Sunday, June 15, 2014

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the brethren's hard-on for Iraq now that it's collapsing again -- this time without our help, which may be why they're so concerned. Oh, who am I kidding -- it's about Obama and the Democrats being weak on defense, etc. Guess we'll find out whether the American people still think we'll be greeted as liberators.

UPDATE. The Voice column mentions a lot of war-whoopers from early days who are again telling us again what to do in Iraq instead of requesting fresh blankets from their jailers in Den Haag. Well, today in the New York Daily News I see a let's-do-it-again column from... Fred Kagan. This AEI hack told us back in 2005 that "Iraq is Not Vietnam"; now that Iraq seems to be passing from the Quagmire stage to the Ignoble Retreat stage, Kagan is trying to reverse the judgment of history in his favor:
And so, the current impending defeat is much worse than the one we accepted so blithely in 1975. This war won't end with U.S. personnel escaping from the embassy roof (although that might happen as well). There is, in fact, no end in sight for this war now, especially if we allow Iraq to go down. A policy of retreat and abandonment remains as it has always been the fastest road to endless war.
Whereas doubling down in Iraq is the scenic route to endless war. Jesus Christ. Why couldn't we have given these guys the Inglourious Basterds treatment so people would know better than to trust them again?

262 comments:

  1. Team Chickenhawk is getting the band back together!
    ~

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  2. JennOfArk7:57 PM

    No one could have predicted....

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  3. JennOfArk7:59 PM

    At least this will make things easier for the Sunday morning show bookers - there's only so much John McCain to go around. Now they can tap the rogue's gallery of Iraq war criminals for their expertise and valuable opinions.

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  4. satch8:15 PM

    "...Goldberg explained that he couldn't serve because "I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, [and] I have a baby daughter."


    The main problem with Jonah's use of his baby daughter as a human shield is that babies are so small, and his ass is so big...

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  5. satch8:27 PM

    If Jonah ever gets his time machine, perhaps he'd consider taking a trip back to August 6, 2001, Crawford, Texas

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  6. Another Kiwi9:08 PM

    Won't this all turn out to be a distraction from the prisoner exchange? Which, in turn, was a distraction from some other fart thing.

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  7. deggjr9:19 PM

    Just like the Harlem Globetrotters routine ... 'I mean they never miss that shot twice in a row!"

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  8. Derelict9:21 PM

    I find myself wondering how anyone could listen to McCain, Totten, Hoft, or any of the other luminaries Roy highlighted. After all, THESE are the people who got us in there to begin with.

    And then I remember that most Americans don't remember. They don't remember Doug Feith being the stupidest guy on the planet, or that Jim Hoft is the stupidest guy on the internet, or that John McCain is the stupidest senator in the senate. I remember that my fellow citizens don't remember, and I despair.

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  9. Derelict9:23 PM

    Or, like chickenhawks before him, complaining about how all those poor and minority kids took up all the draft slots for Viet Nam.

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  10. Derelict9:26 PM

    That should be engraved on Condi's tombstone. It's a shame I probably won't outlive her, but if I do, I'll have to wheel my Little Rascal scooter there and scrawl "No one could have predicted . . ." on it with a Sharpie.

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  11. montag29:31 PM

    "Bigger than Benghazi! Bigger than Monicagate!! Bigger... bigger than... bigger, much bigger than Syria!!! You'll thrill to rolling heads! You'll swoon to the launch of new, improved Hindrockets!! You'll cheer as Jim Hoft's glasses get steamed up!!! You'll see John McCain and Scary Sarah Palin 'lay waste' to the competition on 'Dancing With the Stars!' You'll belch, you'll fart, you'll giggle to Jonah Goldberg's imitation of a circus MC!! "

    "It's the all-new Iraq Vice Capades! Coming to a television set near you. On Fox, of course."

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  12. montag29:33 PM

    A Sharpie? Nothing less than a fireaxe will do....

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  13. Derelict9:46 PM

    Hard to wield an axe from a Hover-round. Maybe I can get a hydraulically powered axe as an option.

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  14. Derelict9:47 PM

    Now in livid color!

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  15. JennOfArk9:47 PM

    I recommend a battery-operated Dremel tool with a tile-cutting disk. It's lightweight, easy to maneuver, and you should be able to handle it while seated on your Hover-round.

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  16. Fucking Jonah Goldberg. You know, we all have fun with his ridiculous wiseass-bright-boy schtick, but he really needs to learn when to drop it. Any time he applies his "wit" to a serious life-or-death situation, his callousness goes from irritating to sociopathic.

    I get his problem - as a movement con, he's used to dealing with material that's a lot more trivial. But every so often in politics, something comes up that demands comment, even if the commentator has no knowledge of or interest in the area. No one's expecting a treatise of staggering genius (or a paper of C+ quality - let's not set the bar too high). But are you shitting me? "A better option would be a time machine"? Fuck you.



    No one's expecting much of you, Jonah. You get to have a job where you can't get fired and you earn a paycheck well out of proportion to your actual talent. You get to appear on the teevee and write books, with all the idle hours in between gigs to fill with YouTube videos of animals farting. Your audience really only wants you to present them with a target for their impotent rage - your expectations are about as low as they can get. Given all this, can't you exhibit just a touch of respect and self-restraint? No one's asking you to give the eulogy at the funeral, but it would be nice if you left the goddamn joy buzzer at home.

