Don’t care for Pelosi, but what was discussed in Intelligence Committee closed hearings at the time WAS CLASSIFIED. Not that revealing classified information ever meant “my bad” to Cheney or Bush when pushing their agenda of lies.
As a Social Liberal and Pelosi fan, I fully support the hilarity of this frame. Dems, we are back, baby! Now it’s pur turn to act (or not act) without consequence.
“Ryan Roberts says:
As a Social Liberal and Pelosi fan, I fully support the hilarity of this frame. Dems, we are back, baby! Now it’s pur turn to act (or not act) without consequence.”
There’s the ticket! Show how much better you are than conservatives, because you have that behavior. Hah. /sarcasm
DPR:
“A short post I like to call ‘Why I hate Democrats!’
rikoshayrabbit says:
Anybody who voted to go into Iraq is complicit with the over-all evil agenda of our military/industrial machine.”
Yes the “threat” to our society posed by the so-called “military/industrial complex” is a bill of goods sold to us by that radical left-wing anti-American extremist Dwight Eisenhower. It wasn’t a problem then, and it’s not a problem now. We spend trillions of dollars on weapons research and maintaining a standing military to protect us from outside threats, which loom in on us from every direction! We only use them when it’s absolutely necessary, like when Sadaam Hussein ordered the attack on the World Trade Center!
Barbara Lee (D. Ca), if I recall, was the ONLY person who cast a dissenting vote when the authorization of military action in response to 9/11 was put before Congress. She pretty much got tarred and feathered for that, but she’s pretty much the ONLY politician who doesn’t owe the American people an apology for the loss of life (on all sides), wasted money, and moral turpitude of the last 8 years.
However, if we threw out EVERY rascal who was complicit with the crimes and treasons of Bush/Cheney, then Congresswoman Lee would be all alone in Washington.
Well, we might vote against retaliation against Afghanistan because Afghanistan per se did not attack us. Elements operating within Afghanistan may have been behind the attack with at least a blind eye turned by that government, but we could not then and cannot now isolate those trainig camps with any precision or effectiveness. “There are no targets in Afghanistan.”
What we COULD do is use the WTC attacks as an excuse to bludgeon Iraq, which is what Bush/Cheney had been wanting to do all along. Plans for the invasion of Iraq had been drawn up long before September 2001. This is public record. When Cheney was DoD Secty under Bush41, the “Wolfowitz memo” was circulated saying how a disaster of the proportions of the attack on Pearl Harbor could be utilized to galvanize public opinion in favor of an attack on Iraq, to ensure American control of Iraq’s oil supply and to extend American influence in the Middle East. This is public record.
Why did Hillary and other Dems vote to authorize a military response? Well, we had to bomb SOMEBODY, didn’t we? We’d look like PUSSIES if we didn’t kick some Muslim hiney, and FAST!!! Shouldn’t it at least have been a government which supports, through both monetary aid and recruitment, radical Islamist terror groups? A country such as, say, Saudi Arabia?
By saying this, don’t think that I’m in any way saying that Saddam Hussein was anything less than a brutal tyrant. But the world is full of brutal tyrants that we do nothing about, or even SUPPORT, if they help our “national interests.” Saddam was the best friend the U.S. had in the region, before he became the New Hitler.
There actually WERE people demonstrating in the streets against the invasion of Iraq BEFORE we went in, people who WEREN’T shocked – SHOCKED! – when the Iraqis failed to greet us as liberators and throw flowers at our feet.
In short, before you rush to open a can of whoopass on somebody, shouldn’t you at least wait to make sure you’ve got the right guy?
Yes, the Dems WERE suckered into supporting all of Bush’s “emergency” measures in the wake of 9/11, and they SHOULD be held accountable. But falling prey to a con, while nothing to be proud of, is less blameworthy than being the con artist.
