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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/26/2008 10:59:59 PM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542054

So Brigadier General Cash is concerned because Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the ninth century and poses an existential threat, but then veers off that line of reasoning to say that we must stay on the attack in Iraq and extend it to Iran to ensure our supply of oil. Since we have been on the receiving end of Islamic attacks for over 1200 years, and they still have not managed to end us, it might have served to bolster Gen. Cash's argument if he could have described what has changed recently to make Islam even more of a threat than they were in those other 12 centuries. Invading sovereign nations for their oil? I don't think there'll be many songs written about that concept. Probably look kinda odd in our childrens' history books, too. If that is the kind of nation we want to become, I suppose we could make SUVs mandatory for all citizens over the driving age. BP, do you really agree with his argument?

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/26/2008 11:15:58 PM
From: biotech_bull	Respond to of 542054

BP, Thanks for posting As an independent a few things strike me immediately. His military credentials are impeccable. But he loses credibility when he paints the democrats with too broad a brush. He may be anti-bush but he's definitely a right winger, not an independent with conservative leanings, when he says the Democratic Party has fielded the foulest, power hungry, anti-country, self absorbed group of individuals that I have observed in my lifetime. He makes a good case for dealing with Iran's nuclear program before pulling out of Iraq but when he proposes another war alarm bells go off. It may mean a real war---if so, now is the time, before we face a nuclear Iran with the capacity to destroy Israel and begin a new ice age As an analogy, a scalpel-happy surgeon will often make a compelling case for radical surgery - it's always better to accurately diagnose, evaluate and exhaust all other options before pursuing a cure worse than the disease.

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/26/2008 11:43:34 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542054

Now, Iran has a clear field to dominate the Middle East, since Iraq is no longer a threat to them.... Do you have any idea what will happen if the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran , which they will obviously do if we pull out? It is not the price of oil we will have to worry about. Oil WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to this country at any price. This guy seems like a looney Dr. Strangelove type. He is showing how ignorant of the Middle East he is when he states that "the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran, which they will obviously do if we pull out." Hardly. Aside from the fact that Iran is Shia, they are also Persian. Arabs and Persians don't mix very well. He lumps them all together, and for good measure, sticks N. Korea in with the "Islamofascists." He is like a genius all right. Second, Iran hasn't refused to sell oil to us. Indeed, Iran even cooperated with us back in 2002-03 with Afghanistan. Of course, if the President insists on calling them "evil" and sabre-rattles like this guy does, then who could blame them for not selling to us? But even if they don't, it wouldn't matter much. Oil is fungible, and we'll get what we need somewhere else. CONTROLLING IRAN AND DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE ONLY CHOICE lol, he doesn't see any contradiction in this statement? Jane Fonda did more to prolong the Vietnam war longer than any other human being (as acknowledged by Ho Chi Minh in his writings before he died). This guy is totally losing it.

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/27/2008 12:31:34 AM
From: freelyhovering	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542054

The Ret. General has some compelling ideas, but he spoils it by always talking about Patriots. Also, all his training is as a 'fighting man'. Always get a second opinion if your doc suggests surgery--vested interest is a sneaky human frailty that can be disguised from consciousness very easily. I'm a veteran and my kind of patriotism leans toward the John Cusack variety--you know--free speech and dissent as the best of being an American. That is, if it is mixed with a bit of reasonableness.

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/27/2008 12:42:01 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542054

Bridge Player, for a guy who claims to be an independent and denies he's a Bush supporter, your Air Force General Cash seems to buy into almost every one of the discredited assumptions that the inept Bush policy makers have advanced. And, evidently for good measure, he throws in few freebies to show that he can be equally and independently as vapid in his thinking. So I'm curious to know exactly what it was in his editorial that you found "makes the case for staying in Iraq, and confronting Iran, better than [you] could..." I'd like to know because although it's tempting to cherry pick from the many silly statements he makes, it makes more sense to address whatever you think his best points are. Ed

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/27/2008 6:51:05 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 542054

It makes the case for staying in Iraq, and confronting Iran, better than I could But not well enough. There are a lot of interesting thoughts in there, one of which is the notion that Iran will stop oil supplies to the US when it dominates the ME, which I assume you consider to be the case-maker, but it is far from a killer essay. It's one of those pieces that resonates with those who are predisposed to the message, seems like opposition politics as usual to those opposed to the message, and a mishmash to others who are willing to listen but not easy gets. Some of its flaws have been pointed out already. Mostly, it seems to me, the essay is just not well focused, a missile that got distracted or took on an unbalanced load of red meat and ancillary notions and thus missed its target.