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  17. montag29:50 PM

    Put an air tank on a trailer and get cracking with the air chisel.

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  18. tell me more about this "wmds." it sounds as though i may have to support repealing obamacare in order to do something about "wmds."

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  19. There were people who listened to Jim Hoft?

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  20. Kordo9:56 PM

    They're sure tappin' away. Doug Feith, fer God's sweet sake! I'm amazed that clown has the gall to show his face in public.

    I comfort myself with the hope, based on some evidence, that the country will ignore these vampires....

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  21. montag210:03 PM

    "No one's expecting much of you, Jonah."

    And even then, he's not meeting expectations by just... that... much.

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  22. JennOfArk10:04 PM

    Hard to believe, I know...but there apparently are people dumber than Jim Hoft.

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  23. montag210:05 PM

    It stands for Whiny Mendacious Dipshits, and, yes, they are a genuine threat to the nation.

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  24. montag210:08 PM

    O'ReillyVision!

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  25. Spaghetti Lee10:11 PM

    Thankfully, the rest of the military is made up entirely of 23-year-old independently wealthy singles.

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  26. Derelict10:11 PM

    Condi's five years older than me, so maybe I'll still be ambulatory. That way, I can do the major work with the fire axe, and finish up the fine detailing with the Dremel. (Thankfully, I already have the Dremel!)

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  27. Spaghetti Lee10:11 PM

    You'll laugh! You'll cry! Well...mostly you'll laugh.

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  28. Derelict10:14 PM

    If the WMDs don't do it, then Saddam's balsa drones of death (maximum operating range of 500 feet) should seal the deal.

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  29. Spaghetti Lee10:22 PM

    More like Freddy Kreuger is still alive for the sequel, because they didn't kill him dead enough when they had the chance.

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  30. mortimer200010:27 PM

    Doug Feith? Paul Wolfowitz? WTF? Was Richard Perle busy getting his intravenous formaldehyde infusion? Is Elliot Abrams still on the list for a morality implant? Is the Kagan family still doing that all-nude reality show?

    It's bad enough these scoundrels go unpunished, but inviting them on TV and not limiting questions to those containing the word "clusterfuck" is shameless.

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  31. Spaghetti Lee10:30 PM

    It's a source of unending fascination for me how the right flips on its puppy-dog-eyes act like a light switch when the topic switches from American unfortunates to foreign unfortunates. Not that I don't get the obvious explanations (Oil! and shifty contracting deals for the higher-ups, vicarious war-boners for the rank and file) just that, even for right-wingers, the sheer amount of cognitive dissonance is impressive. Do the right word-swaps in those screeds ("Republicans" for "Democrats", "the uninsured/unemployed" with "Iraqis") and they read like passionate defenses of social democracy. Do none of them realize this? How do they so completely shut it out? And for the few that aren't being completely cynical about the whole enterprise, what's the internal moral compass that allows their heart to bleed for people halfway around the world but not next door.

    My own position is that the question of whether it's hypothetically morally justifiable for America to intervene in these situations (I go back and forth on that), as long as the military-industrial-political machine is a corrupt abomination that fucks up everything it touches, I can't support any war being waged that would make it more powerful and richer. So yeah, that pretty much means I'm against all wars of choice.

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  32. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:38 PM

    If Maliki doesn't look too concerned...

    Actually, they both look stoned...

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  33. OT but not OT--we just got finished watching three episodes of The Americans, back to back. Its been a great show so far and many of the episodes are just incredibly gripping and horrifying for politically aware people--especially the scenes of Reagan on TV. But as the credits role who should get a story line credit on the episodes about nicaragua and the contras but Oliver North. I googled to make sure and lo and behold, it is the charmingly roguish old grandfatherly grifter and scam artist himself, who so endeared himself to the producers and writers with his "insight" into the Contras that they gave him a writer's credit.

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  34. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:42 PM

    "Arab governments complain when we intervene and they complain when we
    don't intervene," he wrote. "Basically, they complain no matter what. So
    asking what they want is pointless. It takes a while to notice this
    trend over time, but there it is."


    The very finest grade of Wingnut Frontier Gibberish. There should be a Gabby Johnson Award for shit like this.

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  35. montag210:45 PM

    Oh, indeed. It ought to be mandatory on all networks that every Iraq war retread invited on receives this question first: "Since you fucked so badly the first time around, what do you think, so we can do the opposite?"

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  36. That shithead is still seen as a hero by people with deliberate blinders on.

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  37. Wingnuts complain when we intervene and they complain when we
    don't intervene," he wrote. "Basically, they complain no matter what. So
    asking what they want is pointless. It takes a while to notice this
    trend over time, but there it is."

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  38. TGuerrant10:54 PM

    Undead Ari Fleischer, July 9, 2003: "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."

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  39. Meanwhile the Shi'a squads have organized themselves and have pushed backed the over-extended ISIS/ISIL. Which was entirely predictable. Even Paton got himself way over extended during WWII. Yes, ISIS took over sympathetic Sunni areas but the Kurds will not back them and if the Iranians intervene + plus Shi'a militias then ISIS is finished. That said the Iraqi Army is utterly useless. And al-Maliki's government has been useless and corrupt for the last 7 years. The neo-cons understand nothing of this. Worst of all is Sen. Grumpy McWalnuts who was happy to have us stationed in Iraq for 100 years.

