Althouse: "I have a picture of what I estimate to be a six-year-old girl in a gingham party dress, white tights, a little red band around her wrist, Mary Janes."

September 22, 2014

"I have a picture of what I estimate to be a six-year-old girl in a gingham party dress, white tights, a little red band around her wrist, Mary Janes."

"And she's lying on the ground and her head is gone. This could be an American child; it could be a European child. It could be a child anywhere. And this is the mentality of the group that we are so concerned with. They have killed thousands. They are marching on. They have an army. They're well-organized. Many of us believe they're aimed at Baghdad, perhaps our embassy there. And who knows what else?"

Diane Feinstein, on "Face the Nation" yesterday.

141 comments:

Cheryl said...: If she really has that picture (and I have absolutely no doubt that ISIS has been beheading children) then how in the world does she discuss Ray Rice--RAY RICE--and the NFL and then move to this? How does she not shout from the rooftops what these monsters are doing?; 9/22/14, 10:57 AM
Unknown said...: "Well, the president, excuse me, has a strategy."

Keep referring to Iraq. Blame Bush. Lie.; 9/22/14, 10:59 AM
Brando said...: This feels very 2002.; 9/22/14, 11:00 AM
Hagar said...: I believe al Baghdadi has been quite up front about intending to re-establish the Baghdad Caliphate?; 9/22/14, 11:01 AM
Robert Cook said...: What about all the Iraqi and Afghanistan children whose heads (and limbs) have been separated from their bodies or whose bodies have been rendered into fragments by our bombs?; 9/22/14, 11:03 AM
MadisonMan said...: @Cheryl, because she was asked about the NFL first? ( I found it interesting that the phrase 'presumed innocent' or something like that didn't come from her mouth. Nope. If they're arrested, they should be suspended. Because everyone knows wrongful arrests never happen ); 9/22/14, 11:06 AM
Paco Wové said...: Well, what about them, RC? Why is what you wrote anything but a non-sequitur?; 9/22/14, 11:09 AM
Hagar said...: The original Moslem expansion got stopped at Tours - halfway up into France - in 735 A.D.
The Ottoman Empire was threatening Vienna in 1683 - just a little over 300 years ago.; 9/22/14, 11:12 AM
The Godfather said...: She referred to 3 entities, ISIS, AQAP, and ISIL. ISIS and ISIL are the same. I haven't read the whole transcript; did she clear this up?

It's distressing that she felt it necessary to describe the decapitated child as looking like an American or European child.; 9/22/14, 11:15 AM
MadisonMan said...: This feels very 2002.

Agreed. I'm thankful that the genesis of this discussion is a little different for the US, but it's still because of deadly actions somewhere.

Thank you Saudi Arabia. What a great ally you are.; 9/22/14, 11:20 AM
Michael K said...: Cookie thinks we should leave the Muslims to chop each other up because we once tried to save them from themselves. I actually agree with that but not for his reasons.

Bush was right to try to make one Arab country into a modern state, albeit not a real democracy. It didn't work so let them kill each other.

Our friends, the Saudis, who fund the opposition to the XL pipeline, also fund ISIS. They deserve each other.

Drill, baby drill.; 9/22/14, 11:21 AM
traditionalguy said...: Obama has gone from taking every opportunity to end the US Military's role of being the strongest horse among the middle-eastern warring tribes and has made us non-existent.

The title Caliph simply means the man who has assumed Mohammed's role as conquering killer. And Obama truly wants to let that happen.; 9/22/14, 11:28 AM
Lucien said...: In the age of over-reaction senior senators are not voices of restraint and perspective in the face of inflammatory images, but exploit those images for the express purpose of inciting emotional and irrational responses and attitudes.; 9/22/14, 11:33 AM
Carnifex said...: I would agree with Mike K except we have quislings in congress and the White House preventing the independence of America's energy supply. Until people come to realize that the Democratic party is antithetical to America, these people will be allowed to damage us as much as they wish, with the blessings of a compliant media.

and Cookie...nice job on the moral equivalency. Really... Good job...

Sorta like your "Global Warming" crowd march this weekend. You know the one where you guys left all your trash laying around? I't would be nice if just once a leftist crowd didn't leave a mess for someone else to clean up, but I believe it is beyond their mental capabilities to see their own hypocracy.; 9/22/14, 11:39 AM
Meade said...: from Maureen Dowd today:

Given all the horrors in the world now, I said, maybe President Obama needs to chill out by reuniting the Choom Gang.

“I would think,” [Willy] Nelson said, laughing, “he would sneak off somewhere.”; 9/22/14, 11:45 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: And AQI was doing the same thing in 2006, when Sen. Feinstein was calling the war lost.

