Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

[anthonydr2]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

Overall a good article. Only unfortunate aspect is he seems to still underestimate the degree of misdirection, deception, infiltration, and redirection via fake flags or otherwise unnecessary drastic, painful and costly actions.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

I like the American Conservative because it doesn't cling to libertarian and western-American ideals that have take over the US. I'm of the firm belief that if we are to fix what is wrong with this country, we need a northeast/southern political alliance again. I think federalism could take us there. But it will be a hard pill to swallow for both sides. The alternative is endless economic corruption while we bicker over social matters. There are only so many years people in MA and VA, VT and MS, RI and AL, will sit and take the destruction of their economies for a veiled promise of social action. Meanwhile Lower Manhattan and Greenwich, CT suck all the air out of the economy. Perhaps the time has come to accept a federal split. Drop our "ahs" and "bless our hearts" and get over that which divides us.

For we have a common enemy that degrades us all.

Meanwhile, this article is prescient, although long. I'd recommend people read it. It explains fairly well the thought process going through a lot of us yankees up here when we voted for Obama. And it explains the downfall of the ideal that led to today's paralysis. It might not do so directly. But the seeds are there. Again, I tend to appreciate the American Conservative. It needs a liberal counterpart. We are not so different as we think. It is only the wardrums that lead us to believe it.

There's this funny thing that happens when a publication that associates itself with one or the other end of the political spectrum publishes something critical of its own side. Readers from the other end of the spectrum suddenly decide they like that publication and get a flush of altruistic feeling, declaring, in essence, "we all have so much in common, don't we? Because we can all see how wrong your side was. If only everyone could agree how wrong your side was, what a wonderful world it would be."

I suspect that left-wing readers of the quoted article felt that flush of brotherly love when the author dedicated a paragraph to reiterating a version of the "Bush Lied, People Died" meme. "Yes!", they think, "a conservative who sees how the Bush administration lied and deceived us into the worst policy mistake in American history! What a great guy!"

For the record, Iraq was not invaded because anyone thought Saddam was behind 9/11. After Saddam - who had, everyone agreed, actually used a weapon of mass destruction (nerve gas) in the past, and who had, at least in the past, been actively working to develop nuclear weapons (at least until the Israelis blew up his Osirak nuclear facility) - lost the Gulf War, the terms of the surrender required him to submit to random inspections of suspected nuclear facilities. He played games with this for a decade, thumbing his nose at the West, kicking out inspectors and then letting them back in all throughout the Clinton administration. He would refuse to let inspectors into certain facilities, kick them out of the country, and generally behave like someone who had nuclear development plans he was hiding. Given that he had actually used a weapon of mass destruction to wipe out a village of his own people in the past, there was every reason to take it seriously.

Then 9/11 occurred and we realized that the unthinkable was actually possible. We could be attacked by our enemies with devastating results. Suddenly Saddam's games with the inspectors were a much more serious matter. We had played games with bin Laden in the 1990s, not taking him seriously enough, and the result was 9/11. We were not going to wait around again and play more games with Saddam like we did with bin Laden. The Bush administration insisted that Saddam begin to comply with the letter of the law regarding the inspections and to fully account for his weapons development programs as he had agreed to do under the terms of the surrender at the end of the Gulf War. Rather than agree to be gamed by Saddam like Clinton had been throughout his administration, Bush, with the support of both sides of the aisle in Congress, gave Saddam a deadline for living up to his agreements for disclosure. When Saddam did not meet it - which was apparently, it turned out, because his own people had been lying to him for years about what the state of his weapons programs had been - Bush went to the United Nations to ask for authorization to invade Iraq if necessary in order to force compliance. When the French leader explicitly said that France would never, ever agree to such an invasion, Bush rightly ordered the invasion. (It later turned out the French had been been receiving billions of dollars of bribes from Saddam, money-laundered as transactions in the 'Oil for Food' exception to the sanctions imposed on Iraq.) The days of empty talk and the occasional cruise missile lobbed into Iraq in response to Saddam thumbing his nose at the inspections he'd agreed to were over.

It turned out that Saddam's WMD capabilities were essentially decayed and abandoned, though because of the deception within his own regime it's not clear he knew that himself. But we had no way of knowing that for sure ahead of time - he had used them before and had pursued nuclear weapons in the past and routinely prevented inspectors from inspecting various sites. We knew Saddam wanted to attack us; he had arranged an assassination attempt on Bush Sr. in Kuwait. And the leadership of both parties had been sure Saddam wanted WMDs and was pursuing them (both Clintons said as much during the debates for the resolutions supporting the Iraq invasion).

