Why the left cannot cheer this liberation

Yeah, sure.

The Israelis have been attempting this bizarre kind of "message giving" for quite some time now. And each time they send a more deliberate message -- things get worse. One would think that the lesson would be learned by now -- but some people just never learn.

And now, even though this method of "message sending" has been shown to yield a steady diet of unintended results and counterproductivity, Israelis want us to walk down that road.

It is amazing that you do not see this, Steissd. You seem so intelligent.





You went on and on with all the wonderful things that the "defeat of Saddam" will do.

My guess is the "defeat" of Saddam will yield the same results the Israeli get-tough policy has yielded -- more hatred, more resentment, more killing, more repriasals and more of all that negative stuff.

We'll see -- but I think you are unwilling to learn the lessons of your own folly.

IMO, this does not mean that the USA was wrong in waging war against Iraq. It has lost the propaganda war to France/Arab World, that is true, and this must be of concern of strategists of the USIA, State Department and CIA.
The anti-American campaign was suspiciously very well arranged and coordinated. I cannot believe that these were only volunteer pacifist arganizations that ran it. I am almost sure that special services of the interested countries (France and Russia, of course, and not Iraq) were strongly involved.

We have lost the propaganda war to a hell of a lot more than the arabs and france, my friend and I believe you know that.

That is a common problem of the coutries that really defend the right issue. The ones that know that their issue is wrong are proactive: they launch propagandist campaign to convince the public opinion in the opposite thing. The "good guys" consider righteousness of their issue so much obvious that they neglect the propagandist backing and lose the psychologic war. This often happened to Israel, now the USA falls victim of this.

What you are saying in a round about way is that by losing the approval and respect of the rest of the world, Israel and the USA proves the righteousness of their position.

You allow for no chance that you could be anything but 100% right.

Well I guess that's one way to justify ones actions and leave no room for debate or other opinion.

Unfortunately that's exactly the justification that Moslem terroists use for suicide bombings and flying airplanes into buildings and such.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander I suppose, although I think it sucks all the way around.

No, it is not so simple. Saddam or Usama bin Laden know well that the things they do are wrong from the standpoint of majority of people in the West. Therefore, they need to convince the public opinion in the opposite. They abuse certain values of the Western Left for this purpose, and the people that would be executed on ideologic grounds if they were citizens of Iraq indirectly support Saddam's "right" to rule as he considers to be necessary. Rogue regimes also abuse internal conflicts of interests inside the Western world (like contradictions of interests of the USA and France, for example) to gain supporters.
The U.S. administration started war to promote the right thing: to make Saddam to comply with the norms of the civilized world, and it naively considered that righteousness of their position was so much obvious that it did not need any propagandist reinforcements...

We have, in effect, become a client state of Israel. Whatever happens to us on that account -- we've asked for.

Or at least the politicians sucking up for money and votes asked for it.

Listen to what Bear is saying. He's got it right.

steissD - you cannot possibly be making the following statement with a straight face. This administartion started this iraqi thing not to do the right thing, but to start their plan. To say this administration is naive, that it considered the righteousness of their position is ludicrous. They knew from the start what their objectives were, and Iraq is just the first step.

Propaganda? I would give plaudits first to Publicis, the French concern. But surely you know that much of this administartion derives from the high-powered ad and PR agencies, starting with Karl Rove? This whole thing has been an exercise in propganda, which is one reason why the admin sits on shifting sand. There is no rock foundation. Do you remember anything about our invasion of Grenada (under Reagan) to rescue the med students from a communist takeover? All on paper.




The link below is to a site that sets out a lot of what is happening and what is planned to happen. It has been in the making for many years (check the dates) and the same power-hungry people are still in play. This is not a conspiracy policy item. It is so factual that it even gives you the letter this group wrote to Clinton when they wanted him to give their speech. A plan for the march through the mid-east.


http://www.newamericancentury.org/

So do I, Bear. So do I.

I want very much to back Israel in their struggle to maintain their country -- but they have stopped looking at the problem with anything but visions of being absolutely right in every respect -- and with the "enemy" as wrong just as completely.

Too bad.

And too bad Israel has so much influence over this administration -- because we are being led down the same failed road they demand to travel.

I say that the Bush administration doesn't give a rat's ass how Saddam conducted himself and wants to make the mid east US territory along with it's assets (oil) and that's ALL the current adminstration cares about.

At the end of the day, it's the simple explanation that is usually the right one.

That's why the message of the God of the Jews and Christians alike is so simplistic, so that everyone has a chance to attain salvation, and so that no one has an excuse for not attaining it.

If everyone conducted themselves according to these simplistic truths, we wouldn't be in the global mess we're in.

Just my humble opinion.

I was very intrigued tonight that the vaunted, "fair and balanced" FOXnews spent an entire evening of prime time on the tragic murder of Laci Peterson and her son.