The hypocrisy of these people is maddening.

Robert Cook-

The numbers aren't comparable at all. We simply haven't dropped enough bombs to come close to what the Taliban and Al Qaeda have done. Even if mass murder via airstrikes was our goal, we can't compete with the enemy when it comes to killing Muslims.

That being said, if we aren't going to impose peace on Iraq then we shouldn't be dropping bombs at all. All it's doing is feeding the violence without any chance of ending it. That's immoral.; 9/22/14, 11:49 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Well, what about them, RC?"

How is ISIS (or ISIL) or any other entities we will claim as "the greatest menace we've ever faced" (sic) any worse than we are? How are we less monstrous?; 9/22/14, 11:50 AM
Moose said...: Sounds like the "throwing babies out of incubators" crap from the first Gulf war.; 9/22/14, 11:52 AM
Robert Cook said...: It's all about ratcheting up war fever among Americans...again.; 9/22/14, 11:55 AM
Rusty said...: and Cookie...nice job on the moral equivalency. Really... Good job...

Carni. Don't you WW2 was the "good" war.; 9/22/14, 11:55 AM
Anonymous said...: RC wrote;

"How is ISIS (or ISIL) or any other entities we will claim as "the greatest menace we've ever faced" (sic) any worse than we are? How are we less monstrous?"

How I love the smell of moral equivalence in the morning.

Look, if someone can't see the difference between just war and terrorism, without having to explain it to them, is it really worth bothering? It's not like RC is a five year old who needs to have these things explained to him.

Some people will always find an excuse for inaction. That's what RC is, a walking excuse for inaction. Police are the same way. If someone robs a bank and kills 5 people and the police give chase and run over a small child during the pursuit, these police officers are no different than the bank robbers.

It's moral equivalence all the way down.; 9/22/14, 11:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Damn Rusty, you beat me to the moral equivalency. :(; 9/22/14, 11:56 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Robert Cook-

Why is it that all the states and terrorists that we go to war with kill so many people? If America is so bad, how come our enemies are always worse? They always kill more people than we do. Germany, Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iraq, and Al Qaeda all killed more people than we did fighting them.

And none of our enemies ever allow civil liberties or religious freedom. None.

How come they're all so bad if we're the problem?

Moral equivalence arguments fail the test of arithmetic. Far more people die from American inaction than American action. The worst wars are those where the US isn't involved, or gets involved long after they start.; 9/22/14, 12:01 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Look, if someone can't see the difference between just war and terrorism...."

Is there a difference? If there is, it can only be that in very rare circumstances, war may be unavoidable or absolutely necessary. But even a "just war" (sic) is still simply prolonged mass murder and terrorism for those who are victim to it, (the populations where the war is being conducted).

Even assuming there is such a thing as "just war"--I will accept that WWII probably was, but no other in modern history--what we're involved with right now is certainly not it.; 9/22/14, 12:04 PM
mccullough said...: RC,

I like your perspective, but had to laugh at you're hedging of "probably was" as to whether WWII was justified.

Pick a side, good man.; 9/22/14, 12:06 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Far more people die from American inaction than American action."

If America had not acted in 2001 and 2003, far more people would be alive today than are, far fewer people would be maimed or would be homeless refugees.

The wars raging in the Middle East today are all basically America's wars--we started them.; 9/22/14, 12:08 PM
Michael K said...: "I't would be nice if just once a leftist crowd didn't leave a mess for someone else to clean up"

What do you mean ? It's their day job ! Do you expect those rich lefties to be stealing jobs from their loyal voters ?

Cookie, I assume you also oppose the Civil War that freed the slaves.; 9/22/14, 12:08 PM
Robert Cook said...: "I like your perspective, but had to laugh at you're hedging of "probably was" as to whether WWII was justified."

Well, I say "probably" only because when I stated here in a previous thread a year or so ago that WWII was the only necessary war--i.e., a so-called "just war"--that America had fought in in modern history, several other commenters here took me to task, pointed out reasons why it was not necessarily so.

So, while I still hold to the view WWII was the only necessary war we have fought in the lifetime of anyone currently alive, I am willing to hear arguments that it was not necessary.; 9/22/14, 12:12 PM
Achilles said...: Robert Cook said...

"What about all the Iraqi and Afghanistan children whose heads (and limbs) have been separated from their bodies or whose bodies have been rendered into fragments by our bombs?"

Our unit went out on a capture kill mission the rotation before I got there but I got first hand accounts of it from the men who were there. They used a One-Banger flashbang stun grenade after kicking the door open. The person we were sent to capture had arranged his children around the front door and took off out the back. The grenade landed in one of the kids laps and she was injured badly. He died later of his wounds obviously.

