Arrrr!

God told Dubya to torture prisoners in secret prisons.
It's what Jesus would do.

'Why is that against the law'

That tops anything stupid he ever said. Ever.

Maybe he's not the best man to strategerically fight terrorists, but right now Bush is the ONLY man doing so.

Meanwhile--THIS JUST IN!---the left hates Bush. That's their contribution to the survival of Western Civ.

Who Would Jesus Torture?

Ok..umm..yeah. Sometimes it is better to not do anything at all then have your crazy president give any kind of impression that he's doing something. And he's not the only man. There's this Tony Blair guy in the UK who's mighty unpopular right now because he's doing something too. But unlike our president, Blair is stepping down within a year.

THIS JUST IN you can't fight terrorists the way Bush is fighting them, the more you kill the more you create. Put simply any sympathy the US had for the 9/11 attacks has been soured by the invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent lecturing from a dictator about democracy.

"Meanwhile--THIS JUST IN!---the left hates Bush. That's their contribution to the survival of Western Civ."

By trying to save the rest of the world.

I agree, ren. More people across the world hate us AFTER Bush's administration did what they did. Now we're enmeshed.

Lots of people defended Nixon while he was still in the White House. Future History will give us clearer vision.

Is the ol' "Bush hater" chestnut the best you can do, quantum?

Canada has thousands of troops in Afghanistan too - neener neener.

Ah, my many fans...

"Is the ol' "Bush hater" chestnut the best you can do, quantum?"

>>> Hating Bush is how leftists define *themselves*, dude. *I'm* not calling them that, I'm calling them ON it.

>>> The "rest of the world" briefly sympathizing with us after 9-11, while a nice Hallmark moment for about 15 minutes, did NOTHING to protect America, just like the "world's" worthless UN resolutions against Iraq didn't slow down Saddam.

"...you can't fight terrorists the way Bush is fighting them, the more you kill the more you create."

>>> Giving in to and/or ignoring terrorists like Clinton did in the 90s is what creates and emboldens more terrorists. Bubba's non-response to Al-Qaeda's cowardly attacks paved the way for 9-11. Killing terrorists en masse is what gets rid of them. islamofascists are cockroaches: you won't kill them all but you can prevent infestations almost indefinitely.

>>> To summarize: war works. It's the only way slavery, nazism, fascism and communism were defeated. I am sorry many innocents must die, but you can't stop the spread of evil by doing nothing.

sigh, the spread of evil?
The fact that Bush can invade any country in the world like he owns the place does not disprove his stupidity. And I am under no illusions that he is making any of the big decisions at the white house, except for perhaps the floral pattern on his toilet paper.
What I do not understand is why people continue to defend his supposed actions, and scream "but clinton but clinton" everytime Bush is called on his failures.

I feel sorry for you quantum, its speeches like that one that you just gave that make people want to be your enemy. Noone has birth rights to this earth, and the more you convince yourself of your superiority and infallibility the more likely it will come down to a violent ending. I want to be your friend, you want be everyones enemy.

I wasn't aware that Fascism was defeated, seems to be making a comeback... maybe you should check the definition sometime.
- throws some food scraps under the bridge -

The way I see it, liberalism and conservatism are seperated by degrees of empathy and simplification.

Simplifying a situation is an important skill, but it can be innappropriatly applied.

Similarly, empathy for the situations of others is automatic for some people, to the extent that they might imagine the pain or desires of others to an unhealthy degree.

Empathy severely limits simplification in times of strife, and is neccessarily often suppressed. A more simple objective can be healthier for unification, like good vs. evil and other black and white distinction. But with more details and more information the story gets complicated, and eventually a point can be reached where individuals decide they can no longer ignore the grey areas, and start to lose the good-guy bad-guy point of view.

Case in point, people are noticing that we have 15,000 Iraqis imprisoned within Iraq with no trial dates, no set jurisdiction from which the trials will refer to, and no way of proving their innocence until these are decided. Depending on which section of the empathy vs. simplicity bridge you are on in this situation, you can argue that we need to keep these certain, probably or possible bad people off the streets or you can argue that for all the bad people imprisioned there are also a lot of 'possible' bad people who we're unintentionally giving a great excuse to be problem-makers upon release (where they'll find no employment, no family or friends who want to be seen with them, a distrust of the government they had no say in, etc.).


