They will still hate America and plot against the West no matter who wins the election.

Sure, George probably pissed them off a lot and they would rather see Kerry win, but hey, me too.

Thanks for your honesty!

But I love where that question is going:

Dont' vote for Kerry, because that's what the terrorists want!

I'm wondering what the point of speculation on what terrorists want is. If we base political decisions on fear generated by terrorism, then bully for the terrorists! That's what they've been working so hard for, after all.

Actually, I think Al Queda would rather see Bush in office. Bush adds fuel to the fire, gives them a villan to hate, a figure to use to enrage others to join their side.

I don't listen to Air America.. but here is my 2 cents on the article: Outrageous leftists annoy me just as much as outrageous right-wingers.

Karen...nice spin. I think there are some lower-level openings remaining in the media shop of the Kerry campaign!

Ryan...hate to say it, but terrorists have learned in Spain that they can effect elections by attacking before the election. They prefer left-wing leaders in the civilized countries that they hate.

Polamex - haha maybe...but I don't think I'm convincing anyone here to change their vote. Just an interesting question to pose, I thought.

Yeah it is an intersting question. This is going to be a real tough year to get anyone to change their vote. Not even the candidates are trying to do that (yet?).

Out of respect for horrible, horrible events with the Berg family and the violation of human rights at Abu Gharib, I'm not even going to comment further on this post besides saying that the idea of: Being with Kerry, is like being/siding with the terrorists is both asinine and completely ignorant and how low Karl Rove would go to try to win an election.

Inspired by a John Stewart analysis, try this question: if we had elected Kerry last time, would Berg have been in Iraq to be beheaded?

1. Randi Rhodes is a Harpie. I'm curious if you actually heard what happened on Air America, or if you are depending on this editorial for your information?

2. Dude says: "Karen...nice spin. I think there are some lower-level openings remaining in the media shop of the Kerry campaign!"

In all seriousness, do you really think that conservatives don't put spin on everything? Democrats and Republicans are all politicians at the end of the day. They all put spin on everything. It's their job. Like when Bush said the gruesome behading of Berg was "to shake our resolve" instead of "to retaliate for our systematic and sanctioned torture of prisoners"...that's spin, too.

3. For the record, I think they'd prefer Bush because he is only shoring up their view of America as the "Great Satan".

The point of my terse previous point being that the decision each person makes of who to vote for should be much more complicated than simply thinking "who would Osama vote into office?" Besides, I don't see how the beheading changes things at all; soldiers are dying by the handful every week, and just because the DoD manages to de-sensationalize their deaths (as best as they can) doesn't mean that they count more or less than Berg.

Micro...

Citing a "preference" between two things is different from an "ideal". If they could hand-pick the President, I'm sure they would chose Al Zahwahiri or Bin Laden (and an American vote for them WOULD be "siding with the terrorists"). However, acknowledging that they would likely prefer one cadidate or the other is not equivolent to accusing Americans who vote that way of "siding with the terrorists", in my estimation.

By the way, I don't need Karl Rove to know who the would prefer.

I, of course, would never suggest that Republicans never "spin". I was just referring to one comment that I thought an exceptionally fine example of it.

Dude - Fair enough. I was just interested in the fact that you would assume that Karen's gift of spin would be best put to use in the Kerry campaign. Are all Bush's spin positions filled? ;)

I hate to hog the board...and I was going to let it go... but to suggest that the beheading of Nick Berg was somehow justified as retaliation for prison abuse of mostly terrorists, and to be able to look at that beheading and somehow equate the terrorists morally with the overall American mission. Of course it was meant to "shake our resolve", as everything else they do is.

I don't know if I can last much longer here... Most of you are reasonable (and have been great sports about my shaking of the powder-keg), but stuff like that just furthers my thesis that extreme liberalism is a mental illness, and a direct result of the failure (despite enormous amounts of funding, increasing year after year) of America's government schools.

The first paragraph should have read

"...equate the terrorists with the overall American Mission is immensely offensive."

I left a few words out.

Before 69,000 of you take the "mental illness" comment personally and blast me for it...

Please accept my immediate apology for my lack of discretion in using that term.

I think I will take a break for the remainder of the day. Feel free to continue posting though, I will read everything tomorrow!

Wow. What kind of monster do you think I am? No where in my post did I say that what happened to Nicholas Berg was justified. At all. I don't see it even implied. Of course decapitating a man and dangling his head in front of a video camera is disgusting. It was the terrorists themselves who said in their video that their act was specifically meant as revenge.

Saying that I have "a mental illness" because I disagree with you about the validity of the war in Iraq (note: not about what happened to Berg), well, not being a good sport.