After this we changed our TTP's to avoid this which is why it still bothers me police use them in our country on drug raids. But more to the point there is a difference between what we were doing and what they are doing. What we are fighting for and what they fight for.

Intent matters you piece of shit. I hope you get to face one of these people you equate us to without us protecting you.; 9/22/14, 12:13 PM
Achilles said...: Robert Cook said...

"Well, what about them, RC?"

" How is ISIS (or ISIL) or any other entities we will claim as "the greatest menace we've ever faced" (sic) any worse than we are? How are we less monstrous?"

It is hard to describe the disgust I feel when reading comments like this. I know you have no shame, but the cowardice you show in the face of evil and the equivocation you use to mask it is disgusting.; 9/22/14, 12:18 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Intent matters...."

Yeah, killing people with a "good intent" (sic) is better than killing them with a bad intent.

Achilles, you're so self-involved with your own perspective you don't see the larger picture. It doesn't matter that many--though certainly not all--ground troops take pains not to harm innocents, (at least, those they are willing to see as innocents); the accrued results of our years at war with both ground troops and aerial weaponry, (which wreak great destruction and death), are the maiming and killing of many innocents. That our wars in the middle east are unnecessary and pointless, that they are fought primarily for the oil interests, (don't think they're not), makes every death more ghastly.; 9/22/14, 12:21 PM
Rocketeer said...: It's a stoner's pose. "They're all the same, man, so, like, why do anything, man?" Sometimes Cook seems lucid, but then he pops off with this facile moral equivalency and I'm reminded he's nothing more than a child.; 9/22/14, 12:21 PM
Rocketeer said...: "It's all for, like, OIL, man."; 9/22/14, 12:22 PM
Fritz said...: "If America had not acted in 2001 and 2003, far more people would be alive today than are, far fewer people would be maimed or would be homeless refugees.

The wars raging in the Middle East today are all basically America's wars--we started them."

Objection, assuming facts not in evidence.; 9/22/14, 12:22 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: "I have a picture of what I estimate to be an 80-year old black woman and she's eating on the ground. This could be your mother; it could be an American parent. It could be an old woman anywhere. And this is the mentality of the group that we are so concerned with. They have killed millions. They are marching on. They have the law. They're well-organized. Many of us know they're aimed at blacks, perhaps blacks elsewhere. And who knows what else?"; 9/22/14, 12:24 PM
Robert Cook said...: "'It's all for, like, OIL, man.'"

Uh, yeah, man,...it is. It is for American domination of the region, of which control over access to the oil there is a significant factor.; 9/22/14, 12:26 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Objection, assuming facts not in evidence."

Rather, you choose to avoid facts plainly evident: we invaded Afghanistan in 2001; we invaded Iraq in 2003; we have expanded our wars into other countries (for no apparent reason other than "terrorists!") over the period from then to now.

These wars did not exist until we started them.; 9/22/14, 12:29 PM
Achilles said...: The Ray Rice incident is a weapon against an American institution. That is why it is "worse" than beheaded children or the mass murder of Christians and Yazidi's. That is why we here about the campus rape epidemic incessantly even if it is manufactured.

The progressive goal is to destroy freedom and the institutions we enjoy, not enhance it. It is to tear down the strongest champion of freedom, not it's enemies. That is why Robert Cooke is all in on moral equivalence. He is an enemy of freedom.

If you can call the Korean war unjust. If you can look at South Korea and say it should be like North Korea. If you can look at the middle east and single out Israel, the one free country there, for approbation you are an enemy of freedom.; 9/22/14, 12:29 PM
Big Mike said...: To give her the benefit of the doubt I assume she's talking about a mental image when she says she has a picture of a murdered child.; 9/22/14, 12:32 PM
Drago said...: Crack takes time out of his busy schedule of not helping 80 year old black women on the street to post on Althouse about 80 year old black women on the street.

Meanwhile, cracks very good islamist pals are slicing heads off of girls.

That is, when they aren't enslaving them.

We have much to learn from our non-western non-white betters.; 9/22/14, 12:35 PM
Drago said...: Cook: "Uh, yeah, man,...it is. It is for American domination of the region, of which control over access to the oil there is a significant factor."

LOL

What percent of the oil in the ME does the US actually control again?

There is some industrial grade ignorance on display today.; 9/22/14, 12:38 PM
Drago said...: Cook: "These wars did not exist until we started them."

LOL

Conflict did not exist prior to capitalism.

Marxism! Just give it a chance!!; 9/22/14, 12:39 PM
rhhardin said...: Women's issues.; 9/22/14, 12:44 PM
Achilles said...: Robert Cook said...