Anyhow, that was a bit rambling, but I hope someone will read this and swing a comment my way. ; )

Interesting post bamdrew, although I can't say I totally agree with the logic

"Similarly, empathy for the situations of others is automatic for some people, to the extent that they might imagine the pain or desires of others to an unhealthy degree."

How is it possible to have an unhealthy degree of empathy? Surely the Iraq war and other Bush adventures so far have shown that simplicity and hate are only useful if you wish to escalate a terrorist attack into a full scale war.

The only thing that will save us from this down spiral is if people admit they were wrong and truely attempt to understand and respect each others rights to exist. Instead of all this finger wagging and bullshit WMD excuses for invading countries.

As for the 15,000 imprisoned Iraqis, I would suggest taking a good hard look at the conditions of their imprisonment, and who was responsible for selecting them for jail time. I'm only guessing here but i'd say more than 75% would be guys that have been pulled from their homes during a raid by emotionally charged soldiers. These soldiers are filled with rage that someone had the gall to attack their home country(or their friends with IED's), and in doing so imagine each middle age man they come across to be the next leader of Al Qaeda.

Solution? get the f*ck out of the country and leave it to be governed by its own people, release the prisoners, admit defeat.

Interesting reply, ren. Thanks, by-the-way.

I was somewhat surprised that you first say its inpossible to have an unhealthy degree of empathy, then rally for a withdrawl of all troops. I'm of the opinion that immediately pulling out would be inexcusibly selfish at this point. The country would surely fall closer to civil war, first faught primarily with fear and assasinations, then with retribution for retribution. The government as it is would become further unstable, and the rest of the educated class would desert the country; with no safety there are few doctors, few professors, few leaders (business, government, and otherwise) who would want to operate and live in such a state. The poor and injured would have marginal employment, little health care, little hope for a better future for their children, and be more accepting of whomever promises their area safety and some degree of freedom (warlord, dictatorship or otherwise). Anyhow, the mental and physical toll to the Iraqis would be pretty incredible, and it would be our fault, and our cross to bear for the generations lost to chaos.

We're in a mess, but everybody needs to keep a level head and look at this thing from multiple angles.

What Iraq needs now are leaders who are widely respected, divorced from religious politics and divorced from American influence. What US soldiers need are obtainable long and short-term goals, and for the Bush administration to stop making up their own rules. Captured Iraqis must be given a fair trial as soon as possible, one that falls into military, international, American or Iraqi jurisdiction... they are all in effect under NO jurisdiction right now, because thats where this administration wants them (can't break any laws if no laws apply to your prisoners). And what Americans and our allies need to do is have a very long, honest discussion with Iraqi officials, Iraqi military leaders, Iraqi religious leaders and prominent Iraqi citizens about what they think needs to happen. If the consensus is secure the infrastruction with a slow withdrawl of troops starting in 2007, then great. If its dress the American troops up in Mexican army fatigues, sounds good to me.

So, I'm of the opinion that people just need to listen to each other, identify problems and come to some conclusions. Then act. It sounds simple, but I'm a scientist, not a politician.

very good points, and I agree with most.
There are 3 options that I can see..

1) Indefinite troop deployment, the Iraqi government evolves into a kind of american hybrid system, green zones and "insurgent" attacks continue, eventual spread of "freedom" into neighbouring countries.

2) Troop withdrawal over the coming years, when americans are satisfied that they have done enough to say they tried, probably violent collapse of the systems put in place. Only to be replaced later by some unknown government system (probably financed by Iran).

3) Immediate troop replacement with UN forces totally devoid of any of the current "coalition of the willing", a UN oversight on political structure and an attempt to leave the Iraqi culture in place without diseasing it with International companies.

the third option is probably a little hopeful, as alot of countries are unwilling to risk their soldiers on an american adventure, but if it were truely an international effort there would be no nation state that would be the face of the occupation and would therefor act to calm the situation.

As is, it's a bloody mess, that has totally destroyed any faith I had in the US, UK or my own governments(Australia). The only way to start making it better is to take the current occupiers out of the play, and invest all efforts in trying to restore the damage done to the UN's reputation and in turn the Iraqi government.

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