Only a week ago, an evening with FOXnews was like manna from Iraq.
We were witnessing -- if you believe FOXnews -- a war of tremendous importance, worthiness and all red, white, and blue. Here was THE most important story of the new century.

Funny how soon life returns to normal after a war. Men and women, on both sides, have casualties to heal or bury. But, that's not too important anymore, especially if you're "fair and balanced."

We have met the new enemy, and he is Scott Peterson, not Saddam Hussein who is now only a "human shield" in the panoply of a media feeding frenzy.

On the Greta Vansusterin show tonight, the name O. J. Simpson was linked to Scott Peterson solely because these two men are avid golfers and were arrested for the serious crime of killing their wives.

We don't know about Scott yet, but O.J. and Saddam might be playing eighteen holes right now.

So, the fickle finger of fate shifts to that other land known as California. California, it is said, is about as large as Iraq. We made mincemeat of Iraq, what could we do to California which is so much closer?

Now where did I put my videophone . . . .

Please notice that the big story is how they used DNA to arrest Mr. Peterson.

We'll be hearing about the positive wonders of DNA prominently in the news for a while now because Ashcroft wants to expand the DNA database to include juvenile offenders and people who are arrested but not convicted of crimes.

It is not difficult if you really open your eyes to see how the media is now merely the propaganda arm of the current administration.

Also. with Iraq having pretty much played out it's role of keeping the American public in a patriotic fervor in order to enrich Bush, family and associates, look for all kinds of other bizarre and sensational stories to divert the publics attention from the HUGE mess we're in domestically.

If all else fails..........HELLO SYRIA.

Funny how quickly this Iraqi war has descended in level of importance. Powell, asked about weapons of mass destruction, with particular emphasis on that being a major reason for war, said they are most assuredly there and we'll find them. Meanwhile, in just a few short weeks, it's no longer so major.

And I also find I'm not so worried about Syria and others right now. The world has changed some since twelve years ago. Attitudes are different, the shape of things is different. Apparently almost nobody except the fiercely loyal in the US believes the war in Iraq was about anything but oil, and what with the US apparently cutting its one partner out of any post-war lucrative contracts.....

Also occurred to me that in its own way the admin may be setting Israel up to take a fall should things backfire - it has never been the Bush crowd's way to assume responsibility for anything - they always need a scapegoat.

Is the global news still all war all the time?

Nah.

The BBC hasn't laid it to rest, coming up with some pretty pungent stories I haven't heard elsewhere when turning my radio dial...

Bi-Polar Bear<

I agree with your post about DNA evidence in the Scott Peterson case. It was crucial.

John Ashcroft is definitely a man to watch. He is watching us all the time with the fervor of an evangelical. Gen. Ashcroft, it seems, is also an evangelical who uses his office in the justice department for devotionals.

Now, don't read me wrong, please. I have no quarrels with those who practice the evangelical faith. We do have freedom of religion in this country. John Ashcroft appears to be a man who might want to end that freedom.

Thus, we'd all be marching in lock-step as evangelicals.

No liberal person is sorry to be rid of Hussein. But when Steissd speaks of the norms of the civilized world, does that mean that one man now gets to decide who is evil and who is to be removed from office? Does the good opinion of the world community count for nothing? Just because the "war" part of the present process turned out well for the US, does that mean that we should reverse our moral polarity and decide that the "ends justifies the means"? Is this the "norm of the civilized world" of which Steissd speaks? Or have we made one giant step toward becoming a less civilized world?

If anyone thinks Bush is not waging a propaganda war, they ought to look into the formation of "The office of Global Communication" a new arm of the Pentagon.

Bush has set the goal in Iraq. The victory cannot be claimed until there is a functioning Iraqi pro western democracy that proves itself over time.

The "functioning democracy" that we installed in Afghanistan seems to be pretty well bottled up in Kabul. Furthermore, it seems possible that the present administration has failed to notice that the concept of a western democracy is alien to traditional Muslim and middle eastern thought.

OK, maybe, establishing democratic ruling is somewhat non-realistic; but it is possible to establish a semi-democratic non-aggressive pro-Western regime having no geopolitical ambitions, something like this of Jordan or Tunisia. This will serve interests of both USA, Iraqi people and neighboring countries; I want to remind that Jordanian and Tunisian models are based on Muslim society.
BTW, there were no democratic traditions in Japan (and in any other East Asian country either) prior to American occupation either; but modern Japan is a free democratic country. So, there are some reasons for being optimistic on the issue of establishment of democracy of Western type in Iraq.

Hazlitt<

Your post above is excellent, a bit more cogent than steissd's. We will be in Iraq until Dubya is appointed President of the Entire Planet Earth. (And he thought Hussein was power hungry.)