In my first paragaraph, I meant "implied in my post".

Dude, I'll accept the apology for the mental illness thing (I've said the same of conservatives), but saying that I'm gung-ho for decapitation of American civilians is a wee bit more offensive.

Dude: I don't think anyone was morally-equating the terrorists with America's overall mission in the Middle East. Torturing prisoners is as morally bankrupt as terrorism. However, I do not look upon Abu Gharib as a model of what is going on in the Middle East. It is my belief/hope that this is a rather isolated situation.

I'm posting too much here but let me retract the last bit of my previous post. I'm not in a fair and balanced frame of mind :)

I will take your angle and say truthfully that's not what I said, or implied.

I'm really closing the window now...being the lone ranger is tiring, not that I don't relish the role!

My last post was in response to the bit that you just retracted...that appeared on my screen after I posted...lol.

I appreciate that. :o)

Does anyone else think this whole thing is hilarious?

Did anyone see the Sopranos? Tony was talking about how the ports are unsecured, and about how a terrorist could sneak some weapon into the country via a shipping containter. Then some other guy was like "That's why you have to live for today." Then Tony was like "WTF, you've got kids! How can you say that?"

Then tony flipped out and beat the crap out of this guy hardcore. The guy ended up like losing hearing in an ear and shit.

Later Paulie came by to tell Tony how the guy was doing. And Paulie was like "Don't blame youself T. We always have to tell him to keep his mouth shut. This is why I make it a point not to talk about politics."

As a silent spectator, this is very entertaining! 24 posts in 2 hours! Amazing!

I'm pretty quiet usually (just ask Brette - I've been lurking around here for months!) but I just get all bent out of shape about politics. Makes the work day go faster, anyway.

Emily:
No, it's great! I'm stressed about so many things now, I just need to sit out on politics for about a week. Good to hear people that don't normally talk...talk.:)

I'm in a better mood now, so I'm not leaving.

Sorry to make empty threats. HA! :o)

It does make the day go faster...and nobody was going to rip anyone's ear off, twas just a misunderstanding.

Let's try and break the record for the most comments. i think jt (villageidiot) holds the record with 34. It had to do with politics. Cmon, we're almost there!

31 w00t !!!!

I'm done with this topic for now...

So for this post I will say..."lalalalalalalalala", for the sake of the record.

I hate to do this, but it's w00t. God it's official I'm a big loser. :-D

Hey no fair it made my 0 (zero) into an o! Now i'm really a big loser.

Since we are all calming down a bit, I had a thought that might stir up some conversation.

Months ago I must have received about 3 separate emails in a week with links to a video of some Iraqi soldiers getting taken out by a US helicopter. Around the same time I would hear people talking and laughing about it at the bar.. "You see those guys blow up? That was sweet!"

How people can be so disturbed by the graphic murder of an American, but take so much pleasure in watching the graphic murder of an opposing soldier is beyond me. It is all human life, it is all disgusting.

note: I do not equate the senseless murder of one man to the day to day military operations of our soldiers. My point is: I equate human life to human life, regardless of what side you are on -- and the lives and deaths of both our soldiers and Iraqi soldiers should be treated with respect.

I think this one will break the record...

WHO'S THE MAN!?!?!

Ryan...you screwed me and made me 36! lol

Ryan, you had to go and be the drunk Uncle that plops a steamer right in the middle of a good time! ;)

Now that the record has been broken :)...

Ryan, I was watching some sort of educational tv (because that's the kind of loser I am) and they were discussing how, in war, you have to make your enemy into "the Other". English majors (are there any?), you know what I'm talkin' about here. The idea is that the person you're fighting becomes a faceless representation of your collective enemy. If you were thinking of your enemy as the person you used to play in the sandbox with, killing them wholesale would become unconscienable. So, they become the Other and killing them is, after a while, meaningless. So you can celebrate it. It's all theoretical, I suppose, but interesting anyway. To me, at least :)

Ryan, I would never take pleasure in the taking of human life...even when the course realities of the world sometimes make it necessary within the context of war.

Those people at the bar should be ashamed, but I also understand the emotions that the average American feels. They know they are decent people, and that we have a country of mainly decent people, and they just can't understand people that would slaughter innocents UNAPOLOGETICALLY in the name of God. That frustration is still no excuse for enjoying the loss of life.

Well then, we are all in agreement. I guess I should have made some sort of outrageous blanket statement to piss people off. I'll do that now:

Why do all republicans love to kill babies for oil?

; )

Umm...yeah so ignoring that last one and continuing on..

