The Nunaka Valley Gang wars (Nunaka Valley, Alaska) began with the discovery of the paint. When I was a boy, our gang of friends was led by Linda Templeton. Linda was two years older than I and my best friend, Linda’s sister, Gladeen. The Templeton’s dad was in the Air Force, their mom was from Korea. Linda was the oldest and strongest in our group, and no one questioned her authority. When my dad gave us the scraps of wood from the garage he was building, Linda directed us to take them to the “little woods”, and we built a fort house. The little woods ran down the middle of our housing project and joined the creek woods a mile or so down the hill.
One day we found two buckets of paint in the Little Woods; a gallon of white and a gallon of orange. Not the best colors – but it was paint, and we painted our fort. Days later we found our hideout missing. We searched down the hill toward the creek, and there was our lumber rebuilt into anther fort and a gang of kids – Ian’s gang – playing in it. When challenged they explained that the paint was theirs, as our boards were covered with their paint, they were now theirs too.
There was no great battle for a while. We simply waited until Ian and his crew were else where and took OUR wood back. Then they came to get it, there were fights and some of the littleuns got hurt.
Ian Nishimoto’s Parents were from Japan. He was the same age as Linda, and had the advantage of being a boy. He was also rumored to know judo, a then mysterious fighting technique that rendered resistance futile.
The great battle took place in the clearing just before the hill, not the big hill, but the little wood’s hill. Ian’s gang had come to get “their wood” back and we were ready for them. Each gang stood behind their leader. There was yelling and threats, and Linda kicked off her flip flops. I picked one up, darted out from behind Linda, ran straight up to Ian and slapped him across the face. I ran back behind Linda. Ian lunged after me, but Linda stepped forward, fists clenched. “Leave him alone,” she snarled. A member of the other gang yelled, “Ian, show um the “Ha, Ha” stuff.” Ian struck a few karate stances. “Ha, Ha,” he yelled at each pause. With palpable scorn – and not a breath of fear – Linda intoned. “You use all the Ha Ha you want; I’ll use the good old American “One Two.”" Her fist shot out from the shoulder. She caught Ian square in the nose. The blood gushed. His supporters fled. Choking back the tears, his nose blowing red bubbles, Ian croaked, “Your mother wears army boots.” Linda drew back her fist and Ian followed his gang into the underbrush.
Taunted by the truth and beaten and humiliated by the successes of the Bush Administration; the Democrats are left with nothing but hollow words and nothing to do but blubber out, “Your mother wears army boots.”
Examples:
1. After years of digging for scandals, the “Antique Media” and the Democrats gush and blubber for seven days over V.P. Cheney’s accident in Texas. I even hear an ABC Special Report entitled, “The Shooting of the Vice President, Hunting for the Truth”. I listened as Nancy Pelosi intoned the Ha Ha line of the Democrat’s and their media spin machine. Her hollow claim is that Cheney’s shooting accident and the fact that he reported it to law enforcement instead of the New York Times, is a Metaphor of the Bush administration “failures”. She then choked back the tears of defeat; she sniveled out the tired and discredited taunts of the past. Bush lied about saving Social Security, Bush lied about WMD, Bush lied about the successes of the Iraq War, Bush lied about domestic spying, and Bush’s mother wears army boots.
2. At the Alito hearings, red bubbles blowing, Schumer, Boxer, Kennedy and crew misrepresented Judge Alito’s support of a conservative alumni group and falsely accused him of a conflict of interest, lying to the Judiciary Committee, and of having a mother in army boots.
3. In a treasonous speech in Saudi Arabia, Al Gore falsely accused Americans of ““terrible abuses” against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks” and said Arabs had been “indiscriminately rounded up” and held in “unforgivable” conditions, and whined that “The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake,” and – by the way – America’s mother wears army boots.
4. The New York times and the Democrat spin machine have called the President’s Constitutional use of the NSA to observe al Qaeda terrorists, Domestic surveillance, warning it would lead to the FBI listening to innocent American’s embarrassing conversations with their Grandmothers, and said the NSA’s mother wears army boots.
5. John Murtha has accused the American heroes fighting in Iraq of being cowards and liars, and insinuated that their mothers wear army boots.
6. Mrs. Bill Clinton stood and applauded her party’s failure to rescue Social Security and accused those who sought to implement the programs suggested by her successor as New York Senator, Patrick Moynihan, of trying to destroy the system. She also said Moynihan’s mother wore army boots.
7. The Democrats and their masters in the media have held up the Patriot Act for months by claiming that the Justice Department’s mother wears army boots.
8. Pseudo evolutionists concoct words to stuff in Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection, and when his own words disprove their lies, they say his mother wore army boots.
9. Anti-Bush fanatics, sniffling at the fact that Katrina did not cause the 25,000 deaths they were hoping for, cover their disappointment by blurting out hollow accusations that the response was raciest and that the FEMA’s "mother Brown" wears army boots.
Let um use all the Ha, Ha stuff they want, I’ll stick with the good old American One Two!
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85 comments:
yeah flush the constitution and enjoy having a hitler dictator.
that is real patriotism
br3n
For those of you who don’t get it, (mostly on the childish and flaccid anonymous left): “Flush the constitution and enjoy having a hitler dictator” = “Your Mother Wears Army Boots”.
What Ha, Ha, stuff!!!!
Lysis Log: Supplemental: (I’m sorry; I’m a Star Trek fan. I’ve always wanted to use that line.)
News flash – Everyone is missing the story on the Mohammad Cartoons!
I’ve spent the day listening to the Sunday talk shows and reading the A.P. The two stories that have dominated the jabber of the day are tied together by boot strings, the kind “your mother” wears. Ian Nishimoto’s hollow words weren’t meant to hurt Linda, they were delivered to salve Ian’s own broken spirits and bolster his position with his fleeing and foolish followers.
The “Your Mother Wears Army Boots” attack only works on the ignorant. What is truly dangerous is that there are too many ignorant.
The harping on Dick Cheney’s accident by American politicos and media spinsters demonstrates their jaded opinion and cynical assessment of the stupidity of the American people.
The fire storm whipped up by the fanatic corruptors of Islam is an example of their cynical assessment of the intellect of the Muslim masses they manipulate.
From the A.P:
Jakarta, Indonesia – Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of Muhammad storm the U.S. Embassy, smashing windows. Several people injured. 400 people marched on U.S, mission behind a banner reading “We are ready to attack the enemies of the Prophet.” They set fire to U.S. flags and a poster of President Bush.
Islamabad, Pakistan – Security forces seal off the capital to block mass demonstrations.
Istanbul, Turkey - Tens of thousands gathered chanting slogans against Denmark, Israel, and the U.S.
Sukkur, Pakistan – Protesters ransacked and burned a Christian church after hearing accusations that a Christian burned pages of the Quran.
Maiduguri, Nigeria – Muslims attacked Christians and burned 15 churches in a three-hour rampage that killed at least 15 people.
At least 30 more people had died of anti-cartoon actions by Sunday morning.
What is obvious to thinking people, Muslim or not, is that the radicals whipping up this protest, such as the radical leader know as Maksuin from Indonesia, do not represent the teachings for Islam.
The reason Islam forbids making images of the Prophet has nothing to do with showing him reverence; in fact just the opposite is the case. The reason for the prohibition is the fundamental Islamic teaching against idolatry. Islam precludes the faithful from making images of any human or animal form. Early Muslims, perhaps Mohammad himself, feared that he, not Allah, might become the focus of the adoration and worship. To prevent this; Muslims were forbidden from graphically representing the Prophet. The purpose was not to show Mohammad reverence, but to prevent the production of icons, even idols, that might lead the faithful into sin. Nor should Muslims reverence the Koran as though the book itself were a sacred object. Perhaps this is why Mohammad never had it written down during his life time. The Koran teaches that there is nothing sacred by Allah. To kill to defend the honor of a book, an object made by the hands of men, as if it were some sort of sacred icon, is to deny the very things written in that book.
This is the true story relating to the so called “insults to Islam”. Terrorists, seeking to gain power for their own perverted purposes, have taken advantage of the ignorance manifest in the world of Islam. They are using the unthinking and uninformed to defile the very beliefs they purport to reverence. Perhaps Muslims throughout the world should remember the teachings of the “second greatest prophet of Islam”, Jesus, and “turn the other cheek” while doing “unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
This miss representation of the truth is the stalk and trade of those who rely on the stupid to do their will. The spinsters on the Sunday talk show and the erstwhile leaders of the Democrat party invent offenses in the actions of the Vice President, condemn the actions of FEMA, and lie about the actions of American soldiers and agents. None of the accusations are true. The fact that ignorantly following these lies destroys the very nation they pretend to reverence, matters nothing to those who value only their own power and political agenda above their country.
In order to whip up the support of the ignorant masses; those seeking their own, scream out meaningless insults, accusing mothers of wearing army boots, to impress the ignorant with the power of their pointless position.
Vegimatic Here
I found a tribute to our Anonymi.
Angry Young Man
Turnstiles Released: Turnstiles
There's a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend he refuses to crawl
And he's always at home with his back to the wall
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost
And struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross
And likes to be known as the angry young man
Give a moment or two to the angry young man
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand
He's been stabbed in the back he's been misunderstood
It's a comfort to know his intentions are good
And he sits in his room with a lock on the door
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor
And he likes to be known as the angry young man
I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight
I once believed in causes too
I had my pointless point of view
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right
And there's always a place for the angry young man
With his fist in the air and his head in the sand
And he's never been able to learn from mistakes
So he can't understand why his heart always breaks
And his honor is pure and his courage is well
And he's fair and he's true and he's boring as hell
And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man
Yes there's always a place for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend he refuses to crawl
And he's always at home with his back to the wall
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost
And struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross
And likes to be known as the angry young man
So at least our "Angry Young Men" don't ever give up. They always seem to end with "Your Mother Wears Army Boots".
So my tribute to them is that they will become "Angry Old Men" and yes, our mothers will still wear army boots.
Happy President's Day!
We should all carefully assess what we reverence and what we despise. Dehumanization of one's opponents can be a dangerous game (check out this interesting take on the matter). Dehumanization is what allowed people in my father's native Germany to slaughter and abuse millions of others that were used as scapegoats. It is what allowed te U.S. to put people into Japanese interment camps.
The sad thing about the funded and organized cartoon protests is that these people are doing a gross disservice to themselves, their fellow countrymen, their religion, and their cause.
I have to admit that the VP's hunting accident makes me a little hot under the collar. Having been indoctrinated in gun safety since I was young, it chaps my hide when someone (even innocently) breaks one of the cardinal rules of gun safety. But the MSM tantrum about the "coverup" is ridiculous. Still, this is one of those defining events that will forever color the individuals involved. Regardless of what else he might do, it is probable that VP Cheney's legacy will be defined first and foremost by this one event.
YOU, and every other Republican bung-hole kisser are missing the point! Cheney!- and you and every other of one of the Republican bung-hole kissers (read Liesis and Reach, and Rumpole, and Veg et. al.) have the Iraqi war, 35,000 dead, more to come, a rat's nest of terrorists, a civil war that WILL result in genocide, and a more unstable Middle-East than ever was before to rest on their bed post at night. The war, the war, THE WAR! It was one they created, it was one you supported, it was one that anyone with even a little bit of competency in 12th grade maths could have handled. Instead, we left it to the middle Americans with no more a clue of how to handle the insurrections of the MIddle East than they had of how to handle the insurrections of thier own Indian population; that is, chain them up, beat them reapetedly, make evil characterizations of them, and deny them humanity above all. Nice job States! You keep living up to your reputation at every turn... Why don't you surprise us once and a while.
YOU, and every other Republican bung-hole kisser are missing the point! Cheney!- and you and every other of one of the Republican bung-hole kissers (read Liesis and Reach, and Rumpole, and Veg et. al.) have the Iraqi war, 35,000 dead, more to come, a rat's nest of terrorists, a civil war that WILL result in genocide, and a more unstable Middle-East than ever was before to rest on their bed post at night. The war, the war, THE WAR! It was one they created, it was one you supported, it was one that anyone with even a little bit of competency in 12th grade maths could have handled. Instead, we left it to the middle Americans with no more a clue of how to handle the insurrections of the MIddle East than they had of how to handle the insurrections of thier own Indian population; that is, chain them up, beat them reapetedly, make evil characterizations of them, and deny them humanity above all. Nice job States! You keep living up to your reputation at every turn... Why don't you surprise us once and a while.
Child - First to answer your canned spin lines out of the Ha, Ha school:
1. We are at war in Iraq – A war against terrorists trying to enslave a nation, and intimidate a world. A war that will be fought somewhere until victory or defeat ends it.
2. 35,000 dead - most killed by the terrorists who, under Saddam, murdered at least 400,000 people. Monsters that used poison gas to murder the innocent in an attempt to exterminate an entire people – that is genocide. Killers, that recent tapes have revealed, were plotting to kill as many American as possible.
3. Civil war – Such a civil war is the DREAM of the anti-bush neo-libs who can only gain power if America fails. This made up “catastrophe” is the worst of your, “Your Mother Wears Army Boots” replies.
4. Genocide – the genocide in Iraq went on for 30 years under Saddam and ended with his overthrow.
Now let me list the “Your Mother Wears Army Boots” taunts in this hollow, factless, unsupported and dishonest post.
1&2. Bung-hole kissers, used twice.
3. Little bit on competence in 12th grad math.
4. No clue on how to handle the insurrections.
5. Abuse of Indians (once more having to go back to the 19th century to find an American crime)
7. “Nice Job States”
8. Keep living up to your reputation
9. Why not surprise us
Nine meaningless taunts in one paragraph + the big stupid one above on the none existent civil war. This IS truly is the best you can do isn’t it. You are completely incapable of providing a surprise.
Our completely incompetent President is ready to sell out U.S. security again!!! He and cabinet of cronies are selling off U.S. ports to a country that helped finance the September 11th attacks, gave haven to terrorists and hampers any investigations into Bin Laden's finances!!
This is outrageous that he would do such a thing to the security infrastructure of our country! The direct entrances to our country to import any kind of bomb making or operatives at all. But it is the "alseep at the wheel" kind of "leadership" as usual from this incompetent White House.
I guess Bush thinks the price was right for American safety, again!
Child, your arguments, and those of Charles Schumer, Mrs. Bill Clinton, are so desperate and irrational you can’t even recognize your self-contradictory position.
