marginalizing Sadr
 

No, I posted on the sf/sv board to note that the professor who was really into anal and who licked her own excrement off her hand (was playing with her crack, and she had had some kind of flu or something) was Not Me.

Not PMing.

Clark on why we screwed up.
 

Glad to see you guys owning up to Reagan's first act of treason - cutting a deal with the hostage takers in Iran to hold on to the hostages until Reagan was in office.

Clark on why we screwed up.
 

I suppose you consider getting Elvis to be an honorary DEA agent was wrong too.

Clark on why we screwed up.
 

In retrospect, that seems like a reasonable attempt to try to co-opt the other side.

http://www.bobcut.com/hairpix1/elvis-nixon-1b.jpg

Powell hates SUVs too
 

But, Powell said, because of Americans' desire "for different kinds of automobiles" — a reference to the huge gas-guzzlers that many Americans drive — the United States is importing close to 58 percent of its petroleum needs.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...r/powell_kerry

marginalizing Sadr
 

They aint exactly stepping up to the plate in Sudan right now.

Powell hates SUVs too
 

It is so hot when guys talk about fuel economy.

Stop the Moral Equivalence
 

Nice spin on what I said

Powell hates SUVs too
 

27 mpg highway. Wanna fuck?

Powell hates SUVs too
 

Can you get it up to 30?

Powell hates SUVs too
 

30? Too many.

Whore.


(Cross-board reference post!)

marginalizing Sadr
 

I think his position has some merit. Visit the Korean monument, and you'll see the names of dozens of countries that joined the one and only UN war in history. Even then, it was our people who were mostly getting killed (aside, of course, from the Koreans and Chinese).

The UN would love to take the lead, as long as they don't have to provide the followers.

marginalizing Sadr
 

Nor in Massachusetts, but so?

marginalizing Sadr
 

A lot of Turks got killed.

During the Cold War, the fact that both the Soviet Union and we had vetos kept the UN on the sidelines in most conflicts. Korea was an exception because the Soviet Union had walked out in protest over something stupid.

Stop the Moral Equivalence
 

Thanks. Close enough for government work, right?

marginalizing Sadr
 

I've read that others were killed, so I wasn't saying that no Turks or British or Australians or whatever were killed. Just mostly us, cept for the Koreans and Chinese.

Your response also conveniently overlooks France and China. Korea was also an exception because Taiwan had the Chinese vote back then. But the fact that such a confluence of coincidences had to occur to get the one and only UN war is exactly the reason why the Security Council etc. should not have word one to say about the wars we fight.

marginalizing Sadr
 

That's at least two steps removed from the argument we're having. Club was saying that the UN didn't want to run Iraq, and I said he was on crack.

We have gone to war since Korea without the UN's say-so under both Democratic and Republican presidents. No one thinks the UN should have a veto power over our military.

marginalizing Sadr
 

Should they have anything to say about the wars that others fight? Just checking.

marginalizing Sadr
 

I think that's for us to say, not the UN.

marginalizing Sadr
 

Well, I like things the way they are. If all 5 UN security council members ever agree that a war should be fought, then I'll agree that the war should probably be fought. With you and me in the trenches too.

But the idea that we would lay our defense in the hands of a group that has never seen a war worth fighting is appalling. Is that JFK flying that black helicopter?

Summary: They agree on a Yes, then Yes. They don't agree on a Yes, then the [insert cute name with the word "coalition" in it here] is just fine. They agree on a No, then No.

marginalizing Sadr
 

Who to the right of Ralph Nader (?) actually thinks this?

marginalizing Sadr
 

That depends on what we mean by "run." The UN may have wanted to run the oil contracts and the like, but they certainly did not want to run, and had no capacity to run, the post-war security apparatus. Do you think the "insurgency" would have dropped their guns if the UN rather than the US had been running post war Iraq? Certainly not. So what would the UN have done, held a meeting about it?

Stop the Moral Equivalence
 

The gig is in the bag.

marginalizing Sadr
 

There would have been member nations' troops there, under UN auspices, like any other UN peacekeeping operation. Why is this so hard to grasp?

If there had been shooting, the UN would have done whatever it does under its rules of engagement. People don't usually bother to shoot at the UN -- they save their bullets for their enemies. At least in theory, there would have been less reason for an Iraqi insurgency against the UN than against the US, and so there would have been less shooting. Whether this would have been true in practice is hard to say, although it is certainly true that the UN has more approval around the world than we do. Some of the Islamists might well have tried just as hard to kill UN troops.

marginalizing Sadr
 

In essence, all of the people that are already there - but also 100 Frenchies, a few German techies and 2 45 year-old members of the Belgian militia.

More Abu Ghraib Abuses
 

I guess some will deem this more collegiate hijinks.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=5223595

So what does Tommy Franks really think?
 

from Kevin Drum:

More Abu Ghraib Abuses
 

If true, this is notta so good. We struck a man's broken leg and told him to renounce his religion. But hey, we're still better than them --- we invented freedom.

