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FOREST BROWNE
"Thinking is an Art form"
Articles Posted: 44; Links Seeded: 200
Member Since: 9/2006Last Seen: 10/11/2009
Member Since: 9/2006Last Seen: 10/11/2009
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Today another one hundred Iraqis died... three Americans were killed...what a foolish waste...........
The debate begins...The question over the direction of the war has permeated the news articles here on Newsvine since the recent elections, and the theories behind it have been poorly thought out and devoid of originality. Worse, they seem to be exact paradies of previous or current ideas. Are we really so scared of losing the war, or even worse losing face, that we avoid the only realistic and responsible approach? This is probably going to make me pretty unpopular, but I have Scotch to fortify me and I'm not sharing until I'm done. Guess what you boneheads... we lost. If the stated goal was to set up a working denocracy in Iraq... then guess what? We've failed miserably. Hell, if any analyst worth his salt gave it more than five minutes attention we lost it two years ago. The numbers don't get better... they get worse.
Shame on us, didn't we already learn this lesson? Vietnam only cost the civilian Vitemanesse population 4 million souls, just a number, but nevertheless 4 million. Are we really that bereft of historical learning and analysis? Does our stupidity know no bounds? Let's hear it for our fearless leaders, apparently they can't find a history book much less read it.
So let's debate some more... in the mean time...
another one hundred Iraqis died today... three Americans were killed...what a foolish waste...........
Let's check a simple historic parallel. Listen to our presidents pander to the American populace for support, a couple of down home Texans that never lifted a history book in their lives.
"This is not a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human activity". - Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964
George W. Bush, St. Charles, Missouri, November 2, 2000
"Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity."
- George W. Bush, State of the Union address, 2003
This ridiclous pandering to troop escaltions has got to stop. In 1965 Lyndon Johnson upped the ante to 125,000 troops, and they topped out at a whopping 500,000 troops. Pick up a book you morons, estimates today are that it would take upwards of 700,000 troops to subdue Iraq. How many more people do you want to kill, you murderers. As of today we've managed to kill over 3.0 million Iraqi's and 1.6 million under 5 years old. That's right, children. As for you pontificating bastards that will harrass this paper with denunciations, remember I ardently read history, and there has never been a war where the numbers went down, so these numbers from a historical perspective will NOT be estimated at being too high.
As of today the Pentagon butt boys came out with three different scenerios:
Go Big: What a spectacularly retarded notion, and completely unworkable. First off, and probably most salient, whose soldiers, pray tell, are we going to use? Secondly, the American public will never support the escalation. And third, we've already killed off 6.5% of the Iraqi population. Does it at all enter your pea brains how many more we would kill if we quadrupiled the amount of troops we put in there. Hey genocide is just a step away, but I must admit genocide would solve the problem... Tards.
Go Long: Now this one is interesting, let's see, we'll lower the troop strength, and just stay for at least 10 years. Bush of course will do this on his own volition... errrrr... maybe they'll just say they're going to lower the troop strength. What are these guys learning in the military academies? Aren't these guys required to read "The Art of War" anymore. Doesn't this sound a bit fishy, like I've heard it before, that's right... "Stay the Course" you dunderheads. Isn't that the abject definition of insanity? It's not working... do it again...This one's also interesting from the aspect that most American's won't accept option one nor the option following... Tards.
Go Home: And as the other two look an awful lot like football acronyms this one has a significant warming aspect to it... home. This one sounds a bit too much like apple pie, let's not even consider it, but let's put it out there as a sort of "red herring" so we can at least tell them we studied the option, but geeze just couldn't make it work... Tards.
Oh, and speaking of the Pentagon, when was the last time we saw a general get his butt canned? Weren't all these guys promoted because they were the best qualified Rumsfeld butt kissers in the military, everyone else with a backbone was pretty much retired right out of the business. Political purging didn't work too well for Stalin in WWII I guess I'm not too clear how military politico's are qualified.
Today another one hundred Iraqis died ... three American's were killed...what a foolish waste...........
I'm going to pound a shot of the crappiest whiskey I have, Scotch is too good for this type of article, and I need it to burn. A little analysis would go a long ways at this point, but let's face it our options are disheartening to say the least. But we need to suck it up and face the facts, since the problem in Iraq is now a lybrinthyan political mess at it's core and the military option is no longer a viable option. Historically the middle East can negotiate for decades and get nowhere. So they'll wear us out, we'll look worse, we'll kill more civilians, and most importantly we won't get anywhere. We must pull out in a declared 90 to 180 days. At least it will prompt their discourse to a higher level, and perhaps they'll include Syria, Iran,Turkey, and Pakistan in their talks. Will they figure it out? Probably not, and the deaths will continue, and we'll still be blamed.... but we deserve it. We can search for absolution by also doing every humanitarian thing we can to help alleviate the suffering in Iraq, and further do the same for Lebanon, and the Palistinians. This may go a long way in finding the forgivness we need, even if it won't stop them for hating us for decades to come. As another whiskey, god I hate whiskey so unrefined, burns down my throat, and tears the lining from my stomach, I leave you with Edmund and a repeat of my mantra...
