Dems Speak da Truth
[Okay I know. I am on an Atlas Shrugs crusade today. It’s all good.]
The Democrats kind of follow the line of their last Presidential Candidate: “I was for it before I was against it.” (John Kerry)
Here is a January 24 compilation of high level Democrats put together by Atlas Shrugs:
Comments
“The Democrats kind of follow the line of their last Presidential Candidate: “I was for it before I was against it.”
Even though the facts were being bent and distorted to suite George W. Bush’s taking the nation into a preemptive war in Iraq, the Democrats that I know did not support this disastrous error. But the right-wing party line is to try and paint everyone with their error in judgment.
As little reliable information as we could get out of Bush’s administration, many of us spoke out and questioned before the troops were sent. For example:
http://www.thehoya.com/editorials/083002/edit3.cfm
Bush was wrong and still is.
Friend if you read the direct quotes at Atlas Shrugs, you will realize the fringe left AGREED with President Bush and believed he was right. It was only when it became evident the CIA intelligence was faulty on the actual existence of WMD did the Lefties abandon Bush in a flip flop and used the opportunity to hamper a victory in war rather than proceed to a win.
Bush was right to remove a genocidal dictator and he is right to at least try to build a democratic nation in Iraq. If it fails it will be NO THANKS to the Lefties whose only desire is to topple the Bush agenda rather than do the right thing.
George W. Bush’s lack of forethought, beyond one-upping his father by toppling Saddam Hussein, has our troops mired in Iraq in a fourth year of his military misadventure.
Bush's broken-record mantra of justifications, "The world is better off without Saddam Hussein," has left him sounding like the perpetual delinquent that thinks he can talk his way out of anything. If he can find a silver lining in a manmade disaster of his doing, surely he might even detect great purpose in a catastrophe of Mother Nature's making.
To wit, if a tsunami had swept up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and had gotten Saddam Hussein, but in the bargain also took the lives of thousands of Iraqis, killed over 2,000 of our troops, permanently maimed untold more, seriously damaged our nation's hard-gained reputation, and cost our people billions upon billions of dollars, we might expect George W. Bush to place much value in the devastating wall of water and to take credit for its course.
He talks and talks and turns a deaf ear to the damning question; was war with Iraq our nation’s only course? The answer is no.
When presidents of past were faced with the threatening march of Communism from a USSR bristling with real weapons of mass destruction and with agents secreted throughout the world, these leaders opted for containment of this threat until it inevitably fell of its own weight. These courageous Commanders in Chief believed in the indomitable spirit of our people and the superiority of our free way of life.
There was worldwide disagreement with Bush’s Iraq War, and I wrote several things clear back then before the war started: http://www.thehoya.com/editorials/083002/edit3.cfm
Bush was wrong then and still is.
The Letter to the Editor:
The only comparison with the Cold War and the emerging Long War of Islamofascism is that both will be lengthy. Russia and American did have the MAD ideology to prevent first strike options by the two adversaries.
Radical Mohammedans would care less about Mutually Assured Detruction because of belief of dieing to enter a paradise with 72 virgins to enjoy eternal carnal knowledge. It was better than sorry with Iraq and it is also the same with Iran.
To allow psycho Islamists to acquire nukes in an irrelevant Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine is Western and America cultural suicide.
It was ludicrous that Bush had to look for a reason to justify taking psycho genocidal murderer Saddam Hussein down, that is the appeasement mentality of the Left. If that mentality justifies and condons the Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, Idi Amins, Hussein, Pol Pots and so on just because they are a sovereign nation is shameful.
That same kind of shameful thinking is right NOW occuring in Darfur, Sudan. How many lives do the powers that be allow to die before a major power steps in and ends it? Oh my God, hang that kind national (il)legitimate sovereignty.
As you likely know, Saddam Hussein was no psycho-genocidal murderer, and not a religious Muslim—he was a calculating self-serving dictator that would use any means needed to maintain his power and to protect his own skin and interests. In Vietnam we destroyed some villages to save them; Bush is on his way to one-upping that in Iraq—to destroy an entire nation to save it.
His job is not to infringe on the national sovereignty of any one; it is to protect the national interest of the people of this country and he has done a damn poor job of that.
As for Darfur and other places in which people die because of fanaticism of one kind or another, you will note that Bush did not do anything about Darfur and is not going to do anything about it. Oh he may drop a few bombs in a game of pretend that suggests he is destroying terrorists.
The existence of Hitlers, Stalins, Moas, Idi Amins, Husseins or Pol Pots was not a product of “justification.” These people came to power because of the prior screwing around of their people by outside forces.
Geopolitics served the interest of the plunderers and sewed the seeds that gave rise to repressive dictators. Not too long ago it was outside corrupting forces that not only gave rise to Saddam, but it is also what encouraged him to gas the Kurds when he was our ally against Iran.
Iran had been a fledgling democracy overturned by the CIA when British and American oil interests got upset when the newly elected prime minister nationalized the oil industry in Iraq.