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  40. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:58 PM

    "Barack Obama's less-than-benign neglect of the ancient state in Iraq"

    Yeah, that "Ancient State of Iraq". That would be the one with all the ruins (some of 'em a bit more ruined now that before) and museums full of whatever antiquities the British and Americans didn't cart off, right? In the weeks following the invasion, I was gritting my teeth and shouting at the monitor with every report of looting, smashing, and burning, seemingly unimpeded by U.S. forces. Like we had better things to do than see to it that rioters and looters didn't destroy whatever remnants of the cradle of fucking civilization they couldn't fit into their pickups. And yes, they certainly did. Like safeguarding 380 tons of extremely high explosives (HMX, or something like that. More splodey than TNT or C4) (say, that shit would make some dandy homemade bombs to set of by the side of the road, wouldn't it? Nah, they'd never think of that). Oh, and they must have been busy securing the airfields, and cargo planes, and all those pallets of cash. And painting schools! Oh, wait, that came later. Well, they were gearing up for it, and that takes time...

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  41. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:00 PM

    Jesus wept...

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  42. montag211:05 PM

    Look, R2P, humanitarian intervention, just war, they're all excuses to blow shit up, except perhaps in the rare instance that it's reasonable to fight back when someone's trying to take your home away from you or kill your family.



    All wars are manufactured--and, not coincidentally--most of them are manufactured by us. If we really did have a responsibility to protect, we'd be dronifying every Saudi and Qatari and Emirates prince funding terrorist groups (and, make no mistake, we know who every last one of them are), seizing their assets and making life generally unbearable for everyone in the region who's stirring the shit, funding Wahhabi wackos and selling arms--including the Israelis.


    We don't do any of that for all the reasons you list and because someone made promises that we wouldn't do anything actually harmful to the people in the shadows who are fucking with world peace. That alone is enough to make us ineligible to offer aid to anyone, because we simply do not tell the truth--to our own people or the world--and we are not honest about our motives.


    We propagandize everybody, especially our own people, just for the sake of money and political advantage. We're the Joe Isuzus of the world.

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  43. montag211:09 PM

    It would be mordantly funny were the Russian agents to obtain the info on North's numbered Swiss bank account.

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  44. M. Krebs11:13 PM

    Gall is plentiful; shame is in short supply.

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  45. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:15 PM

    Oh, and the cartoons...
    The guy who wrote that "Air Support" thing must have been looking for an excuse to put Obama in Dukakis' tank helmet for ages, and figured his chance had come at last.
    I have a new theory, which is mine, that you can devine the validity of any ideology, past or present, by whether or not its political cartoonery actually makes any sense. I submit that Left-leaning 'toons are not only funnier--well, duh--but they usually have a point that is easily accessible even to Righties, even as they cry "that's not funny!", as they inevitably do. Rightist "humor", though, mainly leaves me scratching my head, wondering WTF the artist is even getting at. Newsflash, dudes, it's supposed to be obvious, not tax the brain like an IQ test, or one of those awful logic problems.

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  46. montag211:15 PM

    Yeah, that one sounded like Reagan on one of his fuzzier days. More worrisome was that none of the press bothered to ask him the (well, I thought) ridiculously simple follow-up, "do you have the faintest idea how stupid that remark makes you sound?"

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  47. M. Krebs11:17 PM

    Hey, just imagine Act I if Sarah Palin had been in the original cast!

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  48. AGoodQuestion11:18 PM

    Statement #1: We basically had Iraq pacified when Bush left.


    Statement #2: Obviously Iraq was going to descend into confusion and genocide as soon as we left.


    Pay attention, children, because today we're going to learn the meaning of the phrase "mutually exclusive."

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  49. montag211:19 PM

    I'm betting she would have been the clown car.

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  50. M. Krebs11:20 PM

    Comments regarding that fuckstick Ari Fleischer are required, a la JennofArk in the previous thread, to begin with "That fuckstick Ari Fleischer." Get it right.

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  51. montag211:21 PM

    And don't forget the proper script. Something vaguely Ralph Steadman-ish.

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  52. TGuerrant11:25 PM

    Judy Miller has resumed commentating on Iraq. I-- I-- y'know-- I--

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  53. montag211:27 PM

    Ah, well, this is akin to the old saw about logic being wasted on the insane. You simply can't argue with crazy people on the basis of fact, because, well, they're crazy and what they see as fact is fantasy for the rest of us.

    So, no, we don't say, this is taxing the brain like an IQ test. We say, properly, this is nutso. This is flakier and more dangerous than old lead paint.

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  54. AGoodQuestion11:28 PM

    Then there was the Jonah Goldberg approach, distinguished by Jonah Goldberg.


    And how often do you get a chance to put "Jonah Goldberg" and "distinguished" in the same sentence?

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  55. M. Krebs11:30 PM

    Sometimes public stoning can be justified.

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  56. montag211:30 PM

    And a Gabby Hayes Grin award for the fans.

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  57. TGuerrant11:30 PM

    This may be a good time for Arab leaders and opinion makers to ask themselves what they can do to win over the hearts and minds of Americans.


    Yes, the GOP's ingenious outreach specialists can show them how.