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Mayhaps we should debate it longer, prevaricate about how this isn't our fault, but we know deep down it is....
and in the meantime...
Another one hundred Iraqis died today... three American's were killed...what a foolish waste...........
Thanks,
Forest
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{"commentId":389847,"authorDomain":"darwinliska"}
An honest call Forest. Debate, discussion and theory are but an aside to the larger reality. Time is not a luxury.
So we enter the Holidays, another distraction to prevent us from sorting through the miasma of media. Meanwhile, there are too many empty chairs at dinner tables around the world. Will it take ever member of Congress to loose a child of their own before the stakes are understood?
{"commentId":389847,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"darwinliska"}
- 7 votes
#1 - Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:03 PM EST{"commentId":389851,"authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
Our lives are not imaginable to them, and they're horrifying reality is beyond our capabilities to understand.
We can only pray they see reason.
Forest
{"commentId":389851,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
- 7 votes
#2 - Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:07 PM EST{"commentId":389872,"authorDomain":"paperdragon"}
Another great article, Forest. A letter to the people that the people need to read.
{"commentId":389872,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"paperdragon"}
- 4 votes
#3 - Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:22 PM EST{"commentId":389877,"authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
Thanks Dennis, but I'll be waiting for more astronomy articles.
Forest
{"commentId":389877,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
- 3 votes
#4 - Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:24 PM EST{"commentId":389879,"authorDomain":"paperdragon"}
LOL. That was Jim Dent.
{"commentId":389879,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"paperdragon"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":390024,"authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
{"commentId":390008,"authorDomain":"firsty"}
i moved with much less grace and tact, as always, sir. but our sentiments, happenstancedly as always, remain the same.
*clink*
{"commentId":390008,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"firsty"}
- 5 votes
#5 - Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:07 PM EST{"commentId":390029,"authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
{"commentId":390022,"authorDomain":"AsymptoticToZero"}
Once you guys got elected on promises of withdrawal, global weakness, and surrender, you got your five hundred dead per week as impetus. Deal with it. It's yours: you earned it. They want you out in a hurry, you want out in a hurry, ... it's yours. Don't be shy now: if it's murder, it's on you, Dems. Wear it. Be proud. Both the first and last dead Americans are on you, appeasers, apologists, and "journalists" alike, make no mistake. Be what you are, which would mean "be what you are not".
{"commentId":390022,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"AsymptoticToZero"}
- 2 votes
#6 - Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:18 PM EST{"commentId":391414,"authorDomain":"wbrianwhite"}
Hey, you admitted genocide would work. No more terrorists. Case closed.
{"commentId":391414,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"wbrianwhite"}
{"commentId":390056,"authorDomain":"jimdent"}
from his memoir, "A World Transformed" (1998)
Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.
George Herbert Walker Bush.
I think a trip to the woodshed is in order....
{"commentId":390056,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"jimdent"}
- 10 votes
#7 - Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:53 PM EST{"commentId":390223,"authorDomain":"aine"}
Iraq and Afghanistan, as cultural and historical entities are, I think, going to become extinct under the auspices of American foreign policy. Possibly Iran, too, if we don't change course.
In the case of Iraq, we're supposedly "liberating" the country we are destroying. It's now come down to killing the people we supposedly went in there to free.
Our "leaders" are such murderous maniacs that they may succeed in destroying not only those two countries but our own as well. Reminds me of another war that ended in a quagmire. Funny thing is, it's many of the same players, like chess pieces, only they're in different positions now... and quite a bit older and wealthier.
The costs are on the U.S. These wars have torn the country apart, turned us into red states and blue states, patriots and unAmericans, liberals and neocons. It's left people disillusioned and skeptical of the government, and lacking confidence that we'll ever get any of it straightened out.
The use of Fear as a tactic to bring the domestic population of the United States under control has left a long and terrible trail of bloodshed and suffering. That's the cost here at home of being manipulated by Fear. And yes, there were all those who got killed, too... and are still getting killed... and the families they left behind. Not just the Americans. Not just soldiers or terrorists either.
So entranced by the beauty of their vision of historical "legacy" were the members of this Administration, and so enamored of the agenda in which they were engaged, that they apparently paid little attention to the consequences of what they were doing. They are all about "Shock and Awe", the photo ops, the grand parades, the flags flying, "flowers and candy," the little lapel pins, "we'll be greeted as liberators," the Presidential Medals of Freedom, "Mission Accomplished"...
I guess the stacks of corpses down at the Baghdad morgue, and those flag-draped coffins flown home under cover of darkness, aren't something they even think much about. Those who dwell in dusty desert homes are, apparently, not entitled to such emotions as Fear, nor the desire to defend themselves against an aggressive foreign occupier. Such feelings and concerns are the prerogatives only of the "rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations," in Churchill's rhetoric. Oh, and don't these guys love the WW2 imagery, too. All pomp... and circumstance be damned.