This rewriting of history to make it seem that Bush knew there were no WMDs and only used them to invade Iraq in the mistaken belief that Saddam supported bin Laden is wrong and can't be allowed to go unanswered. The left would like to believe that Bush and Cheney are that evil, but it's simply untrue. The project to try to build a Western-style democracy in Iraq and make them into friends as we had done with Japan and Germany was naive and a mistake, and it was exactly the kind of non-conservative "nation building" that Bush had condemned during the 2000 presidential campaign. It's a difficult question what to do with dangerous enemies like Saddam and the fundamentalist Muslims who want to destroy our society. We had tried U.N. sanctions, which were shown to be am impotent joke during the Clinton administration. Another idea was that we invade and depose the bad men who lead those corrupt societies and try to rebuild the nation into a nice Western democracy...and we're seeing the failure of that in Afghanistan (and Iraq is showing signs of crumbling too). Now Obama has tried what the left advocated, being "nice" - and the result is Benghazi and the 'Arab Spring' where friendly dictators are replaced with hostile Muslim fundamentalists who inconveniently kill U.S. ambassadors, sexually assault Western female reports, and otherwise generally do not act like friends, regardless of how Obama abases himself before them and apologizes.

There is no obvious answer about how to deal with enemies like bin Laden and Saddam. I don't think anyone much believes that U.N. sanction or inspections regimes are going to work anymore. I don't think anyone much believes that we can invade and forcibly convert them into prosperous secular democracies like Japan or Germany. I hope the left is learning from the 'Arab Spring' and Benghazi that simply being nice to them and apologizing isn't going to turn them into peaceful friends either.

So maybe the thing we can all agree on is that the things we have tried so far haven't worked, and the fault, if there is any, can be laid at the feet of both sides. Both sides have been wrong in their approaches, but it wasn't because they were nefarious liars. It was because they genuinely did what they - Clinton, Bush, and Obama - thought was the best and most honorable thing most likely to result in a good outcome.

[Woodsman]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

I know it's quite an assertion, Raz. I've come to it after almost 25 years, but I can point to Carl Oglesby's "Yankee and Cowboy War" as the genesis of my thinking.

Oglesby did not have the benefit of the millions of pages declassified by the ARRB in the 90s, but the broad context he laid out holds up well over the years. It’s been out of print since the 80s but I think you can get the text online these days.

As for the cast of characters, I'd certainly include the folks you mentioned, but more from a project management, public relations and stakeholder standpoint rather than the actual sponsors. Given the nature of things, I don't expect anyone we'll see direct and incontrovertible proof of the sort that will settle the issue definitively.

Please feel free to dismiss this assertion as lunacy. It won't hurt my feelings as that's pretty much what I thought before coming across Oglesby. The notion is so contrary to our most deeply held ideas about our American system that I expect most people - even in the face of the evidence - won't pay it much mind. Nevertheless, it's the conclusion I've come to and contemporary events continue to reinforce my view.

Who knows; maybe I'm in the same boat you were in back when you were sparring with the unpleasant folks you mentioned? Glad we have nice people here at iTulip.

[Woodsman]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

Just a quick follow-up. In looking for the text I mentioned online, I ran across this article in the same publication you posted. The author speaks highly of Oglesby:

"But I say to hell with Ayers and Dohrn. Let us remember the other New Left—a humane, decentralist, thoroughly American New Left that regarded socialism as “a way to bury social problems under a federal bureaucracy,” in the words of Carl Oglesby, president of Students for a Democratic Society in 1965-66 and a key figure in its Middle American wing, which extended from independent anti-imperialist liberals to trans-Mississippi “Prairie Power” radicals."

Hope you have a chance to check it out.
http://www.amconmag.com/articles/whe...eft-was-right/

[Raz]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

I know it's quite an assertion, Raz. I've come to it after almost 25 years, but I can point to Carl Oglesby's "Yankee and Cowboy War" as the genesis of my thinking.

Oglesby did not have the benefit of the millions of pages declassified by the ARRB in the 90s, but the broad context he laid out holds up well over the years. It’s been out of print since the 80s but I think you can get the text online these days.

You've truly pricked my interest. I'm going to attempt finding a copy.

Please feel free to dismiss this assertion as lunacy. It won't hurt my feelings as that's pretty much what I thought before coming across Oglesby. The notion is so contrary to our most deeply held ideas about our American system that I expect most people - even in the face of the evidence - won't pay it much mind. Nevertheless, it's the conclusion I've come to and contemporary events continue to reinforce my view.

My friend, I'd be hesitant to dismiss any of your assertions, and unless you undergo a dramatic change in delivery and tone I'll not consider your views to be lunacy on any level.

Who knows; maybe I'm in the same boat you were in back when you were sparring with the unpleasant folks you mentioned? Glad we have nice people here at iTulip.

I surely hope not!

[c1ue]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

For the record, Iraq was not invaded because anyone thought Saddam was behind 9/11.