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  58. M. Krebs11:31 PM

    We're Americans; we specialize in bullshit.

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  59. Spaghetti Lee11:34 PM

    Even the most hypothetical just war imaginable would be hellish, for soldiers and civilians on both sides, because that's what war is. Arguably war is only justifiable when not going to war would make things even worse.

    WWII is endlessly romanticized as the Just War, but I think there's some truth there, and that people who were strict interventionists at the time were on the wrong side of history.* In that situation, I'm willing to put aside my isolationist tendencies. Since then? Eh, kinda slim pickings. The problem isn't so much with the philosophical idea of helping people in need** as with the fact that you can no longer separate the noble ideals from the graft, corruption, imperialism, shock doctrine capitalism, and anti-left-wing hysteria***, to the point where even the most nobly intended intervention likely will make things worse, especially long term. And most importantly, when you have to work with people who just love war for the blood and money it engenders, you can't ever trust them to stick to the objective of helping people at all, let alone with as little damage as possible. That's why I think it's a cheap dodge when conservatives put on the puppy-dog eyes and go "Don't you care about helping people?" It's because of you assholes that I can't even make that my first priority.

    *-(which is not to say their views were indefensible: from an American
    perspective I'm sure it just looked like the latest sequel in the
    Europeans Killing Each Other franchise. And of course some people were
    rooting for Hitler.)

    **-(Ostensibly I think that being a nation-state requires a minimum ability to keep your shit together and that it's hard to justify other countries being required to help you, but those things are obviously easy to think from my cushy first-world chair: whenever I start thinking like a libertarian, I stop and wonder what I'm missing.)

    ***-(i.e. Hugo Chavez is somehow an existential threat to America but Alvaro Uribe is just a sweet lil' boy scout.)

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  60. M. Krebs11:35 PM

    I suspect that the neocons understand very well. To them, governments are supposed to be useless and corrupt.

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  61. montag211:36 PM

    Maybe if we, consistently, referred to her as the "Jayson Blair of national security reporting," she'd go away.

    Nah. Won't work. No shame.

    The real horror of her reappearance is that Laurie Mylroie cannot be far behind....

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  62. AGoodQuestion11:39 PM

    There are limits to nostalgia, or at least I hope there are.

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  63. BigHank5311:43 PM

    Fuck, Reagan taught me that.

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  64. Spaghetti Lee11:43 PM

    Like I said--horror movie. The sentiment isn't just "fuck these assholes" or "Ah Christ, this shit again?" but genuine shock. How can so many people who fucked up so badly and, by any objective measure, should be ashamed to show their faces in public, start it up again like nothing happened? Are they zombies? Terminators? Body-snatchers? Are we like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day? Is this some kind of Twilight Zone episode about the dangers of political apathy? How can such wrongness be allowed to flourish? So many questions, so few answers.

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  65. Spaghetti Lee11:45 PM

    I believe it's the "ancient state" that the British Empire created by tossing darts at a world map back in the 40's. I'm not an expert on Islam, but it seems to me that if you've got two sects that absolutely loathe each other, and history has blessed you with the opportunity to do a Marvel-style continuity reboot of national borders, it would be prudent to keep a bit of distance between them. But no.

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  66. BigHank5311:45 PM

    "The Ancient State of Iraq" as nailed together by the British Empire in the 1920s, anyway. Fuck, I grew up in a house that's older than the country of Iraq.

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  67. Spaghetti Lee11:51 PM

    "After working with Jonah Goldberg for a few months, I quickly distinguished between vegetable farts and meat farts."

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  68. Ellis_Weiner11:51 PM

    "Vice Capades"? Collect your Internet, sir. Well done.

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  69. I didn't catch Mitt on the TV this morning, but if I were a tweeter, I'd roll out the hashtag #sendMitt'ssons.

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  70. I'd prefer that they don't ignore them! It's torch and pitchfork time!

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  71. montag212:35 AM

    As well, only a right-winger would think--after the United States destroyed their country twice--that the most important thing Iraqis could possibly do at the moment is figure out the best way to kiss the asses of a bunch of flaming eejits

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  72. DocAmazing12:36 AM

    I'm convinced that this is all a trial balloon. If the dipshitterati find that the American public has such a short memory that we've all forgotten the largest set of events of the last fifteen years, then they may try to convince people that the Confederacy won the Civil War, or that the Constitution provides for corporate ownership of all branches of government.

    No way to know without trying...

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  73. DocAmazing12:39 AM

    You sound as though you're speaking from experience. I'd love to see the edited epitaph.

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  74. JennOfArk12:45 AM

    "Sometimes, Eartha, the bunnies bite back."

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  75. montag212:56 AM

    Ah, yes, the DeLay Defense. I'm surprised he didn't try that one in the money-laundering trial--all the minority Congressman got all the good bribes first.

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  76. M. Krebs1:03 AM

    I'm sitting in one.

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  77. montag21:06 AM

    Fuck me to tears, I do not want to see the standardized test on that one. I'd think I was living inside a Louisiana Christian charter school locker.

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  78. billcinsd1:16 AM

    not that the vast majority of your point isn't correct, but the quote is ancient state IN Iraq, not ancient state OF Iraq. So, while much is not thought through, the author did remember that Iraq isn't an ancient state

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  79. I have nothing to say about any of the rat bastards under discussion that, ironically, wouldn't get me arrested & prosecuted for making terroristic threats.