Isn’t it amazing that the same people who condemn, (unjustly) racial profiling in airports and under the Patriot act, the same people (Al Gore for example) who condemn (falsely) mistreatment of Arabs by a pretend bigotry on the part of the Administration; now unite to racially profile an entire nation, the UAE, and launch real bigotry based on their pretended fear of Arabs just to attack the president? No thinking person can be deceived by this two faced opportunistic bigotry. Talk about race cards. I was pleased to see Jimmy Carter come out in support of the President and the UAE. I imagine he will be trashed by the left (as was Senator Lieberman) in their desperation to abandon their pretended values in order to unjustly attack President Bush. The Anonymous Child has given the perfect example of this name calling prejudice and blind hate driven judgmentalism.
Apollo, nice to here from you. I too long for anyone to present a thoughtful alternative to anything. Is Dubai a terrorist state? What evidence for their outrage do Schumer and team present? There is nothing to this purely raciest attack against all Arabs, this guilt by association lynching of a legitimate business and the Administration but an exemplification of the “name calling left” taking advantage of the ignorant.
Once more our anonymous commenters have provided a perfect example of the topic of the post; by unfounded name calling. Now the entire Arab world “Wears Army Boots”; according to Schumer, Clinton, and the Anonymous Child.
Vegimatic Here,
In an effort to understand our angry young Anonymi, I have been spending time in liberal blogs trying to get a difinitive position on what they stand for besides hating Bush.
I found one that seems to be mainstream liberal and they list their beliefs:
www.liberaloasis.com.
Here is what they believe in black and white.
The LiberalOasis Manifesto:
LiberalOasis is on a mission to reclaim the good name of liberals.
LiberalOasis loves America because America was founded on liberal beliefs of freedom and justice for all.
LiberalOasis loves Americans, and not just those in the blue states.
LiberalOasis believes in winning, and that means convincing more of America than San Francisco and Northhampton, MA.
LiberalOasis believes paying taxes is patriotic, because you can't love your country and stiff it at the same time.
LiberalOasis says to George Bush, "Yes it is the people's money, not the government's money. So we decide what to do with it, and we want it to pay down the debt, keep the economy on track, protect the environment and help those in need."
LiberalOasis believes the notion that Bush named some kind of all-star Administration has been debunked by events, that this Administration -- led by stubborn, amateurish ideologues -- has led to multiple foreign policy fiascos and a stalled economy.
LiberalOasis knows that war, in the long-term, won't be nearly as effective in quelling terrorism as would fostering credible democracy and economic development.
LiberalOasis reminds everyone that those who support a clean environment, reliable Social Security and Medicare, job training so welfare recipients can make a living, and a balanced budget (instead of tax cuts) are in the majority.
LiberalOasis knows that the problem in fighting terrorism does not lie in our cherished civil liberties that are the foundation of what it means to be American, but in our creaky intelligence capabilities.
LiberalOasis points out that racial profiling of Arabs would not have stopped Richard Reid, Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh, Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber or the Smiley Face Bomber.
LiberalOasis feels that no matter how good Clinton was, getting that blow job didn’t help.
LiberalOasis believes that Nader had and has a right to run, and that Democrats can (and did) win with a Green in the race. BUT his foolish notion that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats has clearly been disproven beyond doubt.
LiberalOasis knows that liberals don’t have to always agree on everything, but we need to keep our eye on the ball.
As thin as they are, at least they are a basis to determine what liberals are for.
Anonymi, rather than name calling and personal attacks, (I love it when you include me, it still cracks me up :-) )
Tell us why we should change to these (or other ideas of your choice) and discuss them and not the diatribe on the war and "licking" Republicans.
Then we have something to discuss.
Enjoy the Day!
Are you a moron or do you just play one on this blog? (That's a rhetorical question.)
The U.S. Department of Justice has said the U.A.E. has hampered investigations into bin Laden's financing! The bipartisan 9/11 Commission has stated that the U.A.E. is non-cooperative in the fight against terrorism! You are so hot to trot with Bush, you have your head so far up his but you can't see when he is about to make another catastrophically bad decision for all of the people that live in the U.S. It isn't racism to say that a country that has given haven to terrorists and thwarts our efforts to fight it should not be allowed to control the vital parts of our national infrastructure that keep our nation going. It is just good sense!! You should get some!
When did this become a democrat issue? The Republican governors of New York and Maryland, George Pataki and Robert Ehrlich have said this port deal is a bad idea in light of U.A.E.'s and Homeland Securities misdealings. Also, the republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, has called on Bush to wake up and block the sale. They all point to the findings of Bush's own Department of Justice and the 9/11 commission that show funding for the September 11 attacks were funneled and disguised through sources in the U.A.E. that that government STILL won't fully divulge. Why would take a chance on U.S. security!? If you are George Bush it's because the price is right! If you are Liesis it is because you are a blind fool who can make informed decisions that might suggest his Dear Leader is wrong!
We have been burned time and again because of this administrations incompetency with OUR national security. Wake up! - Before it is too late.
When did this become a democrat issue? The Republican governors of New York and Maryland, George Pataki and Robert Ehrlich have said this port deal is a bad idea in light of U.A.E.'s and Homeland Securities misdealings. Also, the republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, has called on Bush to wake up and block the sale. They all point to the findings of Bush's own Department of Justice and the 9/11 commission that show funding for the September 11 attacks were funneled and disguised through sources in the U.A.E. that that government STILL won't fully divulge. Why would you take a chance on U.S. security in this current climate!? If you are George W. Bush it is because the price is right! If you are Liesis it is because you are a blind fool who canNOT make informed decisions that might suggest his Dear Leader is wrong!
We have been burned time and again because of this administration's incompetency with OUR national security. Wake up! - Before it is too late.
Vegimatic;
It’s not the just the mixing of the Kool Aid into the Oasis’ water that gets the neo-libs to drink it, but who tells them to. Their complete inability to think beyond the “talking point of the day” is what is most amassing. Again it is the immediate abandonment of the “values” they paid lip service to yesterday to lap at the pool of today’s dictated drink that is astounding.
Foul Mouthed Child:
Your selective application of “good sense” only when it seems to tarnish President Bush is telling.
The “catastrophic bad decision” on the part of the Administration was to think that their enemies, the very one who call for negotiations with Saddam, would accept working with a PROVEN ALLIE in the War on Terror; when there was any political hay to be gathered by exploiting a raciest and bigoted attack to take advantage of the ignorance and latent prejudice of the fools who buy their hokum.
If you knew anything about ports you would know that it is the Coast Guard not the unloading company that controls port security. You would also know a little bit about the people who work at the docks. They look very much like the other teamsters the Left usually sucks up to at election time. The felonious picture of turbaned Arabs showing up to run the docks you conger in the mostly empty minds of you Oasis sippers is laughable.
Anonymous the double posting: (fits your two faced position)
Why don’t you share with us the reasons for the fears of George Pataki and Robert Ehrlich, beyond the obviously racial bigoted explanation you have presented? You say that the U.A. E. hasn’t explained the funneling and disguising sources in the U.A.E. What do you know that you aren’t telling us? What did the U. A. E. do? There was plenty of funneling and disguising going on right here in the U. S. A. before 9/11. I guess, in your “book”, U. S. companies should be banned from port supervision as well. What about Canada, France, Great Britain? By your standards, all played a role in 9/11. Why aren’t you attacking them? I’ll tell you why; because you’re a raciest. I suppose you’re for rounding up Arabs and putting them out at Topaz Mt.
Flaccid:
I’m surprised that you would call your Anonymous Child a moron. But then, it is pretty obvious isn’t it.
You are a complete dolt!
THE US DEPTARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND THE 9/11 COMMISSION AND THE REPUBLICAN CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE COMMITTE ON HOMELAND SECURITY HAVE INVESTIGATED AND SAID THAT THE U.A.E. HAS FUNNELED AND DISGUISED FUNDING FOR AL QUAEDA AND OSAMA BIN LADEN AND ARE STILL NOT FULLY COOPERATING IN THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM.
Only someone who is a complete buffoon like yourself would think it is a good idea to hand control of the U.S. biggest ports over to a country where this kind of institutionalized corruption is taking place. Oh wait, we have a whole White House filled up with buffoons like you!
The reason we it would not be a problem for a Canadian company, say, to handle these ports is because THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND THE 9/11 COMMISSION HAVE NOT SAID THOSE COUNTRIES ARE ACTIVELY HIDING TERRORIST ACTIVITIES! You are as dense as a rock.
The U.A.E. is masking terrorist activity, institutionally, through its government policies and non-cooperation. It is not racist to say so. It is STUPID to ignore the findings of our DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE and the bipartisan 9/11 COMMISSION. But that is exactly what I would expect from someone so infatuated with the incompetencies of George Bush. It's like you have a screw-up fetish or something!
Hey Liesis!
Don't forget that U.A.E. ports were used as the smuggling points for nuclear material from Pakistan to Iran and North Korea. Where was the reporting of that when it was going on under this company's watch!? No where! Like Bush they were more concerned with making a buck than with our security!! Worst case scenario they consciously aided the nuclear smuggling. Can you imagine this company being in charge of the busiest U.S. ports on both coasts!? Bush is selling out our national security . . . AGAIN!
Flaccid:
Quit calling your Child names. We all recognize what he is; without your pointing out his dotage
I am glad to see you place your trust in the Department of Justice. Of course you are so wound up that you didn’t notice that you hang your accusations against the Administration on quotes from that Administration. I am also quite sure that you are aware that the Attorney General, The Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland security all approved the Dubai Company’s buy out of the British business. Can’t you see how silly you look when you use the Department of Justice’s out dated report as gospel and deny their present assessment in the real world? Your only response to my revelation of your duplicity will be some to post some version of “Your Mother Wears Army Boots.”
Undoubtedly the Dubai Company will lose this contract. Someone else will get it and the trade will go on. What is interesting to me is that, deny it as they may, this will be because of racist bigotry pure and simple. The bigoted accusations were either motivated by politics and the desire to spin anything that can hurt the President because of hate, or propitiated by ignorance and fear. The evils that comes when reason goes away.
Flaccid; I’m ready for your flip flopping attack on Jimmy Carter now.
Anonomy: I’ve found an ally for you in your stance. Sean Hannity!! Give him a listen. He’s got all sorts of anti-Arab generalizations to shoot your way!
You continue to show your complete and utter ignorance Liesis.
None of the organizations you named EXCEPT Homeland "Complete Failure from Top Down" [In]Security. (See Congressional report on Katrina recovery.) And they approved the deal in a "secret investigation." (Chertoff's words on Meet The Press, Sunday, Feb. 19.) Nobody has any idea what kind of investigation they did of this deal. Not even Georgie "Asleep At The Wheel" Bush! White House spokesman Scot McClellan said Monday that Bush wasn't even aware of the deal until reporters started asking about it Sunday!! Do they really deserve our faith that they did a thurough investigation after their complete and repeated incompetence!? No way!!!
This is not based on bigotry but the still valid DOJ reports and the ongoing reports from the bipartisan 9/11 Commission that continue to say U.A.E. are not forthright in fighting terrorism!!!! You have to be completely silly to keep ignoring these sources! It smacks of Bush's arrogance in blowing off the "Bin Laden Intent on Using Airplanes Against The U.S. Memo!!!!"
I have no fear in saying that President Carter is wrong on this. You should have no fear in saying that Georg Bush is wrong too!!! And so are you!
You are wrong on almost everything you say and do in this blog but this one has me so angry!! Bush is playing a bluffing game with Congress and our personal safety! -And you defend him calling everyone who disagrees bigots! Pull your head out Liesis! Look at the evidence and be big enough to admit you are wrong before we pay the price for yours and Bush's STUPIDITY again!!!
You completely blow off the fact that U.A.E. DID finance bin Laden, DID hamper investigations into terrorist financing, DID act as the chief port for smuggling nuclear materials from Pakiston to Iran, North Korea and Lybia, DID harbor terrorists, IS STILL actively opposing full investigation of terror finances! You have no leg to stand on. You have no credibility in this debate. You have not got a CLUE!!!
This one has anonymous angry. And exactly how does this differ from his/her regular demeanor? The way I read it, it's flaming anger 24x7 regardless of the topic of discussion.
Good retort Reach. "Anonymous is always angry." That will keep us safe at night. Why don't you take the time get an informed opinion on this and tell your representative to take this decision for the port sale out of Bush's butterfingers and assert some responsible leadership on our safety for once.
To my angry Anonymous friend; your anger has so clouded your judgment that you have failed to notice that I have taken no position on the Dubai Company in operating in t the ports. I have simply pointed out that your and your buddy’s motivations in bringing up the issue are to attack the President. You have nothing to go on but guilt by association and bigotry. You have not been listening if you have not heard the comments of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense. President Bush has taken a stand on this issue. I am eager to see this issue settled on merit. Unfortunately we will never see this because racially motivated pre-judgment and hatred for the President combination to create a wall of prejudice and ignorance that will derail this plan, no matter what the facts are. This is the very thing that convicted Tom Robinson in *To Kill a Mocking Bird*. You have shouted all the lines; you have called up all the ancient hatreds and fears. Flaccid, your anger is that of Bob Ewell; that of the mob that gathered to lynch poor Tom. To quote Scout, “I know you Mr. Cunningham.”
When the facts come out – I will judge the decision of the President by them. Not on the hate and bigotry of those whose anger and fear is based only in ignorance.
Lysis,
You post: “Unfortunately we will never see this because racially motivated pre-judgment and hatred for the President combination to create a wall of prejudice and ignorance that will derail this plan, no matter what the facts are.” I completely agree. Both the Anonymy and the Democrats take a position in this issue that is intellectually opposite from everything they have promoted about the war to date. It appears to me that they take this position just as you say, because of “racially motivated pre-judgment and hatred for the President.”
Anonymy,
I find myself in the odd position of being on the same side of the table with many of you. The rhetoric you collectively spew certainly doesn’t make it easy, but it seems that even those who accuse other’s mothers of wearing army boots can be right sometimes.
Much of what I have drawn is from and article in today’s Washington Times by Frank Gaffney. Go to www.washingtontimes.com. In the search words box, type CFIUS.
Though Port Management does not directly involve security, implicitly it does. Port management is responsible for personnel and for cargo. From the Times: “As a result, a case can be made it is a mistake to have foreign entities responsible for any aspect of such ports, including managing their docks, stevedore operations and terminals. After all, that duty affords abundant opportunities to insinuate personnel and/or shipping containers that can pose a threat to this country. Even though the company in question may not be directly responsible for port security, at least some of their employees have to be read in on the relevant plans, potentially compromising the latter irreparably.”
“At least the previous foreign contractors were from Britain, a country on our side before September 11, 2001. The same cannot be said of the United Arab Emirates, whose territory was used for most of the planning and financing of the September 11 attacks. While the UAE's government is now depicted as a friend and ally in the so-called war on terror, its country remains awash with Islamofascist recruiters and adherents, who are all too willing to exploit any new opportunity to harm us.” (end of quote)
The President’s unbending position in the face of criticism is one of his most appealing traits to me. It is that trait that has held him is such good stead in the prosecution of the War on Terror. In this particular instance, however, it may be his Achilles. It appears to me he risks alienating his base if he forces his position.