You know, you keep saying stuff like that, and pretty soon some people might think you don't know what you actually remember:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...3/378fmxyz.asp

Editor's Note, 1/27/04: In today's Washington Post, Dana Milbank reported that "Vice President Cheney . . . in an interview this month with the Rocky Mountain News, recommended as the 'best source of information' an article in The Weekly Standard magazine detailing a relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda based on leaked classified information."
Here's the Stephen F. Hayes article to which the vice president was referring.
-JVL
OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.

Even disregarding the WMD lies - you still buy the party line?

[Woodsman]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

Both sides have been wrong in their approaches, but it wasn't because they were nefarious liars. It was because they genuinely did what they - Clinton, Bush, and Obama - thought was the best and most honorable thing most likely to result in a good outcome.

Respectfully, I'm baffled by this view. The lies started before the first bomb dropped and continue to this day. There is no honor here and we're as far away from a good outcome as we've ever been.
http://www.noworseenemy.com/?p=217

[reggie]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

Here's the article in pdf form, without all the run-on words.

I'm trying to get my Republican friends to read it. One has, thanked me for it and said he finally understands. Economic pain is a great teacher.
The other two asked if the writer was a "closet liberal".

"No man is so blind as he who will not see".

Elizabeth Elliot

I just read the following quoted response to me in another thread. What's the difference between this quote, in the other thread, and your Replican friends unwillingness to "see"?

I have no intention of attempting debate with you since you see a world of total fabrication. I don't have time to learn another vocabulary and entirely new definitions of meaning.

[Raz]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

I'm not going to address the issue as to whether or not "Bush lied"; I cannot prove that he did, and I'm keeping my suspicions to myself.

I do believe that he was ignorant of the history and culture of the huge area from Morocco to Pakistan, and from Afghanistan to the Sudan that can be labeled "Chaostan". He was and is, in my opinion, incompetent and he made one gigantic mess, both domestically and internationally.
And he gave us Obummer.

Here's my problem with the Iraq War: "Papa" Bush gathered a coalition and invaded Kuwait under the authority and approval of the UN.
(I don't like the UN, never have, and would like to see its headquarters moved to another country.) When Hussein thumbed his nose at the UN, why was it OUR responsibility to unilaterally enforce the UN Resolutions?

"W" didn't have a true coalition or a UN mandate to overthrow the Iraqi regime. I simply do not believe his administration made a clear and compelling case that Hussein had anything to do with the attack of 9/11. And the idea that we could invade Iraq and establish a functioning, workable democracy in order to change the dynamic of the Middle East was the pipe dream of ignoramus nitwits. ("Freedom is on the march!" said George W. Dumbass when there were no WMDs found; by that logic we should invade Communist China - we could free a Billion+ people! - on our blood and dime, of course)

If he wasn't a liar then he was definitely an open aggressor and a Neocon fool. Either way, Bush was a disaster. Wars bring about the death of republics and the one in Iraq has certainly helped to fullfil that mission.

It was and is a "Tar Baby"; it was totally unnecessary; and it is probably the biggest strategic disaster in our nations history, rivalled only by the "open border" lunacy that's ongoing to serve Country Club Republicans who want cheap landscaping, and Disingenuous Democrats who only see waves of new party voters for themselves, without any regard to the social stability of the United States.

[c1ue]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

If he wasn't a liar then he was definitely an open aggressor and a Neocon fool. Either way, Bush was a disaster. Wars bring about the death of republics and the one in Iraq has certainly helped to fullfil that mission.

It was and is a "Tar Baby"; it was totally unnecessary; and it is probably the biggest strategic disaster in our nations history, rivalled only by the "open border" lunacy that's ongoing to serve Country Club Republicans who want cheap landscaping, and Disingenuous Democrats who only see waves of new party voters for themselves, without any regard to the social stability of the United States.

I do agree that Bush squandered a historic opportunity to do something great, and instead did something that was very, very not great.

I actually also agree with your logic on the subject of open borders; it is purely the supply of foreign labor which ratchets down working class American wages. However, the fundamental problem with putting up a new Iron Curtain (but to keep people out) is that it conflicts with the official United States of America image: free, open, and a land of opportunity.

Maybe we need a new slogan: I gots what's mine, and you can't have it!

[vt]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

Disagree on immigration. There are 11 million plus that have entered illegally and now ask us to grant them citizenship. What happened to the rule of law?

What about the tens of other millions that are applying legally and have to wait years, even 10 or longer, to become legal residents. Why are we favoring the 6% of world population that happen to share a border, but penalizing the 94% that are trying to enter legally and following the proper process?

This is not the American way. This is a political ploy to change the dynamics of elections to favor one party over the other. Who pays for all this; other countries charge a stiff fee to enter. Are you willing to sponsor an illegal by paying for them?
What about our black citizens, whose ancestors were brought over as slaves and now have excessive unemployment and poverty? The illegal entrants are taking jobs and declining government funds from them.