(And my information about Lee, while I stand behind it in principle, may be incomplete. Lee was/is in the House, and the others you mention are/were Senators. Also, there was not one single vote which got us into all this trouble, but many, and I don’t know how different people voted on different measures. From Wikipedia:
“Lee gained national attention in 2001 as the only member of congress to vote “No” on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), stating that she voted no not because she opposed military action but because she believed the AUMF, as written, granted overly-broad powers to wage war to the president at a time when the facts regarding the situation were not yet clear. She explained ‘It was a blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events – anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long- term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit. In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration…. The president has the constitutional authority to protect the nation from further attack and he has mobilized the armed forces to do just that. The Congress should have waited for the facts to be presented and then acted with fuller knowledge of the consequences of our action.’”)
In what way am I intertwining Iraq and Afghanistan, other than recognizing that the two subjects have been intertwined for years? What I’m saying is that the whole “war on terror” has been a boondoggle from start to finish, beginning with the decision to invade Iraq as a result of the WTC bombings. If a group of criminals DOES set up in the abandoned buildings of the South Bronx and launches attacks from there, you don’t say “The South Bronx is already rubble” and bomb Brooklyn or Manhattan. The only justified response in that situation would be to launch an exhausting, expensive, and probably unfortunately less-than-effective ground search. Afghanistan as a country is not “the enemy”, at least until we MAKE them “the enemy” by turning their semi-blasted country into a fully-blasted country. We are fighting a war “in” Afghanistan, but not “on” Afghanistan.
Do we want to stop the terrorist training camps? Then let’s put the screws to the people who are supporting them, like the House of Saud. We can’t smoke them out, so let’s starve them of supplies and recruits.
Yes, the Dems need to be smarter, but the first step in doing so is to say “We were wrong in supporting Bush/Cheney out of fear.” Maybe some Dems should be pressing for for investigations even if they ARE vulnerable themselves. People on the whole will forgive a whole lot, but it helps if you say “I’m sorry” first.
By the way, I’m in Pelosi’s district. I helped vote her in, and I’m willing to keep voting for her. But if she ends up going down for this, I won’t call it an injustice if her “voluntary” resignation helps put Cheney behind bars.
DPR: I admit that I misread (not consciously) your point, but I still disagree with your premise.
I may again be misreading, but it seems to me that you are now saying “Military action in Afghanistan cannot succeed unless we pursue a ‘total war’ strategy which we are unwilling and/or unable to do [to this point, we are in agreement]. But we must do SOMETHING.” Why must we? Half-measures are futile, and full measures are unconscienable. The willingness to bomb civilian populations as retribution for our own civilian casualties is reprehensible, whether responsibility falls only on the Big Baddies who sold us the plan or includes all the little compromises (and big ones) by those who should have known better. Perhaps we HAVE no way of calling the Taliban to account. But those whom we CAN and SHOULD hold responsible for the atrocities committed in our names are not limited to one side of the aisle.
Well, I WILL refute the statement “After 9/11 Afghanistan needed to be attacked and the Taliban needed to be destroyed if only for the point of retribution for actions taken. However there were greater points, they attacked us! They and Al Queda are joined at the hip. ”
I reject retributivism on principle. Returning evil with evil simply compounds evil. Punishment may justly serve as correction or prophylaxis or deterrent, but I reject revenge as a motive. Killing other civilians as a payback for killing our civilians is unjustifiable, and if the Taliban are the thuggish fanatics we both believe them to be, then they will not be (have not been) swayed by their own civilian losses. If we merely radicalize other Islamists against us further, as the prime result of our actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, and other places seems to have been, what have we gained? Merely the motivation for them to attack us again and again. It would seem we have two military options: turn the whole country into a parking lot, or attempt a border-to-border sweep of the entire country, turning over every stone. What SHOULD we do? I have no idea. But I won’t support either of the two courses outlined above.
Fritzoid…have the citizens of “Afghanistan” no responsibility for whom they leave in power? If their region continues to “invest” in chaos and instability…Other governments involved or concerned have a right to take action . The same with what was done in Iraq.