Again, from the Times: “So, the question recurs: How long will it take before Mr. Bush cuts his losses? This could be accomplished in one of three ways: He could reverse the decision himself (perhaps by directing CFIUS to reconsider its initial recommendation). He could encourage and sign into law legislation barring foreign ownership or management of U.S. port facilities (akin to the rules governing other critical infrastructure). Or he could quietly encourage the UAE to do as Communist China did last year with respect to the Unocal purchase -- withdraw the offer itself, sparing the country in question (and its friends here) the embarrassment of having its behavior carefully scrutinized and its offer spurned in a high-profile way.” (end of quote)
What I find interesting is that both our Anonymy and the Democrats take the position against the Port buyout with a straight face. This IS profiling! I have heard continually how wrong such a practice is from the left side of the isle. Further, I have also continually listened to the Left claim that the war on terror is unnecessary and that we face no danger. The two positions appear to me to be mutually exclusive. Which is it, Anonymy?
More homework for the Republican-at-the-peak-of-his-knowledge-curve! Got to go!
I give you reason after reason why a company in the U.A.E. should not be sold these ports and all you say over and over again is that makes me a bigot!? Who is calling names here and who is actually debating on the merits. (That's another rhetorical question for ya'.) And I have called up no ancient fears. The 9/11 Commission makes continuing, unanimous, bipartisan reports. U.A.E. was smuggling nuclear technologies to rogue nations just a couple of years ago. The DOJ STILL lists the U.A.E. as not being transparent in its dealings with terrorist financing! My reason for criticism is OUR SAFETY you yutz! Your infatuation with all things W. stems from your total lack of reason. Quit calling names and get on board with just about everyone else who can read the writing on the wall that says this is a bad idea.
By the way, I have heard Rummy talk about this (but not Gonzales. Where is that statement?) Rummy is the same brain dead freak that said we had enough troops to occupy Iraq after the invasion, that we should get harder in our torture of detainees and then took it back, (Over 100 dead from maltreatment while in U.S. custody now - 34 ruled outright homicide by the Pentagon) and who said people weren't looting after the fall of Bagdhad but we were just seeing the same guy taking the same vase over and over. His word is mud, just like yours. It is already proven he will say anything for his own political ends. You citing to him indicates why you are so far behind on this point, you keep relying on the same people that constantly let us down and lie to us. Snap out of it!
And don't be so damn coy. Everyone here who reads your post knows you agree 110% with everything George W. Bush says and does, that goes for this stupid port deal too. You say you never took a position on it but say any criticism of it is based solely on racism and lies. Well if all the criticism is purely racism then it sounds like you think there are no good critiques of it; your dumb words are just another way of saying you think it is a great idea. That is that based on nothing more than pure hero worship of President that will let the U.S. be attacked again if he, and you, get your ways!
Seriously, "To Kill A Mockingbird?" Get real and read the reports on U.A.E.'s continued funding of terrorism. That is who you are going to defend? You want them running our U.S. ports? You have got to get a grip on reality.
Child, please go to Coach, and get some help here. I have clearly stated that I will wait for the facts; I have not made up my mind. Your hatred for Rumsfeld, your lies about the war in Iraq, and your “Your Mother Wears Army Boots Attacks” are not the facts you purport to be presenting. Again you are quoting the same people who have supported the President’s stand in this as being against it. I await the full story.
By the way, your sudden conversion to safety at any cost, is wonderful. Too bad it will disappear when it is George Bush doing the defending. Just like the folks in Maycomb, your mind is made up, and you will take any position to push your hopes.
I on the other hand I await the facts. As always, the difference in our approach is as telling as the difference in our intellects.
You have a head full of rocks and you are fooling no one with your "I will wait for the facts" malarkey. Everyone knows about your erotic fantasies for George Bush and absolutely everything he does. Good luck waiting for the facts on this one too. It was decided in what Chertoff said was a "secret process." That is code for this administration saying we aint going to tell you how we did you just have to have faith in us. They wouldn't even tell the congressional investigation into hurricane Katrina failures all of the things they did! They didn't want to be embarassed. No chance they will tell us how embarassingly out of the loop your boyfriend Georgeous George was on this non-investigation investigation. At least you could do like part-time Senate majority leader and full-time crook Bill Frist and A Sleep At the Wheel All Day All Night House Leader Hastert and call for a block while Congress actually asserts some spine and investigates this themselves. Even they can't trust this rock for brains President and his followers anymore. You and your "reasoning" can't be trusted. OUR safety cannot wait while you and Georgous George catch up with the class!
Lets interject some facts into this diatribe against the UAE.
For actual information concerning what the 9-11 comission 'did' say about Dubai or the UAE go to
http://www.asksam.com/cgi-bin/as_web5.exe?Command=First&File=911Report.ask
It is a digital copy of the 9-11 report that is in a database that you can search for any terms you would like.
I have now read every reference to the UAE or to Dubai.
To say that Anonymous is mischaracterizing is an understatement, but I will let others read it themselves to decide how they feel about the UAE and their trustworthiness.
Things I gleaned from the report.
1. A small handful of individuals in Dubai facilitated money transfers through their bank accounts in Dubai.
2 The same small handful helped individuals that would later participate in the hijackings to get hotel rooms in Dubai, and plane tickets to various locations around the world (including Europe and the U.S.)
3. The U.S. considered the UAE an important ally against terror and Bin Laden in 1999, and that stance has yet to change according to the CIA, though they did have concerns about some things the UAE did, namely. . .
4. The UAE was spineless in their 'ultimatums' to the Taliban. They were asked by the U.S. to enforce embargo's on the Taliban, and they gave subsequenet ultimatums to the Taliban. Neither were very effective.
Opinions I have made based upon the above facts shown in the 9-11 commission report.
1. There was no reason for Dubai to deny these individuals bank accounts. The U.S. had no problem in dealing with the Dubai banks, and the individuals with bank accounts were not wanted by the U.S.
2. See answer to #1. There was also no reason for the U.S. to deny them access to the country at the time. It is obvious in hindsight that such restrictions would have been helpful, but hindsight always tells us things that could have been done to improve a situation.
3. The CIA used them extensively in counterterrorism activities, there must have been a reason.
4. The U.S. (and every other country in the world) wasn't much better. Lamenting the actions of the Taliban in their oppressive regime in Afghanistan did nothing to curb the rise of Al Qaeda, or the dangerous and violent actions of the Taliban. Our sanctions did nothing, the UAE's ultimatum did nothing. Why is their failed action so much more unforgiveable than ours?
If you went down country by country in the world and made a list of known terrorists, wanted men, men involved in the plotting and carrying out of attacks on the U.S. you would find very, very few that are from the UAE. Yes, many of them have flown from Dubai. But many have flown from Paris, London, Germany, and numerous airports in the U.S. In and of itself this is not proof or even good indication of danger.
But, you don't have to take my word for it. Go to the report itself and read about Dubai and the UAE
I am wondering if anyone can differentiate the arguments that support the block of this sale and the arguments that convinced the Supreme Court that it was okay to inter American citizens at Topaz.
"I will wait for the facts"
Lysis code words for, "I will WAIT to see which Republican dissenters Rove 'throws out of the boat' and punishes (like Sen John McCain) with fabricated 'swiftboating-like' charges proving disloyalty and treason."
Lysis will then tell us how he was an "eye witness" to the whole thing and, begin downloading all of the Rove/Administration/Limbaugh attack disinformation at the Agora, then delightedly SQUEAL something about combat boots and his/someone's mother!!!!
Can we all say Harriet Meyers????
"We need to know the difference between the U.A.E. and this U.A.E. based company." There isn't one. Dubai World Ports is state owned. When their have been findings of state hampering of investigations into terror financing you are speaking of U.A.E., which is the same thing as speaking of Dubai World Ports. WE SHOULD NOT GIVE DOMESTIC PORTS TO STATES THAT HAMPER OUR FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISTS IN ANY WAY.
"Can you distinguish between this sale and Topaz Mountain?" You are really so blind you cannot see a difference. Topaz was a rounding up of private citizens based solely on their ancestry. This is a state owned company! From a state that has a less than stellar record in fighting the very terrorists that attacked the U.S. and has assisted in smuggling nuclear materials to rogue nations around the world! You are really dense.
Here is a line of argument to follow that even meets your flimsy retention: Dubai World Ports is state owned. The U.S. is at war. You do not give vital arteries of U.S. security infrastructure over to the control of foreign governments when you are at war!! Period! If you still need to go beyond that then you doubly do not give control of domestic infrastructure to a country where the very attackers that launched this war on the U.S. financed, planned, and began their jihad, the U.A.E. That is just STUPID.
It is what even the Republicans in Congress in are coming to expect from this incompetent Presidency and its true believers like Liesis: STUPIDITY.
More news to be ignored by all the Bush worshipers:
Looks like Dubai World Ports only got the deal because Bush was paying back crony political appointee David Sanborn. Scott McClellan dismissed any connection between the deal and David Sanborn of Virginia, a former senior DP World executive whom the White House appointed last month to be the new administrator of the Maritime Administration of the Transportation Department. Such appearance of impropriety continues to fuel suspicion of Bush's dedication to security and his dedication to the old-boy political network his family has created. Sanborn worked as DP World’s director of operations for Europe and Latin America where he had access to unique knowledge of Dubai Ports P&O take over. After being appointed by Bush to transportation board he had unique access to making the billion dollar deals happen.
“My understanding is that he has assured us that he was not involved in the negotiations to purchase this British company,” McClellan said before adding that the President was not even aware of the deal until after it had been made. Makes you wonder how he could possibly stand behind his false statement yesterday that, "If this was going to make the U.S. less safe I wouldn't have approved it." The corruption and cronyism of this President knows no ends.
The Harriet Meyers analogy is spot on, just like the Mike Brown. Bush is willing to sacrifice our security to pay back old college roommates and campaign fund raisers. Someone get on the phone and tell their representatives to stop the evil-doers, in the White House!
It is really easy to win an argument when you misquote someone. Just because you put " " around a statement does not mean it is what I wrote.
I know that this sale and topaz are different, I was talking about the arguments that have been used to block this deal.
-some in the UAE have supported terror.
-some people who lived in the UAE are terrorists
-the UAE is blocking terrorist investigation (this one is most interesting as the only thing I can find that supports this assertation is the fact that they will not completely open up their bank records to U.S. investigation.) It is most interesting seeing as it seems some liberals want other countries to be willing to openly give away private information that they would balk at our government requiring from our companies.
These arguments are similar to Topaz arguments in that then it was argued that citizens had helped Japan in the attack on Pearl Harbor (a fact), citizens may have divided loyalties (a fact), and there was continued danger to the U.S. from possible sabotage or espionage from citizens of Japanese descent (a fact).
The problem is that these facts do not add up to all citizens of Japanese descent are dangerous and thus should be locked up.
I put forth concrete information with the opportunity for others to decide based on what the 9-11 commission actually said. My opinion is that the info in the 9-11 report is not sufficient to bar the deal. It is interesting that because I have read that and disagree you proclaim me an idiot. That is your perogative I guess, but it doesn't really prove your point.
A couple problems with your latest post.
-Bush facilitated this deal to pay back cronies
-or-
-Bush doesn't pay enough attention to know about the deal.
You have argued both now, they can't both be true.
-Dubai Ports is run by a foreign government that cannot be trusted.
-or-
-DP has Senior World Executives from around the world including one guy from Virginia.
You see there is a major difference between us, I know you think it is that I am an idiot, that must explain why you don't bother to read my arguments.
I can see why people are against this deal, I don't agree, but I can understand.
There are some things that I don't think people can just say, we can agree to disagree, but this one isn't that critical. Before you pop a vein, I say that because I do not believe the SECURITY OF THE NATION IS AT STAKE.
The same longshoremen are going to be working as were working before. The same opportunity for a fake longshoremen to infiltrate the group will be there as before. Ships that were packed and left ports that are already run by this company in other parts of the world will continue to come into the very ports we are talking about. It happens now every day. This company has run ports around the world and has been in charge of freight that has entered the U.S. for years.
What will change? Do you think the teamsters will aly themselves with Al Qaeda? I don't.
Is there opportunity for terrorists to infiltrate parts of a port and help smuggle in dangerous goods? Yes, there is now, there will be then, there is no way to make that impossible.
This company is not going to fire every dock worker, supervisor, manager, executive, and replace them with Al Qaeda operatives. The same people who run the dock now, will run it then.
I am not opposed to questions, I am not opposed to oversight. Let the Congress have a hearing, let the executive administrative body who green lighted the deal come forward and explain why they think it isn't a problem.
Dannyboy,
Thanks for some facts. As usual, the light of truth sends the roaches running back to their layers, or shall we say lies. Your efforts in the 9/11 report have shown the perpetual flaw of the arguments of the Anonomy, they hear quotes on their media spin shows and spew them out with out checking the fact, exaggerating the spin as they spew.
It is also worth noting that the U. S. has a major Air Base in Dubai. From this base American force do much to fight the enemies that the Anonymous crew have suddenly become so afraid of. This FEAR of Arabs is very convenient now that it is an attack mechanism to gain support for their plans.
Silver lining;
You have the best source on this. It comforts me to hear the “boots on the ground” agree with the President. I also agree with you that this is Harriet Myers all over again. Eager to deliver any kind of a defeat to the President, the neo-libs joined ranks with the most radical right wing fanatics to get her to step aside, only to have Judge Alito pushed into the court. So much for the lefts so called “affirmative action” commitments, and so much for getting a moderate on the court. Now the President’s enemies on the left are willing to throw in with the loudest screamers on the right. The limp flip-floppers on the left abandoned their pretended open-mindedness and claimed desires to cooperate with other nations in order to hurt President Bush and maybe gin up a campaign slogan or two in the next election. In exchange, Flaccid is calling for direct government control of ports and trade; so much for curbing excesses in government control. Once again the left abandons it principles to gain power. This is, of course, easy for them to do; as they never really held these principles to begin with.
Flaccid and Child;
What is most telling about your “shift of convenience” from a stance that “America and the President are going too far in fighting terror” to a “nothing before defense” position; is how Ewell (Bob Ewell from *To Kill a Mockingbird*) like it is. No one had any respect for Bob Ewell. Everyone knew he was liar and child abuser. His only hope was to turn to racism. He appealed to the hatred that ignorance allows to growing just beneath the surface in his neighbors. Ewell knew that when he accused a Black Man of rape; everyone would be forced to agree with him. The Ewells were able to get away with the lies because of Racism. The same will be true of Flaccid and crew. Well, there were a few thinking people in Maycomb. Pray God there are still a few thinking people in America. The responses here in the Agora gives me some hope.