    So much for free speech. What's happened to this country?

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  80. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person1:22 AM

    Grrrrrrrr......

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  81. Spaghetti Lee1:32 AM

    Fleisch: "I'm rubber, you're glue."

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  82. I have to believe that much of the destruction was a feature, not a bug- both the Islamic and Christian fundamentalists would be pleased at the destruction of any evidence that might undermine their dogma.

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  83. Tehanu2:53 AM

    What really bugs me about this is the line, "So asking what they want is pointless." In other words, we don't give a shit what the people in those countries want for themselves in their own places; only what "we" want counts. I literally can't imagine a more blatant example of imperial arrogance.

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  84. The irony of almost all forms of American crazy ( fundy, libertarian, sell me stuff I don't want, gun nuttery, waging war to secure foreigners' property) is that the afflicted always are at pains to assure you that they are on the side of logic; they have a superstious and simple faith that logic will settle all arguments. This logic has the same purpose and expectation of every huckster's pitch: not agreement but capitulation to its irresistible force. If you resist it is you that isn't logical. and a person who doesn't mind being suspected of being crazy must actually be crazy, unlike the actual crazy person who has put so much effort into not seeming crazy.

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  85. Spaghetti Lee4:35 AM

    It's kind of like their relationship to racism. They know it's bad to be thought of as racist, but don't know how to not be racist. They know that 'logic' is a thing smart people use to win arguments, so they try it themselves, but they don't actually know what it is or how to deploy it.

    And the particularly libertarian obsession with 'logic' is an ongoing fascination of mine. My own beliefs would probably sound a little woo-ish to some people here, but in part it's an active measure against turning into the sort of person who sees life as a math problem and people as numbers.

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  86. Jon Hendry6:14 AM

    I still think Mylroie is actually Wolfowitz in drag.

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  87. Jon Hendry6:16 AM

    Somebody said "Doug Feith" three times.

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  88. Jon Hendry6:19 AM

    In the No Win Zone!

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  89. mommadillo6:22 AM

    Does he welcome an opportunity to make a fresh start in a more suitable line of work?


    I hear Frito-Lay is looking for product testers.

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  90. smut clyde6:28 AM

    my family couldn't afford the lost income
    "We love the troops... but we have to pay them less than an indolent incurious ratfucker-affirmative-action keyboard jockey ... because MARKET FORCES."

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  91. smut clyde6:32 AM

    Is the Kagan family still doing that all-nude reality show?
    The Aristocrats!

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  92. smut clyde6:34 AM

    This is flakier and more dangerous than old lead paint.
    Pica -- not just small print!

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  93. Unlike the Romans, who had no problems using unmitigated brutality to pacify their conquered foes, our own home-grown imperialists feel like they have to conceal their bloodlust in a fog of "bringing peace, stability"--so far so good--"and democracy"--oopsie!--to the countries we decide to fuck with. Beyond the fact that our news media can't be bothered to figure out who really did what to whom in Iraq, and why, they also can't be bothered to understand that democracy and imperialism don't mix. The Romans were good empire builders because they weren't in it to "free" anybody; they wanted client states and weren't subtle about how to subjugate them--sorry, Jesus!


    America wants to have it both ways: boss of the world but with a smiley face. No wonder we get mad when people, like Iraqis, tell us to just go the fuck home. I mean, hey, sorry about the total destruction and the ongoing chaos, but can't you at least show a little gratitude once in a while?

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  94. Irony isn't just dead, it's been beaten to a bloody pulp and tossed into the wood chipper.

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  95. Derelict7:02 AM

    No one's asking you to give the eulogy at the funeral, but it would be nice if you left the goddamn joy buzzer at home.

    You do realize you're asking for Goldberg to shut up and think, right? You'd have better luck asking a mosquito to play Brahms.

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  96. Derelict7:04 AM

    Gives new meaning to the term "flying sit-spin."

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  97. That statement encapsulates the wisdom of the invasion as well as any.

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  98. redoubtagain7:09 AM

    "Rated 'Are you serious?' R. Now playing in select green rooms."

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  99. Derelict7:15 AM

    North has been on the TV in just the last few days to prattle on about all manner of current events--including the Bergdahl swap. Ol' Ollie was critical of it because we swapped prisoners. Instead of, I guess, making sure the mullahs got some fancy missiles like they did when Ollie was running the shop.

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  100. Iraq's got insurgents, so it's time for a re-Surgence! If we don't the bald eagles will sob!
    Let's respect the troops, round up those poor dupes and send them back there to finish the job!

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  101. BigHank537:34 AM

    Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to watch repeats, or something like that. I always thought the tape loop would be longer than this, though.

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  102. Derelict7:37 AM

    And not just a small rock-dwelling mammal.

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  103. Derelict7:42 AM

    . . .can't you at least show a little gratitude once in a while?

    As I recall, the Iraqis' lack of gratitude really stuck in the craws of lots of the PNAC people. Imagine those Iraqis not being grateful after we basically wiped out their economy, killed their families, friends and relatives, and set the stage for perpetual civil war!

