don't have to be, I have an intelligent husband do all my thinking for me. He says Chomsky sucks, and I say how hard?

Are you looking for someone to lick your balls? I bet McNally, Ren and myself would be happy to kick you the balls. You are a nitwit. I should have known you were a Carruthers toadie.


I'll have you know I'm his piss boy. And as for ball licking, show me somebody doesn't like Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls, and I see somebody who is not into teabagging. And the next time you're in your local Mooby ...

BTW, when did war become a spectator sport?

The Final Word and the Answer to Today's Quiz:

Chomsky argues that the core purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to provide a stable, SHORT-TERM investment climate for U.S. corporations. This does NOT mean that every action, let alone every war, springs from this goal. Certainly anyone who argues that we are in Afghanistan or the Balkans to obtain oil or something like that is a moron. But this is the central, animating principle that drives our foreign policy, and accounts, inter alia, for our control over the IMF and other multilateral lending institutions.

If you keep this in mind while reading Chomsky's views on foreign affairs, it will hopefully lead you to re-consider your view of him as "hateful" or "paranoid." At least give him another chance.

Remember (quoting Chomsky almost verbatim): the state is not a moral agent. The state is a system of power, responsive only to internal distributions of power. PEOPLE are moral agents. The corporate elite is the dominate "distribution of power" directing the government's foreign policy. (In domestic policy, power is far more diffuse and democratic.) To create a humane foreign policy, people must exercise their moral agency. Since this is an internally free society, you and I have a greater responsibility to do so then, say, people living in Iraq or North Korea.

Dawn gets 10 points for being funny. Everybody else struck out.

Better luck next time!

yawn...

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Haha