Unfortunately racial bigotry is still a powerful tool. Fear based on ignorance is hard to turn aside when half truths and down right lies fuel the foolishness. When reason goes away, there is no reasoning with the frightened or the prejudiced. Look at the silly “Your Mother Wears Army Boots” attacks of our own Anonomy:
“STATES THAT HAMPER OUR FIGHT”
“You are so blind.”
“your flimsy retention”
“vital arteries of U.S. security infrastructure turned over to foreign governments”
“the very attackers that launched this war on the U.S. financed, planned, and began their jihad,”
“That is just STUPID”
“incompetent Presidency”
“True Believer like Liesis:”
“STUPIDITY”
“old-boy political network his family has created.”
“pay back old college roommates and campaign fund raisers.”
“evil-doers, in the White House!”
What is so telling about these “attacks” is that their complete lack of factual backup renders what, in some cases might be legitimate criticism, to the Level of Bob and May Ella Ewell’s insults against Atticus and the judge. The people who watch and think are saddened or bemused, but never convinced. Still the jury did convict Tom Robinson, and the mindless mob, driven by race bating and fear will no doubt push for direct federal control of all trade. Bob Ewell got what he disserved; our Flaccid friends will get the same. To bad the rest of us must suffer for their hate. Who will save Boo?
You are so misguided in your blind devotion to George Bush that nothing you say is even relevant anymore Liesis.
DannyBoy2, DPW is a state controlled company, it did have a very politically connected friend of George W. Bush on its board just a short time ago. George W. Bush did give the post on the transportation board to David Sanborn to pay him back for political support. Mr. Sanborn then secretly approved his former employer for a take over of U.S. ports. Where do you think Sanborn is going to go after he steps down from the Transportation Board in just another year? If you guessed right to the VP Suite in DPW you're right, quid pro quo and away our security goes with the signing of a check. Did Bush know his old buddy was going to approve this deal? Bush isn't that smart or that far sighted. If he was he wouldn't have nominated Harriet Meyers, told Mike Brown he was doing a heck of a job, or put David Sanborn on the Transportation Board. Bush's continued incompetence is costing America dearly.
Remember, Dubai World Ports is state owned. The U.S. is at war. You do not give vital arteries of U.S. security infrastructure over to the control of foreign governments when you are at war!! Period! That is a no brainer, especially when the country you are giving that control to has secretly helped your enemies and actively stopped you from discovering that. If you are not going to pop an artery over that what are you waiting for? An answer that comes in the form of a mushroom cloud at the docks in Philiadelphia!?!? DWP has already proven its ability to smuggle nuclear material around the globe!
You say, "Is there opportunity for terrorists to infiltrate parts of a port and help smuggle in dangerous goods? Yes, there is now, there will be then, there is no way to make that impossible." Should we let a state owned North Korean company run our ports? Hell no! Well why would we increase the risk to the U.S. by letting another state owned company run our ports that helped North Korea, Iran, Lybia and Pakistan smuggle their nuclear goods around! We should not. We may never be able to eliminate every risk we face but we should not seek to increase the risks we face for no good reason other than the price was right!
Bush does press too hard in the fight on terror in all of the wrong places and he continues to get failing grades on his handling of national security from the bipartisan - NOT EXTREME - 9/11 Commission. He cannot help it. He's incompetent and a slave to the dollar.
If President Bush follows through on his threat, he'll be making a strange choice for his first veto after more than five years in office. After giving a pass to a parade of misbegotten Congressional initiatives and irresponsible budget packages, he'd be choosing to take a stand over the right to hand control of operations at major American ports to a company based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and controlled by that government.
And Congress, which is making a bipartisan show of beating its collective chest, is being rather tardy in taking a stand, given the way it has looked on indifferently as the administration has ignored Congress's own rights of oversight and its constituents' right not to be targets of extralegal spying.
Nevertheless, Congress is right to resist the ports deal, in which the company, Dubai Ports World, would take over the British company now running these operations. The issue is not, as Mr. Bush is now claiming, a question of bias against a Middle Eastern company. The United Arab Emirates is an ally, but its record in the war on terror is mixed. It is not irrational for the United States to resist putting port operations, perhaps the most vulnerable part of the security infrastructure, under that country's control. And there is nothing in the Homeland Security Department's record to make doubters feel confident in its assurances that all proper precautions will be taken.
The Bush administration has followed a disturbing pattern in its approach to the war on terror. It has been perpetually willing to sacrifice individual rights in favor of security. But it has been loath to do the same thing when it comes to business interests. It has not imposed reasonable safety requirements on chemical plants, one of the nation's greatest points of vulnerability, or on the transport of toxic materials. The ports deal is another decision that has made the corporations involved happy, and has made ordinary Americans worry about whether they are being adequately protected.
It is no secret that this administration has pursued an aggressive antiregulatory agenda, and it has elevated corporate leaders to its highest positions. Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department convened the panel that approved the ports deal, came to government after serving as the chief executive of the CSX Corporation, which was a major port operator when he worked there. (After he left, CSX sold its port operations to Dubai Ports World.)
The administration's intransigence has inspired a rare show of bipartisanship. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, and the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, along with a slew of other Republican members of Congress, have joined leading Democrats in objecting to the move. Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, are introducing a bill that would put the decision on hold and require closer examination of the proposal. The bill would ultimately give Congress the final say.
The Schumer-King bill takes the right approach, and members of Congress from both parties should rally around it. Rather than using his first veto on such a wrongheaded cause, President Bush should make the bill unnecessary by acting on his own to undo the ports deal. And you should be angry enough about to demand that he does just that!
Anonymous, I have to hand it to you. That was by far the most well thought out and written response you have given, bar none.
You bring up some interesting and thought provoking points, and as I have said, I have no problem with congress oversight and questions being asked in this process. I just do not believe that anything will be found to justify the stopping of the deal.
A few counterpoints. I think some of your assumptions are colored by an obvious distaste for the current administration.
First, you assume, without giving any backing here, that the only reason David Sanborn got his current position was as a political favor. Now, I am not naive to believe that favoritism played no part. But we are talking about a man who was an executive in the shipping industry. It is not really that big of a stretch to say he would be qualified to be on a transportation board that deals with maritime, and shipping business.
You also claim that Sanborn was the power behind the government ok, as if no one else in any level of executive administration could have had input, and that his only motivating factor would be his personal gain.
Lets look at this claim for a moment. Do you really believe that this man is so intent on lining his pockets he would knowingly put the entire country at jeopardy to have a possible position after he leaves the government? There are a few problems with that.
First, if an incident happened, there would be no more DPW for him to go to.
Second, if a major incident happened, he would lose much more money than he stands to gain.
Third, you must assume that he cares nothing for the country or any of its citizens, a fairly bold and unsubstantiated claim.
Do you really find it that odd that a former CEO was appointed Secretary of the Treasury? How many of those throughout the history of the U.S. do you think where not either high end bankers or powerful business men with ties to corporate America in one way or another.
Again, go back to my post concerning the 9-11 commission report. I do not believe it supports the assertations you are making.
Oh and as far as our ports being in the hands of a foreign power during war, wasn't the company that DPW bought out British? Didn't you say no matter what? Because I don't remember hearing you clamor for the ending of that business cooperation.
Flaccid my friend; I have long ago discounted the relevance of your cut and paste arguments, but I continue to respond. I want to help you!
In our verbal battle, I have punched you square in your bigoted nose, I stand back with the rest of the gang to watch you blow bloody bubbles and blubber out -Your Mother wears Army Boots - “Nothing you say is even relevant”. What a brilliant come back, Flaccid. (That’s sarcasm).
Did George Bush put his buddy in control of Dubai to facilitate the nuking of Philadelphia? (That’s a rhetorical question - one used to ridicule your felonious position, and boy did it work!)
To return to the *To Kill a Mockingbird* analogy; you claim that President Bush is giving the “vital arteries of U.S. security over to the control of a foreign government”. This is to lie on the witness stand. Even the children in the balcony recognize the truth.
Neither North Korea nor Dubai will be running our ports! (You really ought to teach you student the academic and debating tool of literary analogy.) You’re screaming RAPE when none has occurred. Effective, but dishonest.
Your attack on Bush for “failing grades for his handling of national security from the 9/11 Commission” and being an “incompetent slave to the dollar”; show your real motive in adopting your bigoted position. You are still quoting Mike Moore.
On the issue of a Presidential veto of the Schumer/King bill; it is exactly because it is as President Bush says, “bias against a Middle Easter company” that such a veto is justified. But I agree with you that a veto will fail. President Bush has no more hope in winning than did Atticus Finch, but his cause is just as just.
On you silly charge that there is nothing in the Homeland Security Department’s record to make doubters feel confident; I would point to four years without an attack on the U.S. and the blocking of ten documented al Qaeda attempts as a real record to build confidence on. You are right, the doubters, like the bigots, will not be satisfied.
You give no evidence of a single individual right sacrificed in favor of security. And you ignore the fact that businesses are made up of and owned by individuals.
Finally, I support the Administration reducing regulations that choke our economy and reduce productivity.
This entire “Dubai attack” is just the next in the “attack of the week” strategy of the Democrats and their allies. This one is more pervasive, because it relies on racism, but IF THE TRUTH MATCHES WHAT THE PRESIDENT HAS SAID, AS IT ALWAYS HAS, this too will pass. I will wait and see!!! A few weeks ago the anti-Bushes were screaming Impeachment for the NSA’s Constitutional actions against terrorists. The truth came out; reason returned.
Dannyboy and Silver lining have already started to articulate the truth. I hope it will all come out and reason will return. Racism and bigotry are always wrong, whether the President is or not. Time will tell; I have hope in the Cunninghams
Funny isn't Liesis that your first bolded phrase in your long apology for Bush is IF THE TRUTH MATCHES WHAT THE PRESIDENT SAYS. We agree here. That sure is a mighty big IF! Ha! Also telling you should end Republican soaked rant with "I have hope in the Cunninghams." Republican Representative Randy Cunningham resigned just three months ago after being indicted for accepting bribes. A slip on your part, perhaps. Perhaps a very deep insight as to the party and the people you look up to Liesis. A party and a President willing to sell our security off to the highest bidder.
DannyBoy2, P&O of the U.K. was a privately held company. The maxim of good sense that you do not sell off your national security infrastructure to foreign governments during time of war. DP World is a state owned company and the White House has fully acknowledged this yet they cannot see what a bad idea it is for America.
Funny, isn't it Liesis, that your first bolded phrase in your long apology for Bush is IF THE TRUTH MATCHES WHAT THE PRESIDENT SAYS. We agree here. That sure is a mighty big IF! Ha! Also, it is telling you should end Republican soaked rant with "I have hope in the Cunninghams." Republican Congressman Randy Cunningham resigned in disgrace just three months ago after being indicted for accepting bribes. An unintentional slip on your part. A very deep insight as to the party and the people you look up to Liesis. A party and a President willing to sell our security off to the highest bidder.
DannyBoy2, P&O of the U.K. was a privately held company. The good sense to not sell off your national security infrastructure to foreign governments during time of war still stands. DP World is a state owned company and the White House has fully acknowledged this yet they cannot see what a bad idea it is for America
Flaccid or the Child; (hard to tell which one this time)
The Cunninghams are characters in *To Kill a Mockingbird*. They are country people who are beginning to see the evils of racism. They are the hope of America that Atticus believes will someday end the evils of racism. My mistake was I assuming you had actually read the book. I see now that you have not. That probably explains why you can’t see the dangers of the raciest bigotry Tom Robinson faced.
You also show another trait which condemns your arguments. You pull part of something I say out of context and use it as a “Your Mother Wears Army Boots” attack.
I did say “IF THE TRUTH MATCHES WHAT THE PRESIDENT HAS SAID” I also added, “AS IT ALWAYS HAS, this too will pass”. Your misquoting my words to change their meaning is a form of lying. Isn’t it a sad commentary on your integrity that you must lie to “make points”? Isn’t it a sad commentary on your intellect that you do it in plan sight of everyone – sure to be immediately reveled in your subterfuge?
That the company is controlled directly by the Dubai government, a proven ally of the United States, which has, and continues to, risk much to support the U.S. in its Long War against Terror strengthens my confidence in the transaction. You have failed to listen to Dannyboy’s information on Dubai’s support of the U.S. and give no reason beyond your proven misrepresentation of the 9/11 Commission report for anyone to believe otherwise. Add to this the FACT that the United States is not selling off its national security infrastructure to foreign government. This is another lie, which all can plainly see. That your arguments are continually based on misrepresentation and deceit does not bode well for their efficacy or persuasive power.
I suggest you read *To Kill a Mocking Bird*. Prepare your report; I’ll be glad to grade it.
Anonymy,
If I may borrow from you, with a little poetic license, You are so misguided in your blind hatred of George Bush that nothing you say is even relevant anymore.
Welcome to reality! You’ve come to the realization that elected officials repay the loyalty of friends?
Why would ANY President do otherwise? Who was it that Clinton nominated as Justices to the Supreme Court? Roberts and Alito?
As DannyBoy2 has very articulately pointed out, Sanborn IS qualified. Whether we like it or not (ala Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, AND Bush 43, et al), when we elect a President, we elect his circle of friends. This “cronyism” argument from the Anonymy means nothing to me when taken in historical context. IT IS PART OF THE PACKAGE THAT COMES WITH WINNING ELECTIONS. What I hope, rather DEMAND, from elected officials from either side is that the appointment is intellectually honest rather than repayment. As DannyBoy2 pointed out, Sanborn’s resume adequately meets my own criteria as to being an intellectually honest appointment.
If you want a different circle, next time you’re going to have to WIN THE ELECTION. If you do, I can only hope your new man will follow the above criteria as closely as President Bush has.
As I said earlier, I find it difficult to be on the same side of the table as the “collective”. In this instance I am, in that I do not favor turning over port authority to the UAE. Nevertheless, I have taken note that none, NOT ONE of the Anonymy has answered the questioning of the “collective” position based on previous posts. I thought diplomacy (ala Hillary) was the answer to maintain our safety! I thought protection from danger (ala Kerry) was delusionally paranoid because of a lack of discovery of WMD’S. I thought withdrawal (ala Murtha) would lead to a more secure nation! I thought PROFILING was illeagal! Shoot, Teddy “Chappaquiddick” Kennedy was Sam Alito’s moral compass; why isn’t here now to lead the charge?
Which is it? Are you really suddenly concerned with the security of the nation, or is this just another example (among the many examples) of your hatred for President Bush? Based on your previous posts, this is the best example of a rhetorical question ever posted at the Agora.