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  104. Derelict7:45 AM

    [recycled from the previous thread. Just my way of helping save the environment]:

    Sure, there were all sorts of people "on the Left" (not to mention billions more worldwide) who knew what was going to happen the instant the secular Baathists were toppled. But all of those people were right for the wrong reasons. So whatever they had to say then didn't count, and whatever they have to say now is even less worth listening to.

    On the other hand, everyone who was wrong was wrong for the right reasons. That fact that they have continued to be wrong makes them even more worth listening to now than ever before. If their wrongness can result in the outbreak of jihad-fueled war that engulfs the entire Middle East, resulting in millions more needless deaths and a worldwide depression fueled by energy shortages, that makes it imperative that we listen only to them.

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  105. A Twinkie?

    Oh sorry, I lost track of who was replying to whom.

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  106. As Tehanu notes, you just need the right Translator:
    "Those ragheads are too stupid and excitable to know what they want. It is up to the White Man to reshoulder his Burden and decide what is best for them.
    [Three picoseconds of thought]
    What's best for them is for our armed forces to tear the country down around their ears, paint a school house and declare victory. If they complain, send in a Surge and shoot anyone who isn't waving an American flag."

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  107. Jon Hendry8:00 AM

    I bet that's about
    1) North being *way* more easily accessible than anyone else
    2) Producers thinking he has more "sekrit inside info" than academics or other knowledgable people
    3) Showbiz people not giving a shit / being young.

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  108. We got rid of Saddam, fercrissakes. What more do they want?

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  109. And their infrastructure!

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  110. You can bet if (and I realize this a huge if) he is ever called to task by the people who write the checks, he'll promptly blame his interns. "I didn't write any of that! I was watching TV the whole time!"

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  111. Jon Hendry8:24 AM

    Do it obliquely: "Are there no tumbrels?"

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  112. Jon Hendry8:26 AM

    Right now? They probably wouldn't mind Saddam back.

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  113. Helmut Monotreme9:01 AM

    If it makes oil companies and defense contractors rich, and immanentizes the eschaton, where's the down side?

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  114. tigrismus9:15 AM

    Democracy bringing!

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  115. tigrismus9:32 AM

    Or at least decriminalized.

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  116. Derelict9:58 AM

    As Anne Romney so patiently explained, Mitt's sons have already put in their hitch serving their country in the most important way: Working on their dad's presidential campaign. No winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor has served with greater distinction nor sacrificed more--according to Anne.

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  117. Ellis_Weiner10:18 AM

    --and now we have to trick Feith into saying his name backwards. Good luck with *that.*

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  118. Ellis_Weiner10:19 AM

    "think that Mitt Romney would have anything useful to say on ANY subject."


    Although someone on Twitter wrote, "I would so watch a dating show hosted by Mitt Romney. I would watch it so hard."

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  119. Yeah, Perle. "What a piece of work is man." http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/02/23/what_gene_kranz_could_teach_richard_perle_integrity

    ReplyDelete
  120. whetstone10:25 AM

    "A better option would be a time machine, because then we could have then taken all the mouthbreathing glib chickenhawks and...." The piece ends as Jonah is pulled into the space time continuum into an alternate universe where he's the groundskeeper for William F. Buckley's mausoleum.

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  121. Mooser10:27 AM

    What is the matter with you people? Do you want to die? Lindsay Graham says Iraq could be another 9-11 in the making"!! And the New York Times says we need a war to spur economic growth! You think I'm kidding? Get with the program, folks.
    It's been almost ten years since Iraq. In those ten years boys and girls who were ten yrs old when we invade Iraq or fought the glorious Desert Storm have reached their majority, admiring and modeling themselves after the brave hero-warriors of our military. When do they get their chance to serve their country? Must they be denied?

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  122. Mooser10:28 AM

    Eagles, feh. Can't stand 'em. Did me out of my spot as National Animal.

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  123. whetstone10:28 AM

    It's not exactly a war-crimes tribunal, but at least Ari Fleischer continues to be a ridiculous screw-up.

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  124. Mooser10:29 AM

    Oh don't worry! The NYT has an article recommending a war to spur economic growth. No, I am not kidding, see TPM.

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  125. RogerAiles10:29 AM

    How do you ask a soldier to be the last one to die for a Cheney?

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  126. mgmonklewis10:33 AM

    The only way I can fathom their moral pirouettes is that everything outside themselves is just a prop in their personal psychodramas.

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  127. Mooser10:36 AM

    "They know it's bad to be thought of as racist, but don't know how to not be racist."


    Hey take away their bigotry and misconceptions, and they got nothin'. You can't do that to people. You messing with their identity.

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  128. The logic you refer to strikes me as being same kind of "logic" mentioned below, wherein Fuckstick Fleischer (go, Jenn!) challenged people who questioned the existence of Saddam's WMDs to tell us where they really are. That's not logic, it's nonsense. IANASP (I am not a social psychologist), but what I suspect people are capitulating to is the irresistible force of this nonsense-that-looks-like-facts, which a lot of people cannot actually see as nonsense and so they decide that, since they don't understand it, it must be beyond their ability to comprehend. And Americans being Americans:


    "Trust us, we're experts!"

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  129. Mooser10:38 AM

    Thank God Israel never complains. We have one plucky ally in the ME!

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  130. Mooser10:45 AM

    Watch it fella. I won't have you saying that our American boys and womens what serve their country as heroes are stupid enough to fight in the wrong war, or a bad war!
    And what about the "economic growth" what war engenders in copious amounts according to no less an authority than the New York Fucking Times?