Someone explain how this is the "ugly behavior of a few"? I don't know about you, but if I'm engaging in something that I believe is frowned upon by others, I tend to abstain from it in the presence of others, and shy away from photography. For example, the kitten stapling. I generally close my door for that. YMMV.

marginalizing Sadr
 

You are telling me that the French and the Germans would have sent significant troops? Not likely. I agree with Slave, it would have basically been the same troops are are currently there.

If you think that there would have been less shooting, you are just mistaken. Please reread the letter sent by al zawari (I know this is spelled wrong, but I'm too lazy to look it up). The insurgency has nothing to do with who the "occupiers" are and everything to do with not wanting anything resembling a democracy to be established in Iraq.

marginalizing Sadr
 

So the French and Germans were pushing for the UN to run things, but weren't willing to ante anything up for the privilege? I don't think so. Please find me a cite for that. You're back to the tried-and-true tactic of disparaging the French for being French. It's rhetorically effective, and not wholly unfair, but pretending at this point that we had to do things the way we did them because there was no alternative is a crock.

Who is opposed to the concept of democracy? The Kurds most of all, and they're not shooting at us. Sadr is using us as a foil to gain popular support. Granted, some of the terror is from Islamists who are opposed to anything Western, but that's certainly not the all of it. To the extent that the insurgents have popular support, I submit that it is because they are perceived to be resisting a foreign occupier. The UN would not have quite the same problems.

marginalizing Sadr
 

Please reconcile this with the oft-repeated refrain on these boards that THEY HATE US and bombed our capital and our largest city with airplanes filled with our people.

Or are you coming around to the view that Iraqi resistance bears no relationship to terrorism or American domestic security?

More Abu Ghraib Abuses
 

"Hey Guys, look at this goofy picture of me kicking a dune coon"

The more I think of it, none of this is really isn't that far off from that idiot posting about her prostitution on a public journal from a work computer.

Or those idiots you see at the ballgame calling their friends "look I'm on the Jumbotron"

It's this growing need for everyone to be a public face and to brag openly to anyone and everyone in earshot of their personal exploits.

marginalizing Sadr
 

Are you voting for a guy who you think is to the left of Ralph Nader?

What do you think he means by "internationalizing"? If it doesn't mean getting others to provide resources, it only means giving control of our's over to others.

Could you give a 1 sentence answer that describes what you think Kerry means by "internationalizing"?

marginalizing Sadr
 

Uhm, shouldn't the burden be on you to explain what they would have contributed?

I'll start you off. In the first Gulf War, the French gave us the French foreign legion. In other words, the French gave us a bunch of people who aren't French, and called it the French contribution.

Please fill in the blanks I'm drawing regarding the long subsequent history of France contributing to world peace.

He(sorry Club, I still want to see your answer too)llo

More Abu Ghraib Abuses
 

Hmm, not that far off? I hope you didn't get the same boner reading about each of them. Besides, sounds like you've got some more thinking in order. That was one idiot. This is 1,600 pictures of the interior of a military facility, and a group of idiots, some of whom had careers they would have expected to lose if they believed what they were doing was wrong.

(1) Those guys are drunk; and (2) If you're doing something illegal, and you know it's illegal; you usually stop once you realize you're on the Jumbotron. At least, that's what I do.

marginalizing Sadr
 

I've never heard Kerry use the word, so I'm guessing, but there is a lot of room between telling the UN it's our way or the highway, and letting them take control. For the fifty years before W. took office, our foreign policy emphasized working through international institutions and with our allies. This means trying to build consensus where possible, recognizing that adoping a policy in the short term that might not be our first choice redounds to our benefit in the long term. See, e.g., this piece by Joe Nye about "soft power."

marginalizing Sadr
 

If Bush thought the problem with the UN idea was that other countries wouldn't put up, he could have called their bluff. But since we were telling them to go pound sand, it's not clear to me how I could ever meet that burden.

More Abu Ghraib Abuses
 

One idiot - enough blog entries so it got out and she got fired

Numerous idiots - taking enough photos that they got out and are getting court martialed.

Tell me again how this comparison isnt apt?

marginalizing Sadr
 

Oh good grief Ty. We all know - except maybe you - that Chirac's hiding behind the UN was all about France's uncollected debts and contracts with Saddam and had nothing whatsoever to do with altruism, the peace process, multilateralism, etc. I sure didn't see them waiting on the UN when they ran into Algeria last year.

But I'll bite anyway. Sure they were willing to ante up - they would for for UN control and in turn get lucrative UN contracts [e.g. Oil for Food]. Who knows, maybe they would even build a second nuclear reactor for Israel to blow up.

More Abu Ghraib Abuses
 

Washingtonienne tried to disguise her identity, but did not do it well enough. The soldiers who took pictures did not try to hide themselves at all, and the photos apparently circulated all over the place for months before the story got picked up in the press.