There followed the turning of the Shah into a dictator attuned to the outside geopolitical interests of the West. The Shah stayed in power by means of a brutal secret police, the SAVAK. It operated secret dungeons, tortured the uncooperative, assassinated challengers, and kept oil-friends abroad comfortable. No one outside of the Middle East objected.
You said:
I don't know what you have have been reading but Saddam has ordered the killing of so many Iraqi's they are still finding the mass graves. Saddam made it a habit to launch chemical WMD against the Kurds. These are KNOWN fact that are not even open to another interpretation. Saddam may not have pulled the trigger but he gave the order.
Yes I am aware he was not a religious muslim, however towards the end to court any kind of favor with the radical Mohammedans he put on a religious show. I am sure you were aware of that.
You said:
I know for sure that Hitler, Stalin and Mao did not gain power because of outside help. They seized the reigns of power well on their own. Mao may have gotten some pats on the back from the old USSR, but they hardly got along. I am not sure how Idi Amin came into power, but my faint teenage memory of yesteryear seems to something he came about via a military coup in nation that was a majority Christian nation. Amin was a Mohammedan butcher. Pol Pot took a highly organized force that may have been provided weapons by North Vietnam, but there was no overt help. Prince Norodom Sihanouk received arms from America - he lost. The world stood by as one of the worst national genocides of Cambodia intelligencia were murdered in the millions (hello - Killing Fields).
Saddam Hussein was well in that class of genocidal murderers.
You said:
So one minute you say he is genocidal and in the same breath you say Saddam was genocidal?
You said:
Yes know one objected to the brutality of the Shah, however not even he gassed his Kurds or murdered thousands and placed his citizens in mass graves. The Shah was trying to Westernize Iran. I agree he went about it the wrong way, however his aims certainly made friends in the West.
Indeed it was anti-Semite Jimmy Carter that sold out the Shah, he could of aided in the prevention of that psycho revolution. Instead he sold out an ally and replaced him with one of the most dangerous regimes on the planet in which radical thought police continously repress freedom way more than the Shah did. The Shah repressed people who did not like him. Hmm... That would have been Ayatollah Khomeini - a grand man of the people.
If you like to think of Saddam Hussein as a psycho-genocidal murderer, enjoy. He did what he did for purposes of power. The first time that he gassed the Kurds he was seen as our friend in fighting against Iran—he gassed the as well.
You wrote,” know for sure that Hitler, Stalin and Mao did not gain power because of outside help.” You may be sure but history does not back you up. At the time of the post Great War settlements on Germany, there was warning that harsh reparations were going to foster trouble within Germany, and they did. Thus, after WWII the allies had learned there lesson and we got things like the Marshall Plan.
As for Stalin, the heart of leadership of the communist movement was foreign, and the Czar being talked into entry into the Great War set the stage for revolution. It did not help when we, the United States, sent troops into Russia to aid of the White Russians. For our effort we got Alexander Kerensky as a permanent resident of our country.
The attempted exploitation of China by the West would eventually lead to what had not occurred in China in recent history, a unified body of politically active people. Mao did not come to power in a Chinese vacuum—foreign devils helped him along. By the way, aside from our Protestant missionaries, the US had tended to be a leveling influence in China—given a Sand Pebble or two.
As for Idi Amin, I guess he is just homegrown if we want to ignore the colonial meddling in the area by B.E.A. Company. Idi even boasted of being the man that had conquered the British Empire—I wonder where it was headquartered.
As for French Indochina and the trouble left behind—gee, I wonder if there was any. But I guess we can also forget about the Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese and British in the rest of the Asian Pacific. I everything is just a homegrown problem, I wonder why George W. went into Iraq? But God bless you, I are one of the first people I have ever heard say anything nice about the Shah—I had Iranian students the hated the son of a bitch.
Maybe the Portuguese got a bad rap on their colonia ventures--they still have one on the peninusla of India and the Inidans don't seem to mind. I hope Bush does not decide to free it.
Actually history proves me out! Every arguement you tried to utilize has to do with influences not actual aid.
With your train of thought the British established America because of Locke, Burke, and other Enlightenment British philosophers; however the tangible aid came from the French in terms of money, arms and soldiers.
Those things did not happen with Hitler, Stalin or Mao! And no one stopped them with arms either.
I was not being nice about the Shah, I was just using a page from your book. All about maintaining power yet without the genocide. The Shah was a client of America and Carter sold him out and replaced the Shah with our present distress - a potential nuclear threat with no value for global politics, i.e. Khomeini's Revolution.
If those Iranian students supported Khomeini and his medieval radical Islamofascism, there is no doubt they hated the Shah. I also knew some Iranians, although the Shah was not their hero they enjoyed the freedom of Western dress. Those gals would be stoened to death today.
If the Portuguese enterprize was killing and maiming the citizenry maybe Bush would liberate it AND it would be GOOD.
Again I point out the West has not had a monopoly on imperialism, I asure you the Mohammedans excercised imperialism with much more brutality than the West and for a longer period of time.