A good example is my wife, one of the most gentle, wonderful people on the planet said last night (after watching the video of the beheading and hearing the parts that weren't shown described) "why don't we just blow up that whole country?"

Of course, she didn't mean it, it was just the frustration of seeing something so horrible. I, in fact, chided her for sounding alot like her father, who we are always ridiculing. He's a classic "stupid conservative - nuke 'em all" type".

Anyway, I'm sure there's a good chance those guys in the bar aren't monsters. There is also alot of power in group mentality.

For money.

Killing babies for money..selling the parts...oh, you must be talking about the ABORTION industry!

I'm soooo sorry, I couldn't resist.

We can save that topic for a time when we all have LOTS of energy to let out (kind of like 4 hours ago). :o)

how about that video is a fake and those people are cia dressed up like al queda

and berg was a problem the military wanted to be rid of.

2 birds one stone

you don't hear about the iraqi abuse anymore really...its a great distraction.

if you want to rob a bank go start a fire on the other side of town right?

Emily, I was wondering when you would start speaking up. I should have know it would be the day I packed up my computer.

-----------------------------------------------

Did anyone else catch Joseph Wilson on Freshair today? If you haven't check it out at http://freshair.npr.org/

Found another blog that was discussing the same original topic, so here is someone else's point of view on the matter, if anyone still cares;)

Jigen

Jig: "It occurred to me: if Bush wins, the terrorists win. The terrorists would like nothing more than our freedoms to get rolled back and that's what Bush is doing. He hates our freedoms like womens' choice, a clean environment, gay civil rights, open and honest voting, freedom of religion (he'd prefer a theocracy like the terrorists have), etc. If Bush wins, more Americans get screwed over. I'm sure that sounds fine to the terrorists."

SG: I think it sounds even better than you imagine ... Political analyst Gwynn Dyer describe why "W" was the best thing that could happen to the terrorist.

He stated that the trerrorists' project, a pan Arab theocratic state, prior to 9/11 was dead. The Arab muslims were really not interested and so the project was not growing. It had peaked and was going nowhere. If his analysis is correct, this really says something ... If in the midst of Middle East turmoil, with Arab tyrannies, many of them American supported, the radical fundamentalists could not get their project off the ground in that environment, could they get it to fly ever?

In fact Dyer and others have argued that 9/11 was a last ditch effort by the terrorists to 'resurrect' their project. They needed the 'infidel' US to do something more drastic and radical than their current level of occupation and support for tyrannies and the torture these committed to stay in power ... Bin Laden needed something like the invasion of a muslim state, say Afghanistan. They needed a more evident enemy to justify their project, an enemy more present to the Muslim world, to make their project more relevant.

After 9/11, the World obliged, Canada (who refused to go to Iraq), France (who refused to go to Iraq), Germany (who refused to go to Iraq), and many others, all sent troops to pursue and eliminate terrorists, al Qaeda and bin Laden. They accepted bin Laden's escalation gamble, with the theory that by eliminating the perpetrators, the terrorists, one made the possibility of escaltion LESS POSSIBLE and LESS RELEVANT. The world was 'united' against al Qaeda and bin Laden ... probably not a great return on his 9/11, 'hail mary' gamble.

The Bush Administration however, and this is where bin Laden starts to win big time with Bush, Bush the 'uniter' and the Administration started to diverted resources away from this 'united' solution, in Afghanistan. More than a year later, bin Laden is still alive AND able to regroup and adjust his organization, so that it is more effective, more extensive, perceived as more successful in the Arab world .... in short a greater threat. His winning ways with Bush did not stop there.

What bin Laden really needed was the US to invade and occupy an oil rich country. Bin Laden needed to 'amp-up' the anti-Arab role of the US in the Middle East. He needed the US to bring the fight to the Arabs, not just him. In short, he needed an "evil-doer". So Bush's attack, and consequent unavoidable occupation of Iraq, was like winning the lottery for bin Laden. The fact that Bush diverted funds from Afghanistan to do so, meant bin Laden won the door prize too.

Once in Iraq, with Bush's "foriegn-handed foreign policy", a "fir us or agin' us" one, would force moderate Arab nations into more radical positions, perceived and actual, for both the Bush and al Qaeda perspective. Radicalization .... gosh, another windfall for bin Laden, thanks to Bush.