How about it Anonymy? I know I have no chance to be nominated for “Agorite of the Year”, you seem to have claimed that honor! But how about “the Rhetorical Question of the Year”! Can I count on your support?
Rumpole, you get my vote for Retoritician of the year. I am concerned that you have taken a seat at a rather dubious table. I can’t help but think that you table holds the “collective” misconception that we are at War with Afghanistan, that Iraqis are our enemies. The truth is that the Iraqi people fight harder and sacrifice as much in the war on Terror than Americans do. Rumpole, it is easy to fear all Arabs, it is hard to tell the difference between a Japanese American and an Imperial Solider, it is easy to consider all (you fill in the blank) inferior; to accept the lies about Tom Robinson because “those people” are always after “our women”.
What I want is some evidence that Dubai is anything but supportive of the United States. Anyone at your table is welcome to present something true. (Misrepresenters and half truth parroters of any “take show” host need not apply).
Oh give it a rest with the Mockingbird crap Liesis. You sound more and more like an annoying parrot with every post. Everything I said about you is true. The first bolded phrase you made about the President's honesty started with IF and that is a big IF, literally, you dolt. I knew you were saying you looked up to the Cunninghams from Harper Lee's novel but you also look up to the party that has institutionalized corruption in a pay to play scheme for access to congress and is represented by disgraced Randy Cunningham. "You believe in the Cunninghams" comes with meaning you didn't think of but is true all the same.
As for my interest in National Security it has always been firm and forthright. President Bush has thrown our security away through incompetence and screwed prosecution of nearly every program he has pursued to make Americans safer. But hey, don't take my word for it. Check out the failing grades he has received from the continuing reports of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, look at the disaster that resulted AFTER Katrina, look at the mess in Iraq, watch Iran and North Korea develop nuclear weapons, watch Islamofascists take control in backlashes to George Bush's torturing throughout the Arab world, his trampling of civil rights at home and abroad, see public opinion for the U.S.A. plumet around the globe (in recent survey by Global Poll only Iran scored lower in unfavorability than the U.S. China was higher!), and watch Congress continue to have its powers eroded by a militantly secretive and ignorant White House! There is a lot there to take in all at once if you really are opening your mind. Try just to focus on this then: George Bush thinks it is a great idea to turn over the management of U.S. Ports to a country that has continuously stalled investigations into terror financing and has managed ports while nuclear material was smuggled through to our enemies. You know this is a bad idea. Right now we are finding out that the administration made secret deals with DPW that doesn't even hold them to the same standard for accountability as other private contractors in this field!!! They aren't even required to keep the invoices and other paper work that would allow a complete and immediate security analysis per these back room deals worth billions of dollars!! Bush's failures to our national security are out of control and he needs to be stopped.
Lysis,
Oh how I hate arguing for the “collective”. I don’t think the Anonymy will tolerate it. Will it be considered a “typical” posting from Rumple? After all, hasn’t the Anonymy been anointed “Agorite of the Year?”
Nevertheless, I will argue my own position. If the Anonymy support it can we take that as an affirmative answer to the “Rhetorical Question of the Year?”
I carry no misconception that we are at war with Afghanistan, and that the Iraqis are our enemies. I believe the opposite to be true. You apparently fail to recognize with your implication, however, that the governments of both Afghanistan and Iraq have not always supported freedom. That support has only been recent, with much blood sacrificed in the name of that freedom.
Both governments have recently been replaced with governments intent on free peoples. Has there been such a governmental change within the UAE (Sorry, I’m working on my rhetorical skills to use for another day against the Anonymy)? Further, the UAE openly supported the Taliban until the U.S. toppled that regime in the fall of 2001.
The UAE has become a critical strategic partner in the War on Terror. Nevertheless, with its pre 9/11 history, should we turn over management of our own ports to that foreign government?
Your point is powerful that it is unjustly easy to fear all Arabs. However, your implication that I am guilty of “profiling” a race or a people is simply not accurate. I “profile” a government that has openly supported the Taliban, has alleged links to al-Qaeda, has issues with money laundering, etc. Was the UAE’s sudden change of heart after 9/11 motivated by desire to support the American cause after 9/11? Or was it motivated by the fear of the American cause after 9/11? Perhaps it was motivated out of political expediency. These are NOT rhetorical questions, and until we have these answers there is too much at stake!
This evidence is what I offer you as we sit together at your table. I acknowledge that it is evidence from the past. I see its application as prudent, for there has been no regime change in the UAE, as there has been in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I see the same UAE government in control, with greed and fear as possible motivators in the alliance with America, rather than the desire for freedom. With so much at stake I consider it as unwise to enter this transaction without more concrete assurances. Do you have such assurances to offer?
Rumpole, in an attempt to answer your non-rhetorical questions let me put forth a few things that are quite telling to me.
First, the idea that the UAE had a 'sudden' change of heart after 9-11 is not quite true. It is true that they did recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, but looking at everyone else's record pre 9-11, it isn't like the rest of the world took much of a hard line against them.
Second, this company already controls many of the major ports throughout the world. Most of the shipping that enters American ports has gone through at least one of the ports already under the control of this company. If it were either easy to do, or the desire of this company to attack America, it would have already happened, dozens of times over.
I would encourage continued posting of specific problems, or questions people have with this deal, as I would be interested to research them myself.
I found out an interesting tidbit last night talking with my dad. He has worked for a company in Salt Lake City as an electrical engineer in the communications defense industry for 25 years. His company's number one customer is the U.S. government, and in fact much of what they design and build can only be sold to the U.S. government.
Everything that his company designs, invents, and manufactures is strictly regulated by the government and much of it is secret and top secret level classified. He has spent considerable time in the U.K. as they are the only country that his company can sell nearly 100% of their products too based on their level of clearance by the government.
The U.S. government decides who they can sell their designs to. His company is only allowed to sell to NATO countries, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. This is based on government assesments of how trusted an ally the country is, and this standard has been in place for quite some time (well before 9-11).
Dannyboy:
Thanks again for facts. It is of great value to hear all sides of the story as one makes decisions in a democracy. I think you will find some further info in the points I present to Rumpole below.
Rumpole;
Sorry to keep you up so late. I understand your concerns; “She Who must . . .” expressed the same ones this morning. Let me pass these ideas across our table. The Government of Dubai did indeed keep open relations with the Taliban (as Dannyboy notes – so did many nations); relations Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief in the War to Liberate Afghanistan, said last night were valuable in U.S. interactions with Afghanistan before the War. Last night I was an “eye witness” to Tommy Franks’ statements on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes when he pointed out an advantage he had over many of the people now speculating on the loyalty and support provided by Dubai. He said, “I have actually been there!” He went on to say that, “The U.S. has no better Ally in the War on Terror than the UAE.” I would remind you that the 9/11 Commission Report, in which our Anonomy put so much faith – as long as it agrees with their position, found no fault in the actions of the government of the UAE. The only questions dealt with individuals in that country. There were individuals, bank accounts, training schools . . . in the U. S. that were involved in the 9/11 attack. As you know, the Clinton Justice Department even actively protected the terrorists’ privacy and discouraged any investigation into their behavior. Bill Clinton let bin Laden go! Are you now going to through out U.S. “support” in the Long War on Terror just because the U.S. still has the same government???
Here in an interesting aside. You might have read in Flaccid’s post above that the “Administration” made special deals with the DPW in order to secure the contract. This is true, but what Flaccid avoids telling you is that these special, and formerly secret, deals were to increase the accountability of the Arab company and to secure further support in investigating the very things that Flaccid is demanding we investigate. Other concessions on the part of the U.S. are typical for this kind of deal with any foreign based company, in no way unique to this deal.
I’m not sure what you mean by “greed and fear” motivating the UAE. I see a lot of countries unwilling to risk anything to support the U. S. (France, Germany, Russia, Spain . . .). I suggest there is a lot more greed and fear in the European desertion of Western values and the fight for freedom than in Dubai’s willingness to risk the wrath of fanatic Islam in order to lend support to the U. S, in our time of need. I refer you to Tommy Franks’ most creditable support of the integrity of Dubai. Who would stand by Canada or Mexico with equal vigor?
Flaccid;
You get an F on your report on *To Kill a Mockingbird”! I can see why you would call anything that points out your hypocrisy and racism “crap”. It is odd that you repeatedly know the truth but continue to post misrepresentations. I’m sure you know that the “secret deals” with Dubai support the U.S. efforts to fight the terrorists and to safeguard the ports of our country, but you conveniently omit the truth. You knew I was referring to Cunninghams (those in America who are slowly learning the evils of racism), but you post nonsense about some discredited Congressman because it fits your argument.
That you have abandoned your position is obvious to all or us Unable to find anything to support your raciest and bigoted (Bob Ewell) stance against Dubai, you go back to your favorite “literary reference”, Mike Moore’s *Fahrenheit 9/11*, and spew the discredited lies about Bush’s successes in the War on Terror, torture, and such. You have dumped Jimmy Carter quickly enough. I now await your attacks on Tommy Franks. That he is a “decorated war hero” will not spare him your wrath, now that he has disagreed with your position. Calling him names will have no more effect on his creditability than it has on mine. When Bob Ewell spit on Atticus, he simply said, “I wish Bob Ewell wouldn’t chew tobacco.” What you’re chewing, Flaccid, is the same color as tobacco but–it stinks even more. Spitting it on me won’t win your argument, but I wish you’d quit chewing IT.
That all you can do in your bloodied state is return to the trite and discredited “You Mother Wears Army Boots” retort is compelling evidence in support of the President’s position. Go wipe your nose.
DannyBoy2, I'm sure the U.A.E.'s vast reserves of natural gas and oil in the U.A.E. didn't hurt their security clearance either; neither did its handy proximity to two countries the U.S. has put under political containment for years.
Conservative Michael Hirsh has a column from yesterday that is right on point with Anonymous's posts last night. It is very long but deserves a read as should clarify anyone's position on national security issues and this President.
Clumsy Leadership
The furor over Dubai's planned takeover of some U.S. ports is a sign of how out of control the ‘war on terror’ has become.
Feb. 22, 2006 - Revolutionaries need several ingredients to succeed: charisma, for one; organization, for another. But what they need most of all is an incompetent regime, one that makes their ideas look good by comparison. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive," William Wordsworth famously wrote after the French Revolution, romanticizing the "enfants de la patrie" who marched on the Bastille. But no one ever quotes the next line in his poem about the "meager, stale, forbidding " old regime that collapsed so easily there. The early Bolsheviks were nobodies in Russia before the 1917 Revolution, but thanks to the combined ineptitude of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexander Kerensky—the first one representing bumbling monarchy, the latter the most indecisive sort of democracy—Lenin and Co. established their "dictatorship of the proletariat" with a swiftness that surprised even them.
Listening this week to the latest excerpts from Osama bin Laden's and Ayman al Zawahiri's taped messages, it is hard not to marvel at how lucky these would-be revolutionaries have been in their enemy. Who would have thought that, four and a half years on, facing down the mightiest power in history, this sociopathic pair would still be out there talking trash, their continued existence a daily desecration of the memory of the 9/11 dead? Or that bin Laden and Zawahiri would have been able to whip what had been a bare ember of “global jihad”—one barely smoldering on 9/10/01—into a global conflagration? Was that a smirk I detected on Zawahiri's face as he advised George W. Bush that it was not too late for him to convert to Islam? You could not miss the contempt in bin Laden’s voice when, in a tape said to be several months old, he mocked Bush's aircraft carrier-staged declaration in April 2003 that major conflict in Iraq had ended.
What a contrast to four years ago, when the rapid collapse of the Taliban caught bin Laden by surprise as he sought to escape the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora. It was probably the last time, we must now conclude, that the terror impresario was surprised at all. As Gary Berntsen, the CIA officer in charge of the operation, records in his new book "Jawbreaker," (Crown, 2005) bin Laden told his followers, "Forgive me," and apologized for getting them pinned down by the Americans (Berntsen's men were listening on radio). Bin Laden then asked them to pray. And, lo, a miracle occurred. As Berntsen stewed in frustration over the Pentagon’s refusal to rush in more troops to encircle the trapped “sheikh,’ bin Laden was allowed to flee. And not only did Bush stop talking about the man he wanted “dead or alive,” the president began to shift U.S. Special Forces (in particular the Arabic-speaking 5th Group, which had built close relations with its Afghan allies) and Predator drones to the Iraq theater.
It is time to have an accounting of just how badly run, and conceived, this "war on terror" has been. You won't hear it from the Democrats, who have been running a severe testosterone shortage since Vietnam. And there's certainly no need to take my word for it.
Instead, just listen to what the president's own party is saying. Let's start with Donald Rumsfeld, the man we thought was in charge of the GWOT, the global war on terror. Speaking last week at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Rumsfeld lamented how much better bin Laden and Zawahiri were at understanding the nature of the war. He quoted Zawahiri as saying (way back in July 2005), "We are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of Muslims," and then proceeded to complain that "the U.S. government”—some entity the Defense Secretary is not on familiar terms with, presumably—“still functions as a five and dime store in an eBay world." Al Qaeda, Rumsfeld said, as if he were still head of some blue-ribbon commission questioning the competence of the Clinton administration, has made better use of the technologies we invented than we have. "Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we, our country, our government has not adapted," he said.
Uhhh, that failure to adapt, wouldn’t that be your failure, Mr. Rumsfeld? Or the president's? But Rummy was his usual unflappable self, just as full of brio and self-confidence as he appears in Eugene Jarecki's new movie, "Why We Fight," when he raps the podium in prewar 2003 and says, "We know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.”
Again, lest I'm accused of being partisan (I'm really just a reporter, and a very disappointed hawk), I would just refer you to the rebellion within Bush's own party. The way the war was supposed to have been fought—a way that would really have distressed bin Laden and Zawahiri—was that Al Qaeda was supposed to be so isolated by now that we had most of the Arab world on our side. Deals like Dubai Ports World 's takeover of the London company that administers some U.S. ports were supposed to be pretty much routine. After all, as one commentator said to me during an appearance on al Jazeera the other day, isn't this the way globalization is intended to work: you co-opt everyone, even your rivals, into the international system? Instead, so mistrusted is the Bush administration—and so out of control has the war on terror become—that even leading Republican politicians this week sought to cancel the Dubai contract.