I'm not saying the illegals are bad people; most just want a better opportunity. Yet the rest of the world also wants this. you want us to favor one small segment over all the others.

[shiny!]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

Disagree on immigration. There are 11 million plus that have entered illegally and now ask us to grant them citizenship. What happened to the rule of law?

What about the tens of other millions that are applying legally and have to wait years, even 10 or longer, to become legal residents. Why are we favoring the 6% of world population that happen to share a border, but penalizing the 94% that are trying to enter legally and following the proper process?

This is not the American way. This is a political ploy to change the dynamics of elections to favor one party over the other. Who pays for all this; other countries charge a stiff fee to enter. Are you willing to sponsor an illegal by paying for them?
What about our black citizens, whose ancestors were brought over as slaves and now have excessive unemployment and poverty? The illegal entrants are taking jobs and declining government funds from them.

I'm not saying the illegals are bad people; most just want a better opportunity. Yet the rest of the world also wants this. you want us to favor one small segment over all the others.

+1

Example: A friend of mine came over here from Israel around 2000. He's a highly skilled accountant and business man, and a South African citizen. Been trying to get a green card since he got here. He was about to receive it when 9/11 happened. New rules made him have to start all over again. The hoops he has had to jump through are unbelievable. The rules keep changing and he's had to start over from scratch several times. Overall he's spent at least $30,000 in legal fees. A few years ago he married an American woman; last month he finally got his green card.

His son spent several years and a small fortune in college studying to become an EMT. Got to the final semester practicum and hit a wall. Because of his legal status as a child of aliens he was not allowed to work. The ambulance job he was required to do payed a wage. He couldn't be legally employed and they couldn't let him work for free. He was unable to complete his program.

It ticks me off when people who jumped the line want to become citizens, especially when law-abiding and highly skilled applicants get screwed trying to play by the rules.

*****

In addition to the obvious partisan politics in this issue, could there be a hidden agenda to let in large numbers of young people from Mexico/Latin America so as to keep our aging population from going into decline like in China and Japan?

[photon555]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

+1


In addition to the obvious partisan politics in this issue, could there be a hidden agenda to let in large numbers of young people from Mexico/Latin America so as to keep our aging population from going into decline like in China and Japan?

Shiny, I doubt that anyone involved expects minimum wage workers to support American retirees. Rather, it's the obvious ploy to buy a permanent majority at the expense of the American taxpayer and worker. The solution to the SS and Medicare debacle is quite simple and spelled out in Obamacare. Just lop a year or two off the end of everyone's life with death panels and we're good for another decade or two, or a least till the next election. What more could any self respecting pol want? Divide and Conquer (via the Right/Left schism.) It still works as long as the populace is dumbed down by government education, and is entertained by "Idol," etc.

Barring a major miracle engendering a return to traditional values amongst the populace, including the courage to take out the trash in DC, this empire is about ripe for the plucking by the barbarians, both from within and without. "Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time." I see no hope for the moribund American Republic, only continued change to a degraded bankrupt police state. Forward!

[reggie]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

The circumstances surrounding our Iraq War demonstrate this, certainly ranking it among the strangest military conflicts of modern times.

Really...this author, RonUnz, claims that the Iraq War is one of the "strangest military conflicts of modern times". Well, Ron must not be much of a geopolitical analyst, and these discussions of partisanship and lying versus truth are comical at best, tragic at worst.

I mean, what exactly would one expect the elite to do if their goal is to crash petroleum production? Does it not make sense to control the region militarily, politically, economically, etc. before devastating its economy? This is a long term plan unfolding, and military action, and the ridiculous excuses given to the American public for such action, are totally and completely logical.

The propaganda machine rolls on......never ever relinquishing any hint of the underlying truths, no matter what it tells its audience.

[Forrest]

Re: Our American Pravda - another reason we're Screwed

I saw this and immediately thought of our last conversation. I think the author has it mostly right. And while it pains me to line up on the same side as Richard Nixon and Whittaker Chambers, the historical record supports the claim that Hiss was part of a GRU spy.

Had the New Dealers taken this best opportunity to purge themselves of people like Hiss, I believe they could have inoculated the country from the worst of the cold war anticommunist madness. In failing to do so, they handed rightists, crypto-fascist elements the broad power base required for them to seize control of the country in the early sixties.

Acknowledging the truth cannot place you into the company of anyone, good or bad, Democrat or Republican. It simply makes you wiser than those who refuse to look at the truth.

As for the New Dealers doing anything that didn't suit their personal or political agenda's, you deceive yourself that they would have done anything at all had they been forced to acknowledge such unpleasantness. They were not in any way altruistic.