Re: "The whole story on Maher's opinion. Without your editorializing"
HERE is the whole story, you lying Sack of S. You've quoted from a different program, not the one in question. Oh, doing THAT would show how accurate my characterization was, wouldn't it, and we wouldn't want to do that now, would we? What, you are thinking maybe Dan B. can't find the link to it? You are just behaving dishonestly, and it's rather disgusting IMHO. Hadn't read the show in question yet? Sure, just print that a reply like that anyway, you slimy fool. Ok, sorry for the ad hominems, here's the meat. Find the third bolded bit below, from the show I was speaking about, then tell everyone about "editorialization," or your implication that I've mis-represented what Maher said, fool. Here:
Re: "SENOR: It does (look) bad. And you know what, Bill? Parts of it are really bad. The violence, the insurgency that keeps targeting Iraqis, sometimes targeting Americans, is certainly not what we expected, and it's bad and it's tragic and it's awful. That said, if you can get beyond the minute-to-minute events that furnish the daily headlines and take a look at the sort of big macro events, you actually have Iraqis risking their lives to build a democracy in the heart of a region that has never known it.
Now, we can go fight all the wars we want, to fight the war on terrorism. But ultimately, the long-term antidote to terrorism is not going to be fighting all these wars. It's going to be trying to build some modicum of democracy in that part of the world so that Arab Muslims can hold their governments, their own governments, accountable for the dreadful socio-economic conditions under which they live, rather than constantly going into the mosques and the madrases and being told to blame us and channel their anger into violence against us.
So what we're trying to do in Iraq is help the Iraqis build something that could, hopefully, over time – and I don't want to sound Pollyanna-ish, it's going to take a long time – but over time, could be a model for the region. That's why I'm hanging onto hope. [scattered applause] [mixed reactions]
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SENOR: I think Americans have every right to be frustrated with daily events in Iraq , with daily events with regard to Katrina. But I will say, Bill, Americans aren't seeing the complete picture in Iraq , okay? I was just there in July. You go to the Iraqi National Assembly. Twenty-five percent of the assembly is female. That's a higher percentage in the Iraqi Parliament that's female than our own U.S. Congress. I mean, there are events going on in that part of the world that would make Americans proud, in terms of what we're doing there and what we're helping the Iraqis build.
MAHER: Okay. [applause]
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MAHER: Okay, say he won Florida , and after 9/11 – and maybe there wouldn't have been a 9/11 – well, Gore was a reader. [laughter] [applause] [cheers] Stop. Assuming 9/11 happened, but Gore chose not to invade Iraq , how would the War on Terror now be worse?
SENOR: Well, I think we would have focused – I think, a Gore administration—
MAHER: Focused, exactly. [laughter]
SENOR: --would have gone after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and gone after the Taliban. And that would have been very good. The problem is, it's not enough. For three decades, we've ignored the entire Middle East . Basically, our policy was, ignore these dictators; let them do whatever they want in their own backyards; let them treat their citizens anyway they want, as long as they gave us gas for cheap.
And I think now what we're doing is trying to change that dynamic and put these regimes on notice that they are going to be held accountable by their own citizens and give their citizens an outlet for the lives they lead. And hopefully, that could stop these incubators of terrorists, for terrorism, being created. And I don't think a Gore administration – it's hard to talk hypothetically here – I don't think a Gore administration would have gone the extra step to pro-actively turn the region upside down, hopefully for the better.
MAHER: Right, and—
SENOR: I think they would have stopped – I think they would have stopped at Afghanistan , and I don't think that's enough.
MAHER: Yeah. And you know what? In ten, 20, 50 years, you may be right. I mean, it is – what I admire about what you guys did in Iraq was that, unlike so many political solutions, it was a long-range way to look at the problem.
SENOR: Absolutely. And you know what?
MAHER: [overlapping] But you seem to have messed it up.
SENOR: [overlapping] People who criticize it – people who criticize it – I'm open to criticizing the policy, but they've got to articulate what their policy is. I mean, it's not enough to say the Bush policy of trying to build democracy in the heart of the Middle East is not going to work; it's a bad policy. What's their counter-proposal? Is it to continue to ignore these dictators? Continue to ignore the human rights violations—
MAHER: Okay, what—
SENOR: --in that part of the world that breeds these terrorists?"
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