We did not have a clash of civilizations four years ago, but we're getting closer to one now. As violent anti-Western protests sweep the Islamic world, and what remains of the moderate Muslim community is cowed into silence, how unbearably sad it is to cast one 's mind back to the eve of 9/11. As Wall Street Journal reporter Alan Cullison wrote in a too-little-noted article in The Atlantic in September 2004, Al Qaeda was then a small fractious group that could not even agree among itself about what its goal was. Members had been hounded from the Arab world, from Sudan, into the hands of a lunatic fringe regime in Afghanistan. Qaeda had one A-team, and one big roll of the dice to make, with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and his ace psychopath, Mohammed Atta. Cullison, quoting a remarkable series of letters he found on Zawahiri’s old computer in Afghanistan, wrote that jihadis who were members of Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad—the biggest component of Al Qaeda—still wanted to make Egypt the main enemy. One of them even compared the grandiose war against America to tilting at "windmills." Cullison is worth quoting at length on this:
"Perhaps one of the most important insights to emerge from the computer is that 9/11 sprang not so much from Al Qaeda’s strengths as from its weaknesses. The computer did not reveal any links to Iraq or any other deep-pocketed government; amid the group's penury the members fell to bitter infighting. The blow against the United States was meant to put an end to the internal rivalries, which are manifest in vitriolic memos between Kabul and cells abroad. Al-Qaeda’s leaders worried about a military response from the United States, but in such a response they spied opportunity: they had fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and they fondly remembered that war as a galvanizing experience, an event that roused the indifferent of the Arab world to fight and win against a technologically superior Western infidel. The jihadis expected the United States, like the Soviet Union, to be a clumsy opponent."
Not in their fondest dreams did they realize how clumsy.
It is just as sad to remember the support that once existed for the United States, then at the pinnacle of its power and prestige. On 9/10/01 America had adversaries, but mainly on the fringes. The invasion of Afghanistan brought barely a peep from the Arab street. No one had much use for Al Qaeda, even in the Islamic world. Global polls like those taken by Pew and the German Marshall Fund showed a remarkable degree of global consensus in favor of a one-superpower (in other words, American-dominated) world. The silver lining of 9/11 was a chance to reaffirm the legitimacy of America's role as trusted overseer of the international system. That is why Bush had so much support when he ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan, who were clearly harboring bin Laden, and so little backing when he shifted attention to Saddam, whose connection to bin Laden was plainly manufactured. The post-9/11 period was a fantastic opportunity for alliance- and institution-building. All that was required was American leadership.
How then did we arrive at this day, with anti-American Islamist governments rising in the Mideast, bin Laden sneering at us, Qaeda lieutenants escaping from prison, Iran brazenly enriching uranium, and America as hated and mistrusted as it ever has been? The answer, in a word, is incompetence. We now have testimony from enough Republicans and Bush loyalists—from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to former CIA senior director Paul Pillar — that the administration knew all along how flimsy its WMD case against Iraq was. We also now know, from Berntsen and others, that the administration knew then how solid the intel on bin Laden's and Zawahiri's whereabouts was. So catastrophic was Bush's decision to shift his attention and resources to Iraq, when bin Laden was panting at Tora Bora, that one is tempted to rank it with Adolf Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941, at a time when Great Britain was prostrate and America was still out of the war (a decision that almost certainly cost Hitler the war then and there). Yes, Iraq may some day become a legitimate democracy. But for now it is mainly a jihadi factory, cranking out new generations of hardened bomb-ready Islamists, as we have seen with the cross-pollination that has brought Iraqi-style suicide bombs back to Afghanistan.
Bush of course has been lucky in his adversaries as well—not bin Laden, but the Democrats (not to mention many a media pundit). To this day they seem afraid to make the case that the great war presidency has been a disastrous war presidency, in large part because of the fraudulent Iraq invasion. Has any presidential candidate ever had a better talking point than this, as John Kerry did in 2004? But Kerry, a true combat hero, turned out to be a political coward, declining to attack while the Bush-Rove machine slowly emasculated him. Today the only Democratic candidate with the necessary money and renown to run for president, Hillary Clinton, is also one who must prove her presidential timber by out-hawking the hawk-in-chief. So forget about her calling it as she sees it. No wonder Karl Rove is telling the GOP that the war on terror is still the president’s ace issue in 2006, as it was in 2002.
So, yes, bin Laden and Zawahiri have been fortunate in their enemies. Had the Bush administration been more competent, these two would have long since been bloody pulp, perhaps largely forgotten. Luckily for the rest of us, the Al Qaeda revolutionary program is so abhorrent that most of the world still has no choice but to stick with us, through thick and thin—and dumb and dumber. How long we can test the world’s patience is another matter. Alan Cullison’s 2004 article based on Zawahiri’s private thoughts is again instructive here. "Al Qaeda understood that its attacks would not lead to a quick collapse of the great powers,” he wrote. “Rather, its aim was to tempt the powers to strike back in a way that would create sympathy for the terrorists. ... One wonders if the United States is indeed playing the role written for it on the computer." What I wonder is, how many more years will we have to wait for Rumsfeld to figure that one out?
Liesis,
"The Government of Dubai did indeed keep open relations with the Taliban (as Dannyboy notes – so did many nations)" - Only 3 countries recognized the Talibani government. You are a liar.
“I have actually been there!” - So what!? So have Mohamed Atta, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, nuclear smugglers, other hijackers that crashed into the twin towers and the Pentagon. What's your point? Terrorists are allowed to travel, plan, and finance attacks against the U.S. freely in the U.A.E.? You have no argument.
"He went on to say that, 'The U.S. has no better Ally in the War on Terror than the UAE.'" - Well, let's see, unless you count the United Kingdom, Japan, Poland, Italy, every European country that actually opened up their bank accounts, rooted out terror financing, sent troops, rounded up terror suspects and held them, and let Bush go in and kidnap the ones they didn't have enough evidence on, and every other country that has let us create dastardly secret prisons, station troops and set up military hospitals. The statement, like everything you say Liesis, is dumb on it's face.
The "deals were to increase the accountability of the Arab company and to secure further support in investigating the very things that Flaccid is demanding we investigate. Other concessions on the part of the U.S. are typical for this kind of deal with any foreign based company, in no way unique to this deal." - Gee, compare that to the statements of DPW to the AP yesterday where they said Dubai Ports must retain paperwork "in the normal course of business" but they were not specified a time period or required to keep corporate records to be housed in the United States per the secret agreement. Outside experts said stricter provisions are routine in other industries. DPW also noted, in trying to show how trustowrthy they are, that the U.S. government chose not to impose other, routine restrictions on the deal. Foreign communications companies with American customers are commonly required to store business records in the United States. A senior U.S. official said the Bush administration considers shipping manifests less sensitive. (Because nuclear materials might be listed I suppose!?) Also compare your bizzaro version to the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee to the AP: "I'm aware of the conditions and they relate entirely to how the company carries out its procedures, but it doesn't go to who they hire, or how they hire people," King told The AP. Again Liesis, YOU ARE A LIAR.
Because I love to kick you when you are down here is some more great accomplishments of this inept administration that you can let roll of your back:
The Federal Reserve reports today that the average family income decreased by 2.4 % in 2004 and the gap between rich and poor is accelerating. Go-go Bonehead Tax Cuts! It's a good time to be rich in America, at least, for another three years.
The mainstream media comes many steps closer to finally calling a spade a spade and naming the insurrection in Iraq what it is, a civil war, amid hundreds of deaths last night and today.
It may not mean anything to you Liesis that Bush is busy spending his time sending Pax Americana to hell in a hand basket, but such pig headedness bothers me just a little bit. Now feel free to go back squawking about how we need to all brush up on our sixth-grade Scholastic Classics. It's not like there is a war on or anything.
Bush to White House Press Core, Feb. 23, 11:31 am:
"People don't have to worry about security."
You can't make this stuff up. He is so dang dumb. Actually, he sounds a lot like Liesis.
To the New Anonymous _ welcome; You addressed Dannyboy, but I have some things for you to consider. I disagree with Michael Hirsh’s conclusions on several points.
1. The Terrorists in Iraq, and else are not Revolutionaries. They are terrorist conquerors pure and simple. The goal is world domination – they have said so, their actions support their words. The failures of the French and Russian Revolutions aside; there are no oppressed peoples here fighting for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or an end to monarchy. What you have is religious fanatics attempting to impose their brutal totalitarianism on all. Lenin’s advantage over Kerensky was Lenin’s willingness to murder millions to gain power in spite of the will of the people.
2. Rumsfeld is right – we are in a media war. Hirsh is wrong, the war is not with the bin Laden’s Allah blessed miracles, it is with the mainstream media right here in America. This includes Hirsh himself. The media cost America its victory in Vietnam. A victory Nixon had achieved, but the American had lost the will to preserve.
3. Zawahiri and bin Laden are actually taking their talking points from the Democrats and the media. I’m sure Hirsh’s ramblings will be carefully perused and posted all over by the supporters of terror and those invested in American failure. My Gadfiry, they have even been posted here at the Agora!
4. The truth is that bin Laden had chosen his enemy. It was Bill Clinton, ala Al Gore. What he got was defeat, the loss of his power, his henchmen dead or in prison and himself reduced to relying on scratchy tapes, recorded in caves, and a sympathetic American “antique media” dreaming of the glory days when they and Ho defeated America in Vietnam.
5. Many Americans support the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Especially the troops who have been their and seen the truth. That support has waned in the face of constant disinformation pumped out from sources from Mike Moore and the Anonymous posters of web logs to the major news networks is not surprising. What is heartening is that a great leader, George Bush II, has been able to maintain American resolve in the face of such blistering disinformation and protect America from the dreams of world wide conquest that once promised so much to the terror masters.
6. Bush is not lucky in his enemies. Bush is lucky in his friends. This time the Media and the pundits will not have the last say. This time when Hirsh and his ilk misinform, there are a battery of other voices to present the truth.
7. If America had truly had an incompetent administration – Al Gore, or John Kerry for example - millions more people would still live in slavery, and web posters – honest or not - would be “reeducated to discussing the tenants of Islam”!
So much for your cut and paste, Anonymous. Not much good to lie to those that know the truth. Thank goodness that this time around, the facts will be checked.
Flaccid, once again you’re reduced to name calling and spitting. I figured you would spit on Tommy Franks. You’re so predictable. Just once I’d like something worth commenting on; something we could learn from.
You use all the "Ha Ha stuff" you want; I'll stick to the good old American One Two.
Flaccid, Child, and New Anonymous ect. : Don’t you feel a little sickened at taking such delight in America's “failures” real or imaginary. Doesn’t it make you question your motivations just a little when peoples poverty gives you something to rejoice in and when Civil war in Iraq is a goal you hope for? Maybe you have swallowed some of the filth you have been spitting.
I'm not rejoicing you dope. I'm mad as hell! People like you are ruining this country and if you would pull your head out of George Bush's oval orifice long enough to have a clear look around you would be angry about all of the screwed up opportunities and failed policies of this administration too!
Flaccid; to make things up and then be mad about them is sick too.
Your squeals of delight in the decline in inflation-adjusted incomes are disingenuous. While inflation-adjusted incomes did decline in 2004, the net worth (the difference between a families assets and its liabilities) of American families grew in 2004, and the median income rose by 1.5%; building on growth over the last eight years. Once again, you resort to half truths and deception to attempt a point. When will you guys learn that these things can be checked? What is painfully obvious is that your purpose is to attack without any suggestion of providing a plan for improvement. You follow the pattern of all who want power; not by their own efforts, but by the finding or forcing the failure of others. Flaccid, when you can’t find a failure you produce it, chew it up, and spit it on the rest of us.
Mad – sick, it’s all the same when one considers that your malady is self concocted, self inflected, and self broadcast.
"DannyBoy2, I'm sure the U.A.E.'s vast reserves of natural gas and oil in the U.A.E. didn't hurt their security clearance either; neither did its handy proximity to two countries the U.S. has put under political containment for years."
This is one of the most uninformed and blind statements I have read in a long time.
A fact was presented to you. You cannot refute it, you have nothing to argue against the obvious conclusions that can be drawn from it, so you say, "they have oil".
How many countries have oil? Do you really think giving the UAE a security clearance gets us the oil? Venezuela, the Sudan, Russia, many countries have vast amounts of oil.
You have politically motivated blinders on. It doesn't bother me if you think this deal is bad, but at least come up with reasons. Listing so called "Bush failures" is not an argument. Quoting an obviously misinformed journalist is not an argument.
The collective anonymous' can continue to call Lysis names, and ignore the arguments made, but it does little to convince anyone.
I am an outspoken critic on much that Bush does/has done, but this is not a bad decision.
"Terrorists are allowed to travel, plan, and finance attacks against the U.S. freely in the U.A.E.? You have no argument."
This is the basis of a really bad argument that seems to be at the heart of the UAE problem. Before 9-11 actually happened terrorists traveled, planned, and financed attacks freely in the U.S. as well. Guess what, it happens when we don't arrest people based on ethnicity. It seems you would have us arrest without crime, but wait, isn't that what you blast Bush for.
I guess you would just like the UAE to have acted in a way that you find reprehensible in the U.S. government. Maybe that would have satisfied you.
I would suggest you read the 9-11 report, and if you have, read it again. Because the facts presented in it are in direct opposition to the assumptions you are making here. One of you is wrong, I'll let others decide which one.
And just so I don't let an assertation go without explanation, let me say why I believe the journalism piece quoted was wildly misinformed.
He claimed that there was no culture war four years ago. Much of his point is based on this claim.
Anyone who has been alive more than ten years knows this to be untrue.
There have been clashes, battles, kidnappings, murders, bombings, etc. for decades based primarily on fanatical middle eastern hatred of Western Civilization, and Western civilizations reactions to problems in the Middle East.
Huge mistakes have been made, great steps forward have been made, but we have had great clashes with middle eastern society for decades.
To claim that this is a new thing, and lay it at the feet of the Bush administration is intellectually dishonest, completely ignoring history, and just plain ridiculous.
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer Wed Feb 22, 6:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON - The United Arab Emirates is a U.S. military partner in the global war on terrorism, but the relationship is so politically sensitive in the UAE that the Pentagon does not openly discuss details.
The strategic importance of the UAE derives in large part from its location along the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint for shipping in the Persian Gulf, a short distance from Iran's southern shores.
The UAE is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
Port security is at the heart of a Washington political storm over the Bush administration's decision to sell shipping operations at six major American seaports to a state-owned business in the UAE. Democrats and Republicans alike have protested, citing among other issues the UAE's support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan before U.S. forces invaded and toppled the radical regime in the fall of 2001.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit the UAE on Thursday, the final stop on a three-nation tour of Arab countries.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Tuesday that the military relationship is "superb," and that U.S. forces use UAE seaports and air fields for logistics support and for training of Air Force pilots. Pace was in the Persian Gulf nation two months ago for talks with senior UAE military officials.