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/27/2008 12:24:13 PM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 542054

Pelosi clearly defied the Logan Act by going to Syria, which should have lead to imprisonment of three years and a heavy fine I was curious about this because he was so adamant in how she should be imprisoned for this. Found this differing opinion. Why Pelosi's Trip Did Not Violate Federal Law You may read accusations that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi violated a federal law known as the Logan Act when she traveled to Damascus to discuss Middle East diplomacy with Syrian President Bashar Assad. History, however, shows that these accusations will hold no legal status. The Logan Act, originally enacted in 1799 and amended in 1994, prohibits unauthorized U.S. citizens from interfering in relations between the United States and foreign governments. Despite numerous judicial references to the Act, the Congressional Research Service has discovered no prosecutions under the Logan Act in its more than 200 years of existence. It has, however, served as the basis for several political challenges, not unlike those now being launched against Speaker Pelosi. In 1975, Senators John Sparkman and George McGovern were accused of violating the Logan Act when they traveled to Cuba and met with Cuban officials. In considering that case, the U.S. Department of State declared: "The clear intent of this provision [Logan Act] is to prohibit unauthorized persons from intervening in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. Nothing in section 953 [Logan Act], however, would appear to restrict members of the Congress from engaging in discussions with foreign officials in pursuance of their legislative duties under the Constitution. In the case of Senators McGovern and Sparkman the executive branch, although it did not in any way encourage the Senators to go to Cuba , was fully informed of the nature and purpose of their visit, and had validated their passports for travel to that country." The circumstances of Speaker Pelosi's trip to Syria were similar. The Bush administration was well aware of the "nature and purpose" of the proposed trip, and while President Bush discouraged it and is now harshly criticizing it, the executive branch took no action to prevent Pelosi from leaving the country. Indeed, the White House has not mentioned the Logan Act in relationship to Pelosi's trip. Some other Americans accused of, but never prosecuted for violating the Logan Act include Ross Perot for his efforts to locate U.S. POWs in Southeast Asia and former Speaker of the House Jim Wright for his relations with the Sandinista government. In 1984, Reverend Jessie Jackson's trips to Syria, Cuba and Nicaragua drew accusations of Logan Act violations from President Reagan. And who can forget Jane Fonda's many controversial trips to Southeast Asia in protest of the Vietnam War? Yet, as far as the Congressional Research Service has been able to determine, no American has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act. Chances are, the attacks being leveled at Speaker Pelosi's trip will end up amounting to little more than, as Liberal Politics Guide Deborah White suggests, a very "premature start to the 2008 presidential race."

To: Bridge Player who wrote (68700)	5/27/2008 5:07:53 PM
From: Threshold	Respond to of 542054

" It is right up there with alien abductions and high altitude seeding through government aircraft contrails. I helped produce those contrails for almost 30 years, and I can assure you we were not seeding the atmosphere." I notice that he does not explain what exactly they are trying to accomplish with the contrails. What's the big secret? What he, you and other right wing war supporters fail to comprehend is that those who lied to initiate the latest war in the Middle East, are not going to get much support because they have proven that they cannot be trusted. They can't be trusted to tell the truth, nor to execute on a plan once they have one. There is no reset switch for them whereby they take a mulligan and get to start over and sell the war from a new angle. You need an entirely new sales team, a different approach to the "problem" and some new rules that stop politicians from going so far astray. Real accountability and harsh penalties for those who fail to play by the rules. Like Paul O'Neil said in his book... (roughly from memory) it's all about deception and keeping the public in the dark. One by one we are now seeing guys like Jim Cash and John McCain come out and state that it IS about the oil. So why didn't the republicans just say so in the first place? Why is the truth allowed out now, but not in the beginning? I guess the plan was to get you all in so deep that there is no hope of an easy extraction. Then it wouldn't matter what the truth is/was, you'd be fully committed to the neocon agenda. Then they could sweep it all under the carpet by saying that looking backwards is no way to move forwards, and hence push for their mulligan. It would take a fiction author of tremendous imagination to write such a tragic comedy, yet the republicans seem to have accomplished it with no imagination at all.