"Intent matters...."

Yeah, killing people with a "good intent" (sic) is better than killing them with a bad intent.

"Achilles, you're so self-involved with your own perspective you don't see the larger picture. It doesn't matter that many--though certainly not all--ground troops take pains not to harm innocents, (at least, those they are willing to see as innocents); the accrued results of our years at war with both ground troops and aerial weaponry, (which wreak great destruction and death), are the maiming and killing of many innocents. That our wars in the middle east are unnecessary and pointless, that they are fought primarily for the oil interests, (don't think they're not), makes every death more ghastly."

Every death caused by us is worse than every death caused by ISIS? Or saddam? Or Pol Pot?

I killed people over there. I took pains to avoid killing innocents. Our JTAC's also called in a fair number of bombs. I pulled limbs out of buildings. We pulled burning not quite dead yet 4 foot tall bodies out of hellfired vehicles. The lengths we went to to avoid dropping bombs when it wasn't necessary and or would kill "civilians" were extreme.

But there is something worse than war. It is North Korea. It was East Germany and Poland before they were free. It is a world where the US doesn't fight for freedom. Take your war for oil bullshit and stuff it up your ass. We left Iraq safer than Chicago. It took 5 years of progressive moral equivalence to turn it into Christian and Yazidi genocide.

If you are anti-war you have to accept the alternative. I wont say you are pro genocide as that would be like you calling me monstrous and a murderer. Anti-war = accepting genocide.; 9/22/14, 12:46 PM
Todd said...: Robert Cook said...
But even a "just war" (sic) is still simply prolonged mass murder and terrorism for those who are victim to it, (the populations where the war is being conducted).
9/22/14, 12:04 PM

So the alternative is not to fight back, if it would spare lives in the short term? Someone knocks on your door and says your house belongs to us now, you have 10 minutes to get out. You do? You don't fight back?

If you think nothing is worth your life, your life is worth nothing. If NO war is justified, self defense is not justified.

That is a sad mental state to be in. One where you can not see yourself ever defending you and yours.; 9/22/14, 12:46 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Cookie, what would you rail against if America was not the No. 1 superpower? Could you even exist?; 9/22/14, 12:47 PM
Drago said...: Achilles to Cook: "Anti-war = accepting genocide."

For 100 years we've seen the left celebrate the regimes that conducted genocide against their own peoples.

Accepting genocide?

I think you meant to say celebrating it.

Of course, after the fact it was necessary to try and change the narrative from leftist genocide to something more palatable to the lefties. Hence we are told the Stalin was a actually a conservative!!

Of course, most communist/stalinists are/were!

And that Pol Pot, wasn't he really inspired by Nixon's actions?; 9/22/14, 12:51 PM
Achilles said...: I know this is coming. So to head that off if you say we caused this genocide. That it was my fault for fighting for what I believe in and you take for granted. Then you are truly depraved. Not that my opinion of you could go much lower. At least the enemies I fought against believed in something other than progressive power even if they believed in something evil.; 9/22/14, 12:51 PM
Anonymous said...: I've seen a photo on the net, for which I do not have a link but it should be searchable, of what looked like a little girl's lifeless body. She was wearing a blue dress, she may have been headless but I didn't want to look too closely.

Robert Cook will change his mind, along with hordes of women when the first American woman is beheaded. Until then, meh.

And seriously Cook, you may accept that WWII was a just war? Really, you will? Promise? What a tool, the kind of guy who sends someone else to have his pet cat put down.; 9/22/14, 1:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Who's that a quote from, Crack? Someone that no black people in the country give a shit about and no one's paying any attention to?

I mean, you used quotation marks.; 9/22/14, 1:00 PM
traditionalguy said...: The civilized people who live in the middle east have spent 40 years getting along with Americans. 20 of those years they rejected the USSR and picked us.

Now Obama has intentionally given away that victory like he gave away Iraq and Afghanistan.

How does it feel to be a betraying SOB in the eyes of our few remains allies....like Egypt; 9/22/14, 1:00 PM
Rockport Conservative said...: When I read Robert Cook's "What about all the Iraqi and Afghanistan children whose heads (and limbs) have been separated from their bodies or whose bodies have been rendered into fragments" I first thought he was speaking of abortion.; 9/22/14, 1:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Crack, if that person you quoted is desperate for attention, I hear they're having some sort of weird Occupy-like thing going on in New York.

Maybe you could suggest, to that infantile self-obsessed sad little person you quoted, that he or she could go to New York and be showered with attention. Or with something anyway.; 9/22/14, 1:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Robert Cook wrote:

"If America had not acted in 2001 and 2003, far more people would be alive today than are, far fewer people would be maimed or would be homeless refugees.