This is an attempt to turn the pressure on everyone, to take it off the Bush-Cheny gang. And as far as Afganistan goes, the country has been run by warloards when ever the Central government is weakened. This was done when the Soviet Union invaded, and then, the USA supported the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union. The Taliban was really not in the least concerned about the global community of nations, as shown by destruction of carvings of Bhudda on the mountains. Then they had to give refuge to Al Quaeda. The ordinary human being over there has so little control over their respective lives that it is really unfair to, in effect, they got what was coming to them by allowing the Taliban to be the governing force in that country.
“Let’s target civilian populations to pressure them to withdraw their support of an evil government which destabilizes our society, and threatens our cherished values. After all, are not the civilians responsible for the actions of their leaders?”
Isn’t that the message of every videotape Osama Bin Laden releases? Osama Bin Laden, whom I still understand is considered in the region to be a great hero for standing his ground against those evil forces marshalled against him?
“A soft answer turneth away wrath.” True? Or do you think “When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow” is a better strategy? Final quote: “When you fight the dragon, take care lest you BECOME the dragon” (a paraphrase; I’m unable to look up the exact wording at the moment).
Cheney or Bush when pushing their agenda of lies. The CIA lies all the time - Read Legacy of Ashes. They lie to Congress and to the President - have been doing so since it was the OSS. Remember Iran-Contra, Iran and the Shah, Bay of Pigs, etc, etc?
cartwrights almost 15 years ago
Yes, Pelosi is just as guilty as any Republican if she knew but did/said nothing.
Simon_Jester almost 15 years ago
Not quite. If Pelosi knew, and did not act then she’s guilty of failing to stop a crime that someone ELSE committed.
However, if she had acted, wouldn’t she have had to go public with classified material?
And what would the Repubs have done then?
Karl Hiller Premium Member almost 15 years ago
Let’s see if I understand recent brickbats being tossed by the Right…
Waterboarding is not torture, but Pelosi is a bad person if she knew about it and didn’t say anything.
Ayers and Wright are bad people, but Obama is a bad person for disassociating with them (“Under My Bus”).
Just checking.
Dtroutma almost 15 years ago
Don’t care for Pelosi, but what was discussed in Intelligence Committee closed hearings at the time WAS CLASSIFIED. Not that revealing classified information ever meant “my bad” to Cheney or Bush when pushing their agenda of lies.
ndroberts95 almost 15 years ago
As a Social Liberal and Pelosi fan, I fully support the hilarity of this frame. Dems, we are back, baby! Now it’s pur turn to act (or not act) without consequence.
Wraithkin almost 15 years ago
“Ryan Roberts says: As a Social Liberal and Pelosi fan, I fully support the hilarity of this frame. Dems, we are back, baby! Now it’s pur turn to act (or not act) without consequence.”
There’s the ticket! Show how much better you are than conservatives, because you have that behavior. Hah. /sarcasm
Lt_Lanier almost 15 years ago
And moreover, she needs to take her brown nosing tongue out of Obama’s ass.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 15 years ago
DPR: “A short post I like to call ‘Why I hate Democrats!’
rikoshayrabbit says: Anybody who voted to go into Iraq is complicit with the over-all evil agenda of our military/industrial machine.”
Yes the “threat” to our society posed by the so-called “military/industrial complex” is a bill of goods sold to us by that radical left-wing anti-American extremist Dwight Eisenhower. It wasn’t a problem then, and it’s not a problem now. We spend trillions of dollars on weapons research and maintaining a standing military to protect us from outside threats, which loom in on us from every direction! We only use them when it’s absolutely necessary, like when Sadaam Hussein ordered the attack on the World Trade Center!
Barbara Lee (D. Ca), if I recall, was the ONLY person who cast a dissenting vote when the authorization of military action in response to 9/11 was put before Congress. She pretty much got tarred and feathered for that, but she’s pretty much the ONLY politician who doesn’t owe the American people an apology for the loss of life (on all sides), wasted money, and moral turpitude of the last 8 years.
