That's the disconnect. We're trying to say and illustrate that the US is that bad. We want it to stop being so bad and we want to be proud of our country.

The real sickness is to willfully allow the rot to continue untreated.

By lying and exaggerating? No, that's still a sickness. You post phoney numbers from unreliable sources, and at least several of the videos you linked are of questionable authenticity at best. One was posted by an obvious jihadist calling himself "Islamic Empire" and contains nothing but grainy stills and a few staged shots that don't verify any of the content of his claims. Imagine if someone named "Christian Empire" posted fake videos on youtube about how great US soldiers are and how bad Iraqis are, and half of the comments were from his cronies praying that God will kill all of the dirty Muslims. Would you find that convincing? Yet, when it's the other way around, you swallow it up without skepticism and try to convince others to do the same. What fuels this psychotic desire to believe anything that portrays the US in a negative light? And why are you so hell-bent on convincing others?

I find it interesting that John McCain, now the Iraq War's major defender, is taking the line in his speeches that it no longer really matters whether the invasion was a good idea, a just idea. Water over the dam. The thing now, he says, is to win it.

Which is just a fascinating seque. If you believe in just-war theory (I don't), then violence can be justified if it meets certain criteria: to restore justice, used as a last resort, a proportional response, etc. If the war du jour doesn't meet those criteria, what we're left with is just a war of conquest and opportunity. One we deserve to lose, and to have (for our own good) our loss witnessed by ourselves and the world.

Keep it up, Ezra.

__________________
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." G.K. Chesterton

If you look at the Lancet report, I'm not exaggerating. It's on you if you want to accept their reliability. I choose to.

Am I lying? How did I lie? Call me on it and I'll fess up.

Discloser on the video list post... it was a snarky response to whomever said my posts were getting weak or somesuch. I just so happened to have a digg page up with that list. I haven't actually watched them. The point was that the puppy throwing video is not an aberration. It's becoming more common, or at least the stories are filtering in faster despite any info lockdowns.. Not that I'm suggesting this is a new behavior. All war is hell and there are endless tales of rape and unhumanity from Vietnam. Just as there are will every war in history. It galls me to be watching history repeat itself. In a utopian (possibly socialist) world, history wouldn't be so predictable.

Do you need to watch them? We know that American soldiers really are bad, so it's OK to get the message out there with false or trumped up reports.

Add this to the Mark Dixon hit parade. At least I understand you better now. You really wanted to see the US suffer a resounding military defeat. Since that didn't happen, you'll settle for hoping that Iraq gets ever worse, so that you can be increasingly satisfied at least that the operation is a big failure. Even though that's bad for millions of people, it will make you all the more "right," so that's clearly a good thing.


Thanks guys, keep the material coming.

I should want an aggressive war-of-choice to succeed? Not in this life.

Let's say that your kid decides to hold up a Wawa. Do you want him to succeed? If you're a responsible parent, you want him to fail big time. First, you don't want him to hurt anyone. Second, you don't want him hurt. Third, best option, you want him flat on the ground with a cop's knee in his back, getting cuffed. Then, to effectively convey the message, you want him convicted and, preferably, put in a program that will turn his life around.

Well, in the Iraqi "Wawa," the clerk had a gun. We've now sent back-up (the "surge") to help the first wave of thieves. Whether this will allow the United States sufficient time to bring Iraq into permanent U.S. orbit -- let's call it "rifling the cash drawer" -- remains to be seen.

Best case: We withdraw, the Iraqis settle their own affairs and peace is seen to be a product of the U.S. departure, not anything else we did.

__________________
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." G.K. Chesterton

I wonder if MarkedDixon and Exra have their champaign on ice ready to celebrate this again.







If the U.S pulls out of Iraq and thousands of Iraqi's kill each other in the inevitable slaughter that will happen after, Are Ezra and MarkeDixon going to stand and sing "America the Beautiful" and sip champaign?

If that happens, it will be something new for me to bitch about. But be honest with yourself. If the media attention shifted away from Iraq, you wouldn't care. Did you care about Afghanistan these past 5 years?

America trashed Iraq. When the military leaves, we have to stay behind and clean up the mess. Will we? I don't think so in a peaceful manner. I think we have to be there by force always or not at all. I honestly don't know how Iraq will avoid massive internal conflicts without some overlord there.

What's your solution, Wise One? How do we keep Iraqi's from civil war?

So you don't think winning hearts and minds is a vital part of winning this war?

No worries.

First of all, I never said I am wiser than you about the war, but I do know that I was against the war before it started based on what happend in 91 in the Persian Gulf. But an even dumber idea than going in and dismanteling the entire army like we did would be pulling out early. Personally, I have a cousin in the Marines who has raided hideouts and found U.S passports. Just the thought of that scares the hell out of me. Even scarier is that we have people in this country who think we should just up and leave and have no clue what is going on over there.

Personally, it would be great if every country minded their own business, but thats not reality. As long as we depend on that area for oil, we need to be there. Thats not optimism, thats realism.