The wars raging in the Middle East today are all basically America's wars--we started them."

Clarity is more important than agreement. I find the facts don't agree with your above statement.

We didn't start the Iraq war with Kuwait, for example, but we finished it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq

For you to be correct, Robert Cook, you're assumptions would have to take into effect that suddenly, the Iraq where millions have died (For varying reasons linked at the Wikipedia article above) would suddenly cease and would be filled with Unicorns and Rainbows (And let's not forget the flying kites).

It's fine if you want to believe that. It can't be proved either way.

I say it's clear those deaths would continue and get worse, not better. In other words, America has saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq.; 9/22/14, 1:05 PM
Achilles said...: "Hence we are told the Stalin was a actually a conservative!!"

It is the citizen serf conflict. The US was the first country that talked about unalienable rights. There are countries around the world now that have citizens. The ruling class has never liked this. Whether it was hereditary monarchy or marxism or wealth they want their serf's back.

Tearing down the US is the strategy to achieve this goal. Hence why every one of Obama's policies inevitable results is the creation of a permanent underclass.; 9/22/14, 1:06 PM
Brando said...: I don't see how anyone can take Feinstein seriously. She claims that the threat from ISIS "cannot be overstated."

"Cannot be overstated." Think for a minute how idiotic that statement is.

That would mean that if I were to say that ISIS had plans to make the moon explode and screw up world tidal activity and ruin werewolf movies forever, then I couldn't be overstating the threat from ISIS.

Yes, ISIS is an especially nasty group of people and the ones committing these atrocities deserve a painful death. But if you're going to claim that they pose an existential threat to the U.S., you have to explain exactly how they are going to do so and why your proposed course of action will end that threat. If the threat is that they are setting up cells in the U.S. that will blow up shopping malls or set of a dirty bomb downtown, then explain why dropping some bombs on their brethren in Iraq and Syria will prevent that from happening. Explain why sending arms to a bunch of "moderate" rebels will result in ending whatever threat ISIS poses to the U.S., rather than have those same weapons turned against us or one of our allies in the near future.

War is always filled with unknowns and unintended consequences--Iraq certainly had its share. But when the entire course of action lacks any logic before we even begin, this is not a good sign.

My guess is that Obama doesn't think ISIS is in fact a threat to the U.S., but that it has the capacity to embarrass him by destabilizing the Iraqi government and give fuel to the argument that he left Iraq in chaos. He hopes dropping some bombs and getting arms to other parties in the region will slow ISIS down, at least long enough for this to be President Hillary's problem (which I'm sure she'll handle wonderfully). This makes some sense politically, even for a Cicero-quoting Nobel Peace Prizewinner like Barry O, but this is incredibly ill-starred for our country.; 9/22/14, 1:11 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Robert Cook-

You're my favorite commenter on this blog because you'll disagree with absolutely everyone in a consistent way. If I lived near you I'd ask to go out for a beer.

But... you didn't deal with my point. If America is so bad, then why are our enemies always worse? Why do they kill so many people? Obama's drone assassinations (let's be honest about what they are) have killed about 2400 people. ISIS or Assad does that in one day.

To illustrate the problem with moral equivalence and US policy, I'll go to WW2.

Germany was directly responsible for the murder of 11 million people in the Holocaust, not counting the overall civilian death toll from military operations. The US bombing campaign against Germany killed about 500,000 Germans. That's a lot of people, but it just doesn't compare to the numbers that Germany murdered. That isn't a moral argument, because dropping burning gasoline on helpless people is fucked up. But it isn't the same thing when the numbers are so far apart.

Here's the other thing- the US bombing of Germany furthered the goal of winning the war and ending the killing. Once the war ended we stopped bombing cities. For Germany, once they defeated and occupied a nation the killing was just getting started. Most of the people they killed were in areas where military operations were over. The German armed forces enabled mass murder. That was their objective, not bringing a more advantageous position for Germany, but creating the conditions for mass murder. If we truly were the equivalent of the Germans we would have set up death camps and deportations and murdered as many Germans as possible after we took their country. We did not, because the extermination of the German nation was not our goal. Even the Russians didn't try that.

The same thing is true about WW2 Japan, or North Korea, North Vietnam, Saddam's Iraq, or Al Qaeda. For them, the war was about controlling enough territory so they can murder the people they don't want and terrorize the rest. The war is a means to an end, and the end is murder. That's not the same thing as what the US wants. However stupid, misguided, mistaken, or badly implemented postwar US foreign policy gets, it is never concerned with exterminating entire peoples for religious or ideological ends.