For these guys, there is only one kind of peace – a certain kind of peace, in which the rich men must be free from fear. The kind of freedom in which the wealthy are free to exploit those who are less fortunate. The kind of liberty in which those who disagree are subject to surveillance and wiretaps and No-Fly lists and they'd damned sure better show their papers when they're asked.
{"commentId":390223,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"aine"}
- 11 votes
#8 - Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:06 AM EST{"commentId":390256,"authorDomain":"chill888"}
I really fear that the American psyche will lead it to escalate troop strength in a last ditch attempt to "win"
Olbermann's latest Bush rant contains the flaw to this strategy:
The second most important lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: if you don't have a stable local government to work with, you can keep sending in Americans until hell freezes over and it will not matter.
{"commentId":390256,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"chill888"}
- 7 votes
#9 - Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:33 AM EST{"commentId":390265,"authorDomain":"chill888"}
Aine,
Very well written and insightful comment,
I fear that the American psyche will lead to a troop escalation in a last ditch attempt to "win" - whatever that the heck "win" means.
Olbermmanns's latest anti-bush rant contains the flaw to this strategy:
The second most important lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: if you don't have a stable local government to work with, you can keep sending in Americans until hell freezes over and it will not matter.
{"commentId":390265,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"chill888"}
- 5 votes
#10 - Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:39 AM EST{"commentId":390267,"authorDomain":"chill888"}
ooops sorry got a message from NV that comments wasn't posted
{"commentId":390267,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"chill888"}
- 4 votes
#11 - Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:40 AM EST{"commentId":391409,"authorDomain":"chill888"}
lol just to clarify - neither of the two votes for my "oops" post are from me.
{"commentId":391409,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"chill888"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":390279,"authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
Anie,
Did you see the posting from pseudonihilist, makes you wonder if we're banging our heads against the proverbial wall, nothing will satisfy. How do we reason for a resource based economy, a world government, and a sentient world aspect on things.
More Scotch is not the answer, but more people like you are.
Thanks
Forest
{"commentId":390279,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"ForestBrowne"}
- 8 votes
#12 - Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:49 AM EST{"commentId":390300,"authorDomain":"aine"}
I'll have a Jameson's.
{"commentId":390300,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"aine"}
- 5 votes
{"commentId":391278,"authorDomain":"sinclairmusic"}
The article is a accurate snapshot of the present situation, whisky and all.
I lost British Army friends to American funded (Noraid) terrorists in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. That is in Europe if one geography is challenged.
The Contra "rebels"in S America were American funded along with Iraq against Iran...
What goes around comes around when governments stray away from their mandate to govern into the "you have a hemisphere and we are interested in it sort of behavior and then find themselves unable to back out and "lose face" when it all goes horribly wrong.
{"commentId":391278,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"sinclairmusic"}
- 10 votes
#13 - Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:50 PM EST{"commentId":391418,"authorDomain":"wbrianwhite"}
What? America supports terrorism? Say it ain't so.....
{"commentId":391418,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"wbrianwhite"}
- 6 votes
{"commentId":399722,"authorDomain":"ROBNC"}
{"commentId":399722,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"ROBNC"}
- 2 votes
#14 - Mon Nov 27, 2006 3:20 PM EST{"commentId":399786,"authorDomain":"aine"}
Fear, kind of like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, often ceases to have an effect after its been done for a long period of time. There is no avoiding death, no matter how fearful or what precautions we take to protect ourselves or our loved ones.
{"commentId":399786,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"aine"}
- 5 votes
{"commentId":400011,"authorDomain":"AsymptoticToZero"}
Aine - I do not understand the relevancy of your reply. Could you say more about the connection of fear and what Rob_NC posted? Thank you.
{"commentId":400011,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"AsymptoticToZero"}
{"commentId":400190,"authorDomain":"aine"}
Inciting fear of terrorism (what the posted link was about) so that we'll all fall in line, or as an attempt to stop or stifle the posting of dissenting viewpoints... it no longer serves as a chilling effect after it's done so many times. That was my point, I guess.
{"commentId":400190,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"aine"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":400222,"authorDomain":"ROBNC"}
There is no avoiding death, no matter how fearful or what precautions we take to protect ourselves or our loved ones.
..uh, how `bout that something we agree on...thing is I choose to shoot first...
{"commentId":400222,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"ROBNC"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":400717,"authorDomain":"ROBNC"}
{"commentId":400717,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"ROBNC"}
{"commentId":1089914,"authorDomain":"PamelaDrew"}
Nearly one year and what has changed?
{"commentId":1089914,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"PamelaDrew"}
- 3 votes
#15 - Thu Oct 11, 2007 12:34 AM EDT{"commentId":1089981,"authorDomain":"wbrianwhite"}
Well, Halliburton's stock is up by 40%: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HAL&t=1y
{"commentId":1089981,"threadId":"56085","contentId":"447838","authorDomain":"wbrianwhite"}
- 2 votes
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