However, if we threw out EVERY rascal who was complicit with the crimes and treasons of Bush/Cheney, then Congresswoman Lee would be all alone in Washington.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 15 years ago
Well, we might vote against retaliation against Afghanistan because Afghanistan per se did not attack us. Elements operating within Afghanistan may have been behind the attack with at least a blind eye turned by that government, but we could not then and cannot now isolate those trainig camps with any precision or effectiveness. “There are no targets in Afghanistan.”
What we COULD do is use the WTC attacks as an excuse to bludgeon Iraq, which is what Bush/Cheney had been wanting to do all along. Plans for the invasion of Iraq had been drawn up long before September 2001. This is public record. When Cheney was DoD Secty under Bush41, the “Wolfowitz memo” was circulated saying how a disaster of the proportions of the attack on Pearl Harbor could be utilized to galvanize public opinion in favor of an attack on Iraq, to ensure American control of Iraq’s oil supply and to extend American influence in the Middle East. This is public record.
Why did Hillary and other Dems vote to authorize a military response? Well, we had to bomb SOMEBODY, didn’t we? We’d look like PUSSIES if we didn’t kick some Muslim hiney, and FAST!!! Shouldn’t it at least have been a government which supports, through both monetary aid and recruitment, radical Islamist terror groups? A country such as, say, Saudi Arabia?
By saying this, don’t think that I’m in any way saying that Saddam Hussein was anything less than a brutal tyrant. But the world is full of brutal tyrants that we do nothing about, or even SUPPORT, if they help our “national interests.” Saddam was the best friend the U.S. had in the region, before he became the New Hitler.
There actually WERE people demonstrating in the streets against the invasion of Iraq BEFORE we went in, people who WEREN’T shocked – SHOCKED! – when the Iraqis failed to greet us as liberators and throw flowers at our feet.
In short, before you rush to open a can of whoopass on somebody, shouldn’t you at least wait to make sure you’ve got the right guy?
Yes, the Dems WERE suckered into supporting all of Bush’s “emergency” measures in the wake of 9/11, and they SHOULD be held accountable. But falling prey to a con, while nothing to be proud of, is less blameworthy than being the con artist.
(And my information about Lee, while I stand behind it in principle, may be incomplete. Lee was/is in the House, and the others you mention are/were Senators. Also, there was not one single vote which got us into all this trouble, but many, and I don’t know how different people voted on different measures. From Wikipedia:
“Lee gained national attention in 2001 as the only member of congress to vote “No” on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), stating that she voted no not because she opposed military action but because she believed the AUMF, as written, granted overly-broad powers to wage war to the president at a time when the facts regarding the situation were not yet clear. She explained ‘It was a blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events – anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long- term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit. In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration…. The president has the constitutional authority to protect the nation from further attack and he has mobilized the armed forces to do just that. The Congress should have waited for the facts to be presented and then acted with fuller knowledge of the consequences of our action.’”)
txmystic almost 15 years ago
What I really want to know is to whom she will pass that torture joint…
fritzoid Premium Member almost 15 years ago
In what way am I intertwining Iraq and Afghanistan, other than recognizing that the two subjects have been intertwined for years? What I’m saying is that the whole “war on terror” has been a boondoggle from start to finish, beginning with the decision to invade Iraq as a result of the WTC bombings. If a group of criminals DOES set up in the abandoned buildings of the South Bronx and launches attacks from there, you don’t say “The South Bronx is already rubble” and bomb Brooklyn or Manhattan. The only justified response in that situation would be to launch an exhausting, expensive, and probably unfortunately less-than-effective ground search. Afghanistan as a country is not “the enemy”, at least until we MAKE them “the enemy” by turning their semi-blasted country into a fully-blasted country. We are fighting a war “in” Afghanistan, but not “on” Afghanistan.
Do we want to stop the terrorist training camps? Then let’s put the screws to the people who are supporting them, like the House of Saud. We can’t smoke them out, so let’s starve them of supplies and recruits.
Yes, the Dems need to be smarter, but the first step in doing so is to say “We were wrong in supporting Bush/Cheney out of fear.” Maybe some Dems should be pressing for for investigations even if they ARE vulnerable themselves. People on the whole will forgive a whole lot, but it helps if you say “I’m sorry” first.