Yes, US bombs kill people. That's fine to talk about. It can be immoral. But if we are going to talk about death tolls, we have to be accurate, and the numbers show that our enemies are so much worse. There's also the fact that winning for the US is ending the war and achieving a peace that is to our advantage (let's be honest about that, too.) The metrics for US victory in Iraq during the surge were fewer bombings and fewer violent deaths. If we want to kill people, why is peace victory? Why is less violence in our interest, but more violence benefits our enemies? Why would we be happy with a peaceful Middle East, but Al Qaeda and ISIS would not? Who is actually responsible for the killing?

If we are going to talk about moral equivalence, then we have to look at intent. Using force to further American economic and political goals is not the same as using force to murder entire nations. There are ways to achieve our goals without violence, but the enemy cannot achieve his goals without it. That should tell us something.

I think that we should be skeptical of what our leaders are up to, and US foreign policy can be completely wrong. It can kill many, many people. However, when we make false comparisons to our enemies it does not help us see the world as it is, nor does it allow us to oppose nations or groups that should be fought, because otherwise the consequences are horrific.; 9/22/14, 1:16 PM
Robert Cook said...: "We left Iraq safer than Chicago."

Nonsense.; 9/22/14, 1:17 PM
Rusty said...: eric said...
Damn Rusty, you beat me to the moral equivalency. :(

Comrade Bob. Always good for a few laughs.

He knows what he's against. He just can't articulate why.; 9/22/14, 1:18 PM
Robert Cook said...: "So the alternative is not to fight back, if it would spare lives in the short term? Someone knocks on your door and says your house belongs to us now, you have 10 minutes to get out. You do? You don't fight back?"

Who knocked on our door and said that? Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? Pakistan?; 9/22/14, 1:18 PM
Robert Cook said...: "That it was my fault for fighting for what I believe in...."

Again with your self-involved perspective. This is not about you or the individual soldiers, each of whom is there for individual reasons or circumstances, (e.g., they needed a job).

This is about the American government and its global agenda. You are just one of their flesh-and-blood dustbusters, sent to clean up a mess. If you get damaged, you are repaired; if you can't be repaired, you are simply replaced.; 9/22/14, 1:22 PM
Rusty said...: Robert Cook said...
"We left Iraq safer than Chicago."

Nonsense.

No it's true.
Plus. Iraq has had more honest and open elections when the Coalition Forces were there than there has ever been in the City of Chicago.; 9/22/14, 1:24 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Hence why every one of Obama's policies inevitable results is the creation of a permanent underclass."

That's because that's the agenda of the people Obama works for, (and Bush and Clinton, too!): the financial elites who profit by our loss.

You see the results, but you misunderstand the cause and those responsible.; 9/22/14, 1:25 PM
Achilles said...: Robert Cook said...

" "That it was my fault for fighting for what I believe in...."

Again with your self-involved perspective. This is not about you or the individual soldiers, each of whom is there for individual reasons or circumstances, (e.g., they needed a job).

This is about the American government and its global agenda. You are just one of their flesh-and-blood dustbusters, sent to clean up a mess. If you get damaged, you are repaired; if you can't be repaired, you are simply replaced."

And you blithely blow off arguments I made condescendingly as if I were a dumb grunt. But you apologize for tyrants and see they remain in power. You apologize for Socialism and Progressivism which have killed at least two orders of magnitude more people than the US army.

There is something worse than war. There is a result to your restraint. It is tyrany and serfdom. It is genocide. Mass rape. It is North Korea.

But it is my impression that you want the world like North Korea. Because if you got your way the world would end up like North Korea.; 9/22/14, 1:32 PM
David said...: Cheryl said...
If she really has that picture (and I have absolutely no doubt that ISIS has been beheading children) then how in the world does she discuss Ray Rice--RAY RICE--and the NFL and then move to this? How does she not shout from the rooftops what these monsters are doing?

CBS led the whole show with NFL. And an NFL question was first out of the box for Feinstein. She just loved answering the question, by the way.

A lot of the discussion was about ISIS and our strategy (or lack thereof) for dealing with it. Overall it was a discouraging conversation, with the participants bouncing all around and not grappling with the thing very coherently. Partly that's because it's a difficult problem, but also confusion is what you get when there is no strong leadership.; 9/22/14, 1:33 PM
David said...: Cook: "The wars raging in the Middle East today are all basically America's wars--we started them."

Yep. It all started when we invaded Kuwait. Then it increased when we attacked the twin towers and the pentagon.; 9/22/14, 1:38 PM
Achilles said...: Robert Cook said...

"Hence why every one of Obama's policies inevitable results is the creation of a permanent underclass."