    ReplyDelete
  131. mgmonklewis10:48 AM

    You've been Freedomized™!

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  132. Great band, though.

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  133. That's because moose bites are so nasty.

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  134. DocAmazing11:37 AM

    He can ride Rafalca for a glorious cavalry charge.

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  135. dstatton11:39 AM

    Well, I for one would rather hear complaints about our not intervening. It's much cheaper.

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  136. dstatton11:45 AM

    Mug shot

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  137. RogerAiles11:45 AM

    That's right, I forget the last one paid for itself.

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  138. Lurking Canadian11:48 AM

    Actually, I think I understand what Fleischer was trying (and failing) to say. There was a political cartoon going around just before the invasion. Imagine a guy holding up a slip of paper, saying, "Look, we KNOW he's got them. He bought them from US! We've still got the receipt!"

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  139. RogerAiles11:49 AM

    If not in active duty, at least as part of Mormon Missions to Mosul.

    ReplyDelete
  140. dstatton11:50 AM

    I tried & failed to cut and paste North's mug shot there.

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  141. dstatton11:51 AM

    For my opinion of the Eagles, see The Dude.

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  142. DocAmazing12:08 PM

    see also British Malaya, Belgian Congo

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  143. Derelict12:09 PM

    And so, the current impending defeat is much worse than the one we accepted so blithely in 1975.

    Remind me again which party had control of the White House for the 7 years leading up to that?

    Also, too: Viet Nam after the U.S. withdrawal did not go through anything nearly as violent and bloody as Iraq is going through now, and will continue to endure for the foreseeable future. Viet Nam settled down fairly quickly, and it today one of our trading partners. So I fail to see how America's retreat from and abandonment of Viet Nam in any way parallels or presages what Kagan predicts for Iraq.

    But, then, Kagan is one of those lucky enough to be paid to be wrong about everything.

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  144. DocAmazing12:10 PM

    Look, if you were going to have a story line about hit men, you'd get Whitey Bulger. If you were going to have a story line about crack mechandising, you'd gt Freeway Ricky Ross. When you want to know about crime, hire a criminal.

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  145. Derelict12:12 PM

    Maybe M. Krebs is another type of sweet filling?

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  146. mgmonklewis12:43 PM

    Hasn't Rafalca suffered enough? He'd probably strap the poor horse onto the roof of the station wagon and drive to Tikrit.

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  147. I wonder if American soldiers having "died in vain" had anything to do with his view of the 1975 defeat.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Provider_UNE1:00 PM

    Do you actually believe Jonah eats vegetables?
    ...

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  149. Derelict1:12 PM

    Doubtful. For people like this, American GIs are merely decorations or toys to be played with--Army Man IRL.

    The rightwing revisionism of Viet Nam should be pointed out every time it comes up. This whole "we woulda won if not for the damn hippies!" thing is complete bullshit. We dropped more bombs on the place than we did in all of WWII, and deployed more than half a million men there over the course of the war. That's more than enough bang-bang and boom-boom to make any warmonger's limp wanger stiff--but all that and double would never have been enough to convince the Vietnamese to leave their country divided with one half under the control of the kleptocrats and the U.S.

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  150. Winston Zeddmore1:17 PM

    That's a big Twinkie.

    ReplyDelete
  151. Ketchup counts.

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  152. Gromet1:24 PM

    only what "we" want counts. I literally can't imagine a more blatant example of imperial arrogance.

    I'd be okay with it if Bush had invaded with a fucking plan for what he wanted.

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  153. If the dipshitterati find that the American public has such a short
    memory that we've all forgotten the largest set of events of the last
    fifteen years,


    ... they might convince them to vote the political party most responsible for the disaster back into control of the House of Representatives?

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  154. Thing is, sometimes their logic is fine. It's their premises that are completely wrong. Example: if a fetus is fully human with a soul, and if its mother exists mainly for the purpose of it's creation, then it logically follows that the fetus needs to be protected at the mother's expense. The problem is that everything between "if" and "then" in that sentence is garbage so the conclusion after "then" is also garbage. But the logic itself is sound. Like "if Saddam has WMD and is plotting an imminent attack and was involved in 9/11, then we should totally invade." Or "if the gold standard is the only true stable currency then we should get back on it right away." Or "if opposing everything the President does, even when it's something we want like killing bin Laden or bombing Libya or telling kids to stay in school, as if it were the worst sort of Islamocommunazi tyranny, then everybody will totally love us and vote our guy into the White House."


    The logic's not wrong, but the premises are insane.

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  155. XeckyGilchrist1:42 PM

    Indeed. The troll I mentioned had no idea what logic was and wasn't making an argument at all, but you're right - there are plenty of nutz out there whose arguments are, strictly speaking, valid (in that their conclusion does follow from the premises and the application of logical rules) - just founded on premises that have nothing to do with reality.

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  156. Vietnam recovered from the war without making any rich Americans richer. This was a tragic failure on their part.

    ReplyDelete
  157. How about Funyons?

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  158. satch1:55 PM

    And Canada passed over the moose in favor of the beaver. Sorry for ya, bro.