Mubarak's assertion that America generally misses the sense of INJUSTICE felt in the Arab world from US actions and policies, is the environment Bush is striding into, either with ocular vision or out right distain for the Arab perspective. US support for Saudi Arabia and therefore tyranny, oppression and torture while claiming the intention of freedom in Iraq, are contradictions in the real vs the promised, actions vs. advertised, while clearly lost on most Americans, even most 'informed' Americans, are not lost on the Arab world. This further demonstration that the US will not see and therefore will not help the Arab world, provides bin Laden more justification for distrust of any US action, policy or promise. A bin Laden win!

Any occupation, that a US invasion would require, would continue to fuel the terrorists' project with surprise benefits as the US committed acts that could/would characterized them as 'evil-doers', thus further fueling the justification for their radical Islamist project and further promoting recruitment. Prior to Abu Ghraib, civilian deaths, unopposed looting, de-Bathification + re-Bathification, failed infrastructure, etc., only provided trickle down winnings for the terrorists, from Bush. Now ... BONANZA! And with Abu Ghraib and Bush's recent endorsement of the guy responsible for managing the war, bin Laden even gets nice window dressing for their BONANZA ...

So, jigen, when you say, "if Bush wins the terrorists win", the situation in my mind is worse ... Dyer has speculated that the Bush Administration is so beneficial to the terrorists project, that the terrorists will do whatever is necesasary to get Bush reelected this fall ....

Ahhhhh .... I have forgotten now, what colour of alert should that be ... RED possibly? .... at least when you enter the polling booth ... err ... to vote electronically ...
Snerd
Posted by Snerd Gronk at 05.12.2004 01.52 PM
Posted by Snerd Gronk at 05.12.2004 01.58 PM

Emily, I was thinking about The Other earlier today, in connection with all that prison shit. It's really not all surprising that prisoners would be treated inhumanely in prison during war. During war, you can't think of your enemies as people with wives and "stupid conservative" fathers-in-law. It's probably safest not to think of them as people at all. That's what makes war so terrible. And torture so easy.

When you take away someone else's humanity, you take your own with it. I keep thinking of what war could do to me. Could I torture someone? What would I see when I closed my eyes every night?

I think a lot of people may have been kidding themselves about this war. There's this feeling that modern warfare is quick and painless. The pictures and the Berg video have opened my eyes to what war is about. All politics aside, I feel crushing sadness to the very core of me when I think about it.

I think I'm going to be dizzy...reality can only be twisted so much before it becomes depressing. I can only wonder...what is the motivation to come up with stuff like this? I truly can't understand it.

There's never been in the history of humankind a country that has accumulated more power and abused it less...and used it for good...than the United States. The liberation and reconstruction of Iraq (even with all of the problems that some choose to focus solely on) is another in a long line of examples of this. It's deeply saddens me to see it so difficult for some to acknowledge that fact, for fear of giving an ounce of credibility to a President they despise.

I really agree with Karen. I never thought that this war would be quick and painless. The violent civil war that will most likely occur after the US leaves will be even worse than what is going on now.

Reality is depressing. No twisting needed.

"Life is pain. Anyone that tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something."

Credit that quote! Anyone?

Anyone?

Crediting quotes isn't very impressive when we all have Google at our fingertips. ; )

I'm going with Kevin Spacey in..... God that's gonna bug me.

The princess bride? How did I miss that?

After getting back from a night of drinking and talking politics for half of it, I just want to say that IRAQ had NOTHING to do with Al Qaeda before we invaded, and now that we've gone and completely reemed that country a new asshole, have the terrorist groups come in to fight us. So the real victims? The civilians that lived there and the men and women that are serving our country.

Reality is not always the most pleasant thing in the world, but many of you seem to have a knack for embellishing it to the nth degree.

Having talked to many soldiers and media who have been or are in Iraq, and being pretty well plugged in to the political world I can fully assure you that while some of your concerns and points are legitimate the majority of the posts on this topic have dove right off of reality's cliff. Aside from Ryan and occasionally Micro (when he's sober, or not posting weird stuff from other blogs), the conversation is vitually un-joinable. The rest of you just make up things...throw in abstract points where they are completely innapropriate, or irrevelvant, or blow the obvious totally out of proportion. The absence of basic logic and common sense is disturbing.

Admittedly, I did ask for this with my post...so I guess I can't complain too much. However, it drains the soul and makes me think the country deserves whatever it gets and I don't like feeling that way. Since I don't like it anymore, I'm gonna exercise my freedom to stop participating (for now).

Ding ding ding ding!

The correct answer was The Princess Bride!

You win nothing! Unless you did use Google, in which case you win a pumpkin. Cause you're such a cheater-cheater-pumpkin eater.

If you have a college degree you are more likely to fall on the left side of the political spectrum.

Sorry peeps I'm bored at work.

Any source for that statistic?