"That's because that's the agenda of the people Obama works for, (and Bush and Clinton, too!): the financial elites who profit by our loss.

You see the results, but you misunderstand the cause and those responsible."

Those people that are running Obama now are funding the anti-war movement too but only when there is a political goal. They got their man now so you don't see much from the anti-war hypocrites. The oil companies favor authoritarians. You hear progressives pining for the days of Saddam.

The OWS movement was never about fighting for the 99%. It was the .00001% putting the 1% back in it's place using the mob to do it's bidding. It was about colonialism and putting the monarchy back in control. It was about tearing down the US and the part that fights for freedom.

Because they want their serf's back and you are a useful idiot.; 9/22/14, 1:41 PM
n.n said...: Premature evacuation for political leverage has consequences. Americans should have stood their ground next to their green Iraqi allies.

Still, I question Feinstein's motives.

Make life, not abortion... Feinstein.; 9/22/14, 1:45 PM
grackle said...: This latest military fiasco engineered by Obama is simply a holding action until the mid-terms are safely over. After that Obama can safely "lose" the ISIS War. Asking Iran to join the fake coalition in exchange for more nuking up in Iran was a nice touch – 2 birds with one stone.

You may not like the Caliphate but the Caliphate likes you.; 9/22/14, 1:47 PM
Anonymous said...: John Lynch wrote to Robert Cook:

" For them, the war was about controlling enough territory so they can murder the people they don't want and terrorize the rest. The war is a means to an end, and the end is murder. That's not the same thing as what the US wants. However stupid, misguided, mistaken, or badly implemented postwar US foreign policy gets, it is never concerned with exterminating entire peoples for religious or ideological ends. "

Robert Cook in responding to Achilles wrote:

""We left Iraq safer than Chicago."

Nonsense."

I think Robert Cook misses the point on purpose. Achilles and John are pointing out that our goal is to make Iraq safe. Safe for everyone. Sunni, Shia, Christian, Mother, Daughter, Husband, Son.

The goals are different. America wants an end to the killing, those America fights against are just beginning the killing.

Achilles wasn't giving an opinion, he was stating a fact. At one point, Iraq was safer than Chicago. Was that fiction? Maybe, but it misses the larger point. We want Iraq to be safer than Chicago. Those Americans fighting and dying over there want Iraq to be safer than Chicago.

Those we fight against don't want that. They want to kill those who disagree with them. They want to kill women and children, fathers and sons.; 9/22/14, 1:48 PM
David said...: I am reading "Armageddon," Max Hastings' recent book about WW II.

He points out that the average death toll in the Second World War was about 44,000 people A DAY.

This proves nothing about the current situation but does remind us that things can get far, far worse.

Not letting that happen has been a major motivating factor behind the maintenance of American military power since 1945. It is unsurprising that we have used that power unwisely more than once, but a reminder that overall having American as the "world's policeman" has not been the worst alternative.; 9/22/14, 1:55 PM
Robert Cook said...: "But it is my impression that you want the world like North Korea."

Your impression, as with your impression we left Iraq "safer than Chicago," is mistaken.; 9/22/14, 1:56 PM
FullMoon said...: Cook said You are just one of their flesh-and-blood dustbusters, sent to clean up a mess. If you get damaged, you are repaired; if you can't be repaired, you are simply replaced."

Hmmmm, Cook sounds like the "pacifists" no war for any reason (because I am afraid to go and am ashamed of myself for feeling that way).; 9/22/14, 1:57 PM
Robert Cook said...: Operation Iraq "Liberation"

"Although political officials rarely speak publically about U.S. desire for control of petroleum, its centrality to U.S. foreign policy is not a secret to scholars."; 9/22/14, 2:01 PM
Paco Wové said...: RC: It would be nice if you tore yourself away from Chomsky and Counterpunch long enough to respond to John Lynch's 1:16pm comment.; 9/22/14, 2:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Robert Cook writes;

"Operation Iraq "Liberation"

"Although political officials rarely speak publically about U.S. desire for control of petroleum, its centrality to U.S. foreign policy is not a secret to scholars.""

What's frustrating about this is how the exact opposite was true.

Those protestors who were holding up signs, "No war for oil!" were inadvertently telling the truth. Saddam was paying countries in oil for no war. And it worked, on some.

So, the truth is, it was those who didn't fight weren't fighting for oil. They were specifically given oil not to fight.

Oh, and is it any coincidence that those same people who claim we fought for oil, don't want us to drill here at home either? If we're going to Iraq and the middle east to take their oil, why not support drilling at home to discourage war?