    ReplyDelete
  159. Also, the assumption that the "they" in each case are the same people in the same governments. As if there are no political divisions, no competing factions, no, you know, actually different people who disagree and want different things, like some folks in some governments want intervention while some others don't.


    Or that some may have wanted intervention in 2003 but having seen how that worked out don't want one now.


    It's all just one amorphous and indistinguishable "They."

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  160. satch1:57 PM

    Another war? Sounds like just another Big Gummint spending program to me...

    ReplyDelete
  161. Right. Just as libertarianism makes sense if you accept that selfishness is fragile and needs to be protected.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Man, that is gross.

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  163. drkrick2:39 PM

    Part of the promotional push for the new Tom Cruise movie?

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  164. tigrismus2:42 PM

    I have a feeling this is another domestic spending program Geraghty doesn't mean when he advocates cuts.

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  165. I'm thinking India/Pakistan, too, but then my grasp of that history consists of having watched Gandhi a couple of times.

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  166. Spaghetti Lee2:45 PM

    Yeah, we're counting french fries, potato chips, etc. for the purposes of this exercises.

    ReplyDelete
  167. "But Ari, Hans Blix has been there for six months and hasn't found anything."


    "Shut up," he explained.

    ReplyDelete
  168. marindenver2:51 PM

    Squirrel Cop
    http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/115/first-day?act=2

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  169. Jon Hendry2:52 PM

    http://www.powerbase.info/images/thumb/7/77/Laurie_Mylroie.jpg/180px-Laurie_Mylroie.jpg

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  170. Jon Hendry3:02 PM

    His wife sneaks them into his food. He doesn't realize it until he smells the farts, later.

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  171. Jon Hendry3:04 PM

    The charge of the shite brigade?

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  172. That comment makes me miss Hunter Thompson. Now there was a man who probably knew his way around a fucking air chisel.

    ReplyDelete
  173. His readers.

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  174. Jon Hendry3:16 PM

    Well, apart from the brief Sino-Vietnamese war. Nothing like the constant terror bombing of Iraq, though.

    ReplyDelete
  175. And remember that Jonah Goldberg was hired to fill the Robert Scheer chair at the LA Times.

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  176. XeckyGilchrist3:38 PM

    Yup, funyuns, and when we have to cheat a bit to make the quota, cheese.

    ReplyDelete
  177. He seems to be the sort who prefers Cheez, anyway.

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  178. Derelict3:44 PM

    I think that kicking him in the nuts repeatedly might induce him to make a sound very much like his name backwards.

    Failing that, you'd at least have the satisfaction of kicking in the nuts repeatedly.

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  179. I . . . I have only this to contribute. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.bergen.html

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  180. Derelict3:49 PM

    And yet, I can find no peer-review papers on the subject of bovine excrement that list Oliver North as an author.

    ReplyDelete
  181. "I have to pay to play Call of Duty!"

    ReplyDelete
  182. Derelict3:53 PM

    Or, more accurately in the case of BushCheney, "Trust us: We've purged all the experts!"

    ReplyDelete
  183. Jon Hendry3:55 PM

    Wheels within wheels, man.

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  184. ignobility4:00 PM

    Comic Sans.

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  185. Ellis_Weiner4:08 PM

    Look, it may not work. All we can do is try.

    ReplyDelete
  186. Fair enough--but its horrifying to see the guy get a story credit.

    ReplyDelete
  187. smut clyde5:03 PM

    A policy of retreat and abandonment remains as it has always been the fastest road to endless warI dunno. I suspect that the fastest road to endless war is to send in troops and wage endless war.

    I'm curuous. Having begun with a nod to the Vietnam war -- the most conspicuous case of the Domino Theory proving to be a lie -- does Kagan bother to explain why the Domino Theory always applies? Other than the McArdle technique of stating it again in italics?

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  188. Halloween_Jack5:46 PM

    I was watching Michael Mann's Thief the other day, and found out that the guy who plays the corrupt cop was actually a former (?) professional thief himself and also a technical consultant on the film.

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  189. M. Krebs6:17 PM

    Stimulus!

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  190. M. Krebs6:19 PM

    No, no, you're not getting the concept! Endless war is the only way to prevent endless war.

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  191. Mooser6:19 PM

    War is when the broken window leads to a Glory Hole!

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  192. Mooser6:22 PM

    Now the Canada thing, that hurt. Upon reflection, I am glad I did not sell my political independence.

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  193. Mooser6:28 PM

    I've read some of Bergdahl's letters home, telling of his disillusionment with the military. Must be hell to go from the 50's where most American kids grow up, to 2001.

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  194. Mooser6:31 PM

    For some reason I am not privy to, people from Scandinavian countries say it, and they put lines through the "o"s in "moose". I don't understand it.
    And they won't tell me what their sister was doing to the moose.

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  195. montag26:35 PM

    As has been true through time immemorial, the quickest way to peace is to put war's most fervent advocates at the front of the charge and with the lowest rank. At the very least, reducing the most powerful to the most dispensable has a sobering effect on war hysterics.

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  196. Ellis_Weiner6:35 PM

    "Whereas doubling down in Iraq is the scenic route to endless war."


    Line of the day, in a day of good lines.

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  197. Mooser6:35 PM

    Does the Norwegian Elk have palmate antlers, like two open hands on top of their head offering succor and friendship to all?
    Or are Norwegian Elks round-horners?

    ReplyDelete