Among the specifics that Pace did not mention:
• Air Force U-2 spy planes and Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft have been based at al-Dhafra air base, along with KC-10 aerial refueling planes. When a U-2 crashed in the UAE last June, killing the Air Force pilot, American officials did not publicly disclose the location "due to host nation sensitivities."
• U.S. sailors and Marines regularly make liberty calls at the port of Jebel Ali, near the UAE's largest city, Dubai.
• The threat to commercial shipping in the Gulf during the "tanker war" between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s was the impetus for the United States to develop closer ties to the UAE. Ties grew much closer after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
The formal basis for the U.S.-UAE military relationship is a defense cooperation agreement signed in 1994. As with most other American allies in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, the presence of American troops in the UAE is either cloaked in a degree of secrecy or de-emphasized out of concern about anti-US sentiment.
The Pentagon will not say how many U.S. troops are based in the UAE.
In his book, "Code Names," military historian and author William Arkin wrote that during the 1990s the CIA established liaison relations with its UAE counterparts and pressured them to sever ties with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
DannyBoy2, looks like the AP military reporter gives "one of the most uninformed and blind statements [you] have read in a long time" too since the history supports everything I have said. Either that, or YOU are one of the most uninformed and blind statement makers I have come across in a long time. Lucky for you this is Liesis' blog and it is probably impossible to be more blind and uninformed in statement making than him. Don't let that stop you though. Keep pumping out those pompous statements of classic ignorance. At least they make you FEEL like you're informed.
You had to be a student of Layton Liar Emiritus, Liesis.
Liesis, there is no news that could shake your love of George Bush. But here is more evidence for you, the Liar's Liar. From the Fed report:
"Between 2001 and 2003, the average family income after taxes fell 2.3% to $70,700 a year. In contrast, average income shot up 17.3% in the previous three-year period.
Meanwhile, median family wealth grew 1.5% during 2001-2004, compared to the 10.3% jump in the previous three-year period.
The measured gains in wealth in 2001-04 period pale in comparison with the much larger increase in the preceding three years. Family finances would have suffered even more in the 2001-2004 period if it were not for a large rise in home values and home ownership, according to the report. The median value of a family's primary home rose more than 22% during the period.
The rise in home ownership also increased American family debt. The overall median value of household debt rose 33.9% between 2001-2004 — more than three times higher than the increase in the previous three-year period.
As families grew more dependent on the housing market for wealth, they relied less on the stock market. The portion of a family's wealth invested in financial securities fell to 35.7% in 2004 from a record high 42% in 2001."
Check that where the sun don't shine!!!! And then go find some other number in the report somewhere that is followed by growth and claim it shows the overall finding of the report is incorrect - overall finding being AVERAGE FAMILY INCOME DECLINED. Why do you support this kind of stuff? You write you're a family man. Do you want your family suffer!
Vegimatic Here,
The last Anonymous sounds like the government owes him an increase in income.
Is that true?
Dannyboy;
As always your research is appreciated. The argument has been won! I am confident that if the “cooling off period” Silver Lining supports were legitimately applied the country would come to the conclusion that Dubai is as good a foreign operator of these facilities as any. Unfortunately, as the various Anonomy continue to demonstrate; facts, reason, even national interest, mean nothing in the political spin machine that is the angry left. Say what he will, Flaccid’s only hope is American failure. I have kept my faith.
Silver Lining;
I still agree with you about the Harriet Myers comparison. I wish Bush and company had a propaganda machine to inoculate the truth and efficacy of all his actions and those of all his ministers, but such is not the case. Had the President presented more support for Harriet Myers it wouldn’t have satisfied his critics. They were no interested in the truth, only in what they wanted. As we see here in the Agora, when the neo-lobs can’t win with fact or argument, they only yell more loudly and spit more filth. Sometimes the President just has to wait and see where the enemy will attack and then win the battle there. He can usually do so because he has the truth on his side. In the case of Harriet Myers, the truth didn’t matter in the face of the combined agenda of the “hand Bush a loss at any cost” lobby and the “we need a strong anti-abortion judge” bunch. Since I am also against abortion I didn’t cry many tears at the loss of Myers, but I do believe she would have made a fine justice; as good as many, better than some. In the “ports” case the President has an up hill fight, for he must fight against the racial prejudice and fear that ignorance impels. I do think that the hate will succumb to reason, so I am for giving the project time to mature.
Anonomy,
1. I appreciate your post from Robert Burns: I am glad to see General Pace agrees with General Franks. I am also glad to see neither agrees with you. The hookahs pokahs the AP reporter goes through to try and imply some negative into the relationship is amazing. His contortions do indeed support Dannyboy’s analysis in his earlier post.
2. I agree with you that we will never come to agreement on the issues we discuss. I find your collective animas amusing and seeking out the truth instructive, however you have made up your mind that life in America is miserable, that the terrorist are winning, that anger can over come reason. Such misery is your best hope for power. I could indeed quote statistics to trivialize your arguments. You post some yourself. You post the rise of home ownership. As a home owner, I consider that my greatest material asset. Good news to me, bad news to you. You say Americans are investing more in homes with less investment into the stock market. Is that good or bad news? I guess it’s in how you CHOOSE to look at it.
My family is doing fine, thank you. I actually wrote down my “blessings” but it sounded too much like bragging.
In this string alone you have abandoned Cheney’s shooting, Muslim cartoon protests, Alito’s conformation, Al Gores treason, Bush’s victory in public opinion and Constitutional law on the NSA anti-terrorist actions, John Murtha insults to the military, Democrat failures to protect Social Security, Charles Darwin’s belief in God, disappointment over the lack of deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, and a failed book report on *To Kill a Mockingbird* Now, having ceded to reason your false accusations against the UAE, you try to avert the scrutiny of your racism by playing ping pong with economic statistics from 2004.
Dannyboy is right; the Anonomy have no arguments – all they are doing is yelling. Flaccid, you call me a liar, and have never shown a single instance of my lying. All you can say is “Your Mother Wears Army Boots.” It must get as tiresome to you as it does to me.
Israel has said, (GWB has reiterated the same for the United States) that it will NOT deal with Hamas until it renounces violence, recognizes Israel's right to exist and accepts current agreements beween Israel and the Palestinians.
The ideal of withholding aid is not new. Since Hamas' electoral victory, the West has been threatening to cut nearly $1 billion US in annual aid to the Palestinians. Israel also has threatened to cut off monthly transfers to the Palestinians of about $50 million from taxes and customs it collects for them, once Hamas takes power.
What is important here is the twist of the United States forcing regime change by impoverishing the Palestinians even further -- the Palestinian Authority is expected to run a 660 million budget deficit in 2006 -- without the tax and aid, the Hamas government could be forced to impose widespread layoffs affecting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Of course, the Palestinians will blame the United States and Israel -- not Hamas -- for their growing economic misery if funding is cut. Moreover, Hamas certainly will turn to the Muslim world, and COUNTRIES WHO DO NOT RECOGNIZE ISREAL and their PRIVATE DONARS to try to make up at least some of the western shortfall.
The UAE does NOT recognize Israel -- and UAE "nouveau EXTRA riche" PRIVATE 'PORT OPERATING DONARS' could/would be very INTERESTED in "throwing in" with Hamas and its anti-US/Israel terrorism in such a time of need.
Is the danger obvious?
This will not "threaten United States Security"?
I conclude that when the UAE and its agents choose to NOT recognize ISRAEL in a world wide forum, it becomes a racist and bigoted state and should be regarded as an enemy of the United States!!!!
Will you concur, Lysis, or does your Administration supporting "opportunism" lead to more self-serving and relativistic conclusions????
Follow the money!!!!
Flaccid, thanks for a cogent if somewhat “rhetorical” question. The ball is in Hamas’ court. All they need to do is renounce terrorism and recognize Israel’s right to exist, and let the money flow. This would be doubly valuable as it would give legitimacy to their existence and to the democratic process which brought them to power.
As for the UAE’s choice of whether or not to recognize Hamas; not recognizing terrorist groups as legitimate governments is not racism. Nor – as the UAE has demonstrated - does it always support of terrorism. Sometimes, as Flaccid intimates through all his scorn and hype, it is best to leave the door open to your enemy, as long as that door is guarded by a friend.
I think you missed the whole point of the Hirsh piece Dan. It was not that extremism and terrorism was created by the President's actions, it was that the President's actions, very clumsy at times, have made the extremism and terrorism there much worse. The fight to extinguish that extremism was not wrong, but it has been handled in a way that those fringe actors have now become much more popular alternatives, even in the West and in countries they were kicked asked to leave. I follow the news avidly and I am convinced that this characterization of Bush's handling of the war is spot on. Clumsiness and arrogance has made the problem worse. At the very least the problem is worse than it needs to be if mistake after mistake were not being made, or if we could own up to these mistakes our leaders have made honestly and work to overcome them instead of blaming them on things like the media for loosing wars for us.
Just for your amusement from Vegimatic:
Research data shows conservatives are happier than liberals
WASHINGTON — To bemused conservatives, it looks like yet another example of analytic overkill by the intelligentsia — a jobs program for the (mostly liberal) academic boys (and girls) in the social sciences, whose quantitative tools have been brought to bear to prove the obvious.
A survey by the Pew Research Center shows that conservatives are happier than liberals — in all income groups. While 34 percent of all Americans call themselves “very happy,” only 28 percent of liberal Democrats (and 31 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats) do, compared to 47 percent of conservative Republicans. This finding is niftily self-reinforcing: It depresses liberals.
Election results do not explain this happiness gap. Republicans have been happier than Democrats every year since the survey began in 1972.
Married people and religious people are especially disposed to happiness, and both cohorts vote more conservatively than does the nation as a whole.
People in the Sun Belt — almost entirely red states — have sunnier dispositions than Northerners, which could have as much to do with sunshine as with conservatism. Unless sunshine makes people happy, which makes them conservative.
Such puzzles show why social science is not for amateurs. Still, one cannot — yet — be prosecuted for committing theory without a license, so consider a few explanations of the happiness gap.
Begin with a paradox: Conservatives are happier than liberals because they are more pessimistic. Conservatives think the book of Job got it right (“Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward”), as did Adam Smith (“There is a great deal of ruin in a nation”).
Conservatives understand that society in its complexity resembles a giant Calder mobile — touch it here and things jiggle there, and there, and way over there. Hence conservatives acknowledge the Law of Unintended Consequences, which is: The unintended consequences of bold government undertakings are apt to be larger than, and contrary to, the intended ones.
Conservatives’ pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised — they are right more often than not about the course of events.
Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so.
Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes — government — they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself.
They believe that happiness is an activity — it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
The right to pursue happiness is the essential right that government exists to protect. Liberals, taking their bearings, whether they know it or not, from President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 State of the Union address, think the attainment of happiness itself, understood in terms of security and material well-being, is an entitlement that government has created and can deliver.
On Jan. 3, 1936, FDR announced that in 34 months his administration had established a “new relationship between government and people.” Amity Shlaes, a keen student of FDR’s departure from prior political premises, says, “The New Deal had a purpose beyond curing the Depression. It was to make people look to Washington for help at all times.” Henceforth, the federal government would be permanently committed to serving a large number of constituencies: “Occasional gifts to farmers or tariffs for business weren’t enough.” So, liberals: Smile — you’ve won.
Nevertheless, normal conservatives — never mind the gladiators of talk radio; they are professionally angry — are less angry than liberals. Liberals have made this the era of surly automobile bumpers, millions of them, still defiantly adorned with Kerry-Edwards and even Gore-Lieberman bumper stickers, faded and frayed like flags preserved as relics of failed crusades. To preserve these mementos of dashed dreams, many liberals may be forgoing the pleasures of buying new cars — another delight sacrificed on the altar of liberalism.
But, then, conscientious liberals cannot enjoy automobiles because there is global warming to worry about, and the perils of corporate-driven consumerism which is the handmaiden of bourgeoisie materialism.
And high-powered cars (how many liberals drive Corvettes?) are metaphors (for America’s reckless foreign policy, for machismo rampant, etc.). And then there is — was — all that rustic beauty paved over for highways. (And for those giant parking lots at exurban mega-churches. The less said about them, the better). And automobiles discourage the egalitarian enjoyment of mass transit.
And automobiles, by facilitating suburban sprawl, deny sprawl’s victims — that word must make an appearance in liberal laments; and lament is what liberals do — the uplifting communitarian experience of high-density living. And automobiles ...
You see? Liberalism is a complicated and exacting, not to say grim and scolding, creed.
And not one conducive to happiness.
Will’s e-mail address is georgewillwashpost.com.
I thought you all might enjoy this column from George Will. I got a chuckle out of it.
(This is a follow-up to the Angry young man lyrics)
Just one more notice that ignorance is bliss. Thanks for pointing out what most of us already knew about the conservative movement Veg-brain.
Its true, liberals are smart, conservatives are dumb. You can't argue with that you morons.
Lysis,
I apologize it has taken a while to respond. I’ve had the “assault vehicle” out for heavy maneuvers. Raising Republicans can be quite time consuming! Our conversation has been muffled through the recent “incoming” from the Anonymy. Nevertheless, I will try to catch up on my housekeeping. Perhaps I should say “K.P.” to maintain proper parallel structure in this paragraph.
DannyBoy2,
I appreciate your comments, I must, however, voice disagreements on a few points. First, you post: “It is true that they did recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, but looking at everyone else's record pre 9-11, it isn't like the rest of the world took much of a hard line against them.” If the information I have is correct, there were only three governments (the UAE being one of them) that officially recognized the Taliban. Maybe the rest of the world wasn’t taking a “hard line”, but they certainly were not promoting open support.
Second, when referring to the “company” from the UAE that operates the ports, I think it is more accurate to refer to the UAE government. If I am not mistaken, That “company” is owned by the government. This is important to me in order to separate arguments of bigotry and racism. We deal in an official capacity with the government of the UAE, independent of religious belief or race.
Back to Lysis,
You post: “I would remind you that the 9/11 Commission Report, in which our Anonomy put so much faith – as long as it agrees with their position, found no fault in the actions of the government of the UAE. The only questions dealt with individuals in that country. There were individuals, bank accounts, training schools . . . in the U. S. that were involved in the 9/11 attack. As you know, the Clinton Justice Department even actively protected the terrorists’ privacy and discouraged any investigation into their behavior. Bill Clinton let bin Laden go! Are you now going to through out U.S. “support” in the Long War on Terror just because the U.S. still has the same government???”
No need to throw out U.S. “support”. We have had a change in government! Perhaps my comment lacked clarity. Our government is a republic. We are a free people with the right to elect those who represent us. The UAE has no such mechanism. The UAE is controlled by seven emirates, or sheikhdoms.