Because they know it's not true.; 9/22/14, 2:14 PM
DanTheMan said...: >>U.S. desire for control of petroleum, its centrality to U.S. foreign policy is not a secret to scholars."

During the 70's, we could have invaded and captured the oil fields in the mideast. But we didn't.
During the first Gulf war, we had an army in place, and could have captured the oil fields. But didn't.
During the second Gulf war, we had an army in place, and could have captured the Iraq oil fields, but didn't.

So, we seem to be really really bad this "desire for control". Or the assumption is incorrect.; 9/22/14, 2:19 PM
Michael K said...: "These wars did not exist until we started them."

Cook is an old style Marxist. I thought he was just a typical lefty with delusions but this is very revealing. The wars started because we don't yet have the means of production owned by the Proletariat. Osama had his acolytes fly those airliners into the buildings to free the underclass from oppression by the "elites."

I got it.; 9/22/14, 2:20 PM
Curious George said...: Robert Cook said...
What about all the Iraqi and Afghanistan children whose heads (and limbs) have been separated from their bodies or whose bodies have been rendered into fragments by our bombs?

Robert Cook said...
"Well, what about them, RC?"

How is ISIS (or ISIL) or any other entities we will claim as "the greatest menace we've ever faced" (sic) any worse than we are? How are we less monstrous?

You see no difference in children being the unintentional casualty of war and others intentionally having their heads cut-off to make a statement?

None?; 9/22/14, 2:22 PM
Jaq said...: " have been separated from their bodies or whose bodies have been rendered into fragments by our bombs?" Robert Cook

Good point. I am sure her soul will rest easy since she was beheaded by somebody you find has an authentic right to brutality.; 9/22/14, 2:22 PM
Robert Cook said...: Eric,

I appreciate your respectful comments dissenting from mine. However, you are mistaken. We are not in Iraq because we are concerned with making it "safe," (except insofar as it being "safer" may have some ancillary benefit for us). We are there for the same reason empires always send their armies to foreign lands to fight: for access to and/or control of the resources to be had. Assuming human civilization is not grievously wrecked by the impending cataclysms of this century, other, later societies who follow us will, no doubt, be bad in the same way and for the same reasons.

America is not uniquely bad; we are bad in the same way as countless other nations and empires have been bad. We use our might to assert our will and to take what we want. We justify our use of might to take what we want by telling ourselves self-absolving stories, (primarily to mollify the populace, as those in power know clearly what our purposes are).

I criticize our behavior because I am an American at a time when we are the global empire asserting its power. If I were a citizen of another nation my concerns and criticisms would be with and directed primarily or entirely at the misdeeds of that nation, particularly if it were the empire nation of its era.; 9/22/14, 2:25 PM
Michael said...: You cannot disagree with the Cooks of this world. There was no war until there was war. Irrefutable.

Alas, we could be speaking Japanese, Russian or German had we taken that view. Or perhaps "we" would have defensively been able to keep half of the country as a result of some oafish people who fought back in their little backward realms. Cook and his fellows would be in one of the socialist/fascist/communist heavens created for those who felt like talking.; 9/22/14, 2:25 PM
Kirk Parker said...: "It's not like RC is a five year old who needs to have these things explained to him."

Au contraire, that's exactly what it's like--arrested moral and ethical development.; 9/22/14, 2:25 PM
Jaq said...: "These wars did not exist until we started them."" - Robert Cook

You know what sent Afghanistan down the road from a working state to the hell hole it has become? Soviet Communists. The Soviets took the measure of Jimmy Carter, same as Putin has taken the measure of Obama, and they sent their troops in, after first inserting a communist party(complete anathema to Islam, BTW) there to invite them in. Sound familiar RC?; 9/22/14, 2:26 PM
Jaq said...: "I criticize our behavior because I am an American at a time when we are the global empire asserting its power." Robert Cook

Right, you are on the other side, you have made this clear time and again, but thanks for finally admitting it.; 9/22/14, 2:28 PM
traditionalguy said...: It's War on the pre-Women... as only a Caliph can do it; 9/22/14, 2:31 PM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: ISIL sympathizers like Cookie should be rounded up and shot.; 9/22/14, 2:32 PM
David said...: Robert Cook writes;

"Although political officials rarely speak publically about U.S. desire for control of petroleum, its centrality to U.S. foreign policy is not a secret to scholars.""

That quote is from Evan Taylor, graduate library assistant at American University, and one of the noted authorities in nothing at all.

If oil was our purpose, we really do suck. Exxon, the only American company with any significant remaining interest in the Iraq oil fields, last winter sold its interest to the Chinese. Our imports of oil from Iraq, regardless of who controls the profit of extraction, has not increased at all from