By the way, I’m in Pelosi’s district. I helped vote her in, and I’m willing to keep voting for her. But if she ends up going down for this, I won’t call it an injustice if her “voluntary” resignation helps put Cheney behind bars.
Tolestoy almost 15 years ago
I nominate Barbara Lee for Speaker of the House.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 15 years ago
DPR: I admit that I misread (not consciously) your point, but I still disagree with your premise.
I may again be misreading, but it seems to me that you are now saying “Military action in Afghanistan cannot succeed unless we pursue a ‘total war’ strategy which we are unwilling and/or unable to do [to this point, we are in agreement]. But we must do SOMETHING.” Why must we? Half-measures are futile, and full measures are unconscienable. The willingness to bomb civilian populations as retribution for our own civilian casualties is reprehensible, whether responsibility falls only on the Big Baddies who sold us the plan or includes all the little compromises (and big ones) by those who should have known better. Perhaps we HAVE no way of calling the Taliban to account. But those whom we CAN and SHOULD hold responsible for the atrocities committed in our names are not limited to one side of the aisle.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 15 years ago
Well, I WILL refute the statement “After 9/11 Afghanistan needed to be attacked and the Taliban needed to be destroyed if only for the point of retribution for actions taken. However there were greater points, they attacked us! They and Al Queda are joined at the hip. ”
I reject retributivism on principle. Returning evil with evil simply compounds evil. Punishment may justly serve as correction or prophylaxis or deterrent, but I reject revenge as a motive. Killing other civilians as a payback for killing our civilians is unjustifiable, and if the Taliban are the thuggish fanatics we both believe them to be, then they will not be (have not been) swayed by their own civilian losses. If we merely radicalize other Islamists against us further, as the prime result of our actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, and other places seems to have been, what have we gained? Merely the motivation for them to attack us again and again. It would seem we have two military options: turn the whole country into a parking lot, or attempt a border-to-border sweep of the entire country, turning over every stone. What SHOULD we do? I have no idea. But I won’t support either of the two courses outlined above.
Lt_Lanier almost 15 years ago
To Panetta I say: “Sic ‘er! Sic ‘er! Get that complicit, Botox bitch!”
NoFearPup almost 15 years ago
Fritzoid…have the citizens of “Afghanistan” no responsibility for whom they leave in power? If their region continues to “invest” in chaos and instability…Other governments involved or concerned have a right to take action . The same with what was done in Iraq.
deadheadzan almost 15 years ago
This is an attempt to turn the pressure on everyone, to take it off the Bush-Cheny gang. And as far as Afganistan goes, the country has been run by warloards when ever the Central government is weakened. This was done when the Soviet Union invaded, and then, the USA supported the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union. The Taliban was really not in the least concerned about the global community of nations, as shown by destruction of carvings of Bhudda on the mountains. Then they had to give refuge to Al Quaeda. The ordinary human being over there has so little control over their respective lives that it is really unfair to, in effect, they got what was coming to them by allowing the Taliban to be the governing force in that country.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 15 years ago
“Let’s target civilian populations to pressure them to withdraw their support of an evil government which destabilizes our society, and threatens our cherished values. After all, are not the civilians responsible for the actions of their leaders?”
Isn’t that the message of every videotape Osama Bin Laden releases? Osama Bin Laden, whom I still understand is considered in the region to be a great hero for standing his ground against those evil forces marshalled against him?
“A soft answer turneth away wrath.” True? Or do you think “When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow” is a better strategy? Final quote: “When you fight the dragon, take care lest you BECOME the dragon” (a paraphrase; I’m unable to look up the exact wording at the moment).
deadheadzan almost 15 years ago
Well said, fritzoid, by all means let us fight the dragon, not become the dragon.
ColPappy almost 15 years ago
Cheney or Bush when pushing their agenda of lies. The CIA lies all the time - Read Legacy of Ashes. They lie to Congress and to the President - have been doing so since it was the OSS. Remember Iran-Contra, Iran and the Shah, Bay of Pigs, etc, etc?