Some interesting info on the UAE government, according to uaeinteract.com: “Assigned to the federal authorities, under Articles 120 and 121 of the Constitution, were the areas of responsibility for foreign affairs, security and defence, nationality and immigration issues, education, public health, currency, postal, telephone and other communications services, air traffic control and licensing of aircraft, in addition to a number of other topics specifically prescribed, including labour relations, banking, delimitation of territorial waters and extradition of criminals.” Note here that banking and education (see your post above) are controlled by the government.
Further, there are no “free elections” as we know them to elect leadership. Another quote, same source: “In a spirit of consensus and collaboration, the rulers of the seven emirates agreed during the process of federation that each of them would be a member of a Supreme Council, the top policy-making body in the new state. They also agreed that they would elect a President and a Vice-President from amongst their number, to serve for a five-year term of office. The Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was elected as the first President, a post to which he was re-elected at successive five-yearly intervals until his death in November 2004, while the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, was elected as first Vice-President, a post he continued to hold until his death in 1990. Both were succeeded by their Crown Princes, who became Rulers of their Emirates and were elected by the members of the Federal Supreme Council to become respectively President, for the Ruler of Abu Dhabi, and Vice-President, for the Ruler of Dubai.”
There is no comparison between the U.S. government and the government of the UAE. While I acknowledge that I don’t completely understand the UAE system, I see no mechanism for evolution (for you, Anonymy) of that system toward truth; hence, my view that there has been little change of approach in 5 years.
We certainly can agree that France, Germany, Russia, Spain, etc. have been our ally on when it served their own purpose.
As to the UAE being motivated by “greed and fear”, though again I may have not been clear, those motivations fall into the non-rhetorical category – i.e. I don’t know the answer. What motivated the change away from the Taliban within the UAE? Was it “greed”, ie hope for more and better trade with the U.S., or even a maintenance of positive relations? Was it “fear”, i.e. the threat of the U.S. intervention? Perhaps it was motivated by a desire to move toward freedom.
As Silver Lining posts, “Even Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer are saying that if the required 45 day investigation takes place .... they are prepared to step back from their previously harsh stance and reexamine the DPW deal.”
With a little time perhaps even the Anonymy could remove their emotion to look at the deal. I have seen many compelling arguments in favor of the deal. Militarily, we need the UAE geographically if hostilities toward Iran escalate. We also need to openly demonstrate that friendship will be reciprocated to countries in a portion of the world that have not typically supported our world view.
The Littlest Republican has grown tired of my typing. We better take the time to go was the Assault Vehicle. Can’t think of a better way to spend the day then with the Baby Girl
outside in the beautiful sunshine!
Rumpole:
I have a busy night, but would like to respond on a point or two. I am most grateful for your well thought out concerns; answering them help me clarify my own thoughts.
On your comments to Dannyboy - I can’t help but point out that one can be raciest against an entire government. If the reason we distrust the UAE is because of the “A” then we better rethink!!
On to your comments on my “post”:
1. We have had a change of administration – we have had no more of a change of government that the UAE. Sheiks as well as “We the People are capable of changing their minds. I would point out that “We the People” have made plenty of mistakes; two Clinton Administrations, the retreat from Vietnam, 87 years of Slavery, and on and on. “WE” are the government of this nation just as the kings rule the Emirates. We are responsible for the actions of our government – we can change – so can they. We and the Sheiks must be judged by our actions. The actions of the Sheikhdoms since 9/11 have been to support the U.S. in spite of danger to themselves. The French, who owe US everything have not been so supportive, nor the Germans, nor the Russian. All who lived in Slavery till U.S. sacrifice set them free. Where is a government who shows support for the U.S. in its time of need? Try the UAE!!!!
2. Let me remind you that democratic institutions are wonderful, and generally provide good things for their people; but so can kings. I remember reading somewhere that if one can have good kings – that would be the best form of government. Now I admit this is a big IF – but please show me how the Kings of the UAE have failed to give their people justice. As I read the U.S. Declaration of Independence – any government that provides protections for the unalienable rights of the citizens in a “Just Government”. Rather than a description of a government you don’t seem to like - not a good way to judge it – please provide a list of actions that you feel render the Kings of the UAE unjust.
3. I would suggest that what motivated the change in the UAE’s attitude toward the Taliban was 9/11 and the Taliban’s continued support of al Qaeda. That also changed the US attitude toward the Taliban. As I remember, our President was willing to deal with the Taliban – if they were willing to hand over al Qaeda. Perhaps the Kings of the UAE were motivated by their sense of Justice; a sense of Justice by which they SEEM to be governing their constitutionally legitimate states to this day. If you can instruct me otherwise, please do.
4. I am also pleased to see that the “race bating” bigoted Democrats are agreeing to a cooling off period before their drive to use ignorance and hate to hurt President Bush damages of our nation. Maybe the Democrats should take a lesson from those Sheikhs in the UAE and sacrifice their political power for the benefit of their country, not sacrifice their county in their drive for power. I can’t think of any better lesson that Justice not form should determine the quality of government.
The UAE doesn't even recognize Israel's right to exist and yet Lysis would have us believe that the UAE is an ally in the war on terror? (I have already pointed out how DANGEROUS it is for the United States to give credibiliy to the UAE's anti-semitic policies against an Israel who now faces a new invigorated and encouraged terroristic Hamas that unequivocally seeks the obliteration of Israel)
For Lysis to be sympathetic to and to overlook the OBVIOUS ANTI-SEMITISM of the UAE and then claim "democratic" race baiting against Arabs, is the worst kind of concocted "opportunistic" nonsense he has produced at the Agora!!!!
What is more, Lysis argues that the UAE's anti-semitism should become the defacto policy of the United States!!!!
I wonder what others must think of this new anti-semitic Mullah.
Lysis,
As always, your thoughts are very articulate.
You post: On your comments to Dannyboy - I can’t help but point out that one can be raciest against an entire government. If the reason we distrust the UAE is because of the “A” then we better rethink!!”
I would certainly agree that one could be racist against an entire government. The key, in my humble view, is to remove emotion and bias from the decision. I would like to think I have, though I can only view my thought process from the inside, rather than the outside looking in. Hence, the proposed waiting period as to a decision is the proper prescription. Nothing is better than time in removing emotion and bias.
I wonder, is the charge of racism the catalyst that injects such raw emotion into the discussion? Is it not possible to see the actions of the UAE as negative without playing that “card”? That has been my intention with the suggested separation of “company” versus “government.”
As to your points:
1. I agree. We ARE the government! As members of the republic, it is our responsibility to change where change is necessary, and to right the wrongs of our government. As I posted earlier (I’m going to paraphrase now) on Al Gore’s lies about the rounding up of Saudi’s, our government’s actions cannot be separated from the people. If we don’t like what our government has done, we must institute the mechanisms provided to us for change. I see no such mechanism in place for the people of the UAE.
This is further reason for separating the people of the UAE from the motives of its government. As I have implied above, such separation allows for the discharge of emotionally based claims. As to the UAE’s recent U.S. support, I have offered several different motives as to why that support might exist.
Motive is critical here, as motive can turn to policy in port management. I have not claimed to know the motive of the UAE. I do claim to want to know the motive of the UAE.
2. Where have the Kings of the UAE failed to provide justice? In their Pre 9/11 support of the Taliban. Has that changed? Absolutely. I have written that my issues are historical. At the risk of being redundant, what is the motive for change? That is where I need answers.
3. I can neither accept nor refute as to the motivation in the change of the UAE’s attitude. I acknowledge to you that I can offer no instruction. I would suggest that your claim as to that motivation is speculative. Can you instruct me otherwise?
4. Other than the emotional injection of “race bating”, we have complete agreement. Nothing I could write could improve upon what you have suggested.
The Littlest Republican is finally napping. I better go make dinner for the rest of the crew!
To Rumpole and Flaccid, if he cares listen rather than yell about army boots;
Let me point out that Kings of the UAE must do the will of their people in order to maintain their people’s support, and at the same time the kings support the war on terror. I would argue that one of the driving forces of the terrorists is the destruction of Israel. Thus as the foremost supporter of the U.S. in the war an terror, the UAE, is supporting Israel in fact while salving the prejudices of their people by not openly recognizing Israel. Some times it is wise to judge one by one’s actions not one’s words. France has recognized Israel, yet continues to support the terrorist that would destroy it. The UAE withholds public recognition of Israel, for now, but supports the U.S. efforts that alone make the existence of Israel possible.
I would remind you Rumpole; that Tommy Franks pointed out that the UAE’s relationships with Afghanistan were valuable in our dealings with that country before the war. We used that relationship and their friendship to our strategic advantage,
Lysis and Anonymy,
My thoughts run your arguments together as to both of your recent postings. I’m going to address you jointly. I hope neither of you is offended.
Anonymy, I have not been ignoring your points about Israel. I think they add greatly to the discussion. I have been hesitant to discuss those points for the same reasons I think the President doesn’t often mention them. He walks a tightrope between gaining and maintaining support from nations whose people are truly anti-Semitic vs. alienating Israel and those at home and abroad who support Israel.
Make no mistake, the war on terror is about Israel. However, openly bringing Israel into the discussion risks the alienation of those whose support we need the most. If I may step somewhat out of character for a moment, and as Lysis implicitly suggests, screw the French, we need the UAE more.
Lysis’ point about the UAE’s actions (the use of the UAE's bases and of UAE territory) verses their words (i.e. being in a declared war with Israel, refusing to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist) is very compelling. We use the UAE’s bases, and we use their territory. We do so at great peril to the UAE. To me this is most critical to the discussion. What it lacks, however, is the lynchpin.
As I have suggested before, we must be able to determine clearly the UAE’s motives. Are those motives pure? Are they selfish? Are they mixed? The UAE's current actions speak "purely". The past speaks "selfishly".
How are we to measure their attitudes? Opinions like that of Tommy Franks are very persuasive to me. Opinions like former President Carter (who is for the deal) drive me to the other side. Such information during the “cooling” period will be invaluable in charting the wisest course.
I must go. The Republicans-who-would-be-Olympians (yes, my two with Down Syndrome) are bowling for it all tomorrow. I’ve got to get some sleep so I have the energy to keep track of the Littlest Republican amidst the kayos!
As we consider words versus deeds in the support of Israel; examine this. How does one judge between support for Israel or anti-Semitism by these two positions: A enraged neo-lib Left; complaining bitterly of “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time”, and condemning President Bush for liberating Iraq when there were “no weapons of mass destruction”; contrasted to those who support a just and necessary war to remove from power a tyrant who delivered $25,000 checks (stolen from the oil for food moneys, obsessively made available to feed the starving children of Iraq, but misappropriated with a “wink wink, nod nod” from the complicit French; also on the take from Saddam) to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
P.S. to Child; I hope the library is still open.
The war was not just, it was not necessary. You saying so does not make it true. You are quick to point out the alleged payments Saddam made to Palestinians. How do you explain both the words of the U.A.E. rejecting Israel but embracing the Taliban and the deeds of funneling the millions of dollars to fund global terrorism and nuclear materials through its state controlled ports? You may say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But that mentality has proven disastrously wrong and besides, the U.A.E. is the enemy of our friends and friends to our enemies! They embrace the Taliban and Iran and reject Israel. In your warped sense of realitiy this makes them "our greatest ally in the war on terror." Your claims are laughable except that you have the responsibility of educating our children. This makes your views terrifying.
Hopefully Congress will not be fooled and bullied by the President over the next few weeks. Our safety is too important to leave to a proven liar as a President and to one who has shown himself incompetent in caring for our national security and as hiring incompentent people. The only thing he has been good at is in turning world opinion against the United States and ruing our once trusted name as defenders of freedom and law. Assert your authority to review this process publically Congress!!! We cannot leave the safety to back room deals and secret negotiations made by corruptly appointed politcal cronies!
Lets try to get at least a few things straight Anonymous. Again, I don't mind if you disagree on this point, I think there are points to be made on both sides, but you are stubbornly holding to a few stances and ignoring (not disproving) contradictory evidence.
First, Tommy Franks, not Lysis, said the UAE was our best ally. You can keep telling Lysis he is stupid for making the remark, or that he is lying, but he didn't make it, Gen. Franks did. I think you need a little more in your holster before you claim to have a better grasp of the workings of that relationship than Gen. Franks.
Second, you keep talking about funneling money and nuclear material. Please point out any document, by an actual government agency or intelligence gathering body, that states this.
As I have pointed out, individuals used the banks in the UAE to transfer money, so did U.S. banks. U.S. banks also had widespread commerce with the banks of the UAE. Please explain what makes these two entities different. U.S. banks did not refuse the tranfers that were made to terror cells here in the States. Why, did they want the attack to occur? No, its that banks don't bother to find out whose money it is they have. The banks of the UAE aren't different from banks anywhere else.
As far as nuclear material, as I pointed out before, stuff can be smuggled (and almost always is) without the complicity of the port owners. Does any document claim that the UAE gave nuclear material to North Korea and Iran? If so, please point to that rather than just claiming it.
You are purposefully blurring the issues when you equate actions that took place geographically within the UAE and the stances of the UAE. They are not the same thing.
Child, I’m glad the library was open!
The War is just; it is necessary. You’re right; saying otherwise doesn’t make it any less so, the fact that terror uses murder to destroy freedom does.
The payments of Saddam to terrorists are not alleged they were bragged about – thrown in the face of America, Israel and the U.N. by a monster who believed he could do anything as long as he curried the favor of Islamic Terrorists, and Bill Clinton was President of the United States.
You have no proof that any money was funneled through the government of the UAE to anyone; because it wasn’t. The money passed through banks in the UAE, Britain, Germany, and the United States. Where the banks are, is not what determines support for terror.
As for who is enemy to whom – I given you example after example and the word of Tommy Franks that the UAE is our friend, you give no evidence that they are our enemy. They did not embrace the Taliban and after 9/11 they facilitated its destruction. Face the facts!!! The only laughter around here is at you!!
Hopefully, Congress will act for the benefit of America and not for the benefit of election campaigns; based on lies and deception, ignorance, racism, fear and hate. You have never given one instance of the President’s telling a lie. His competence is manifest in your own safety. The competence of the company which has run these six ports for years, and which will not change with a change in ownership, is self-evident! It is your lies that are turning peoples and nations against America, the propaganda of the neo-libs poisons the world. Please refer to the new Log posted today at the Agoa for an education in the truth of these pernicious attack on America.
That you would call the sale of this company by the British to the UAE a “back room deal” or a “secret negotiation” proves that you have no interest in the truth, only in spreading lies and fear for the sake of your political cronies. Get some sleep!
Dannyboy,
Thank you for your lawyerly presentation of the facts in this case. I tend to lecture, you prefer to advocate. I am in your debt.
He was the same age as Linda, and
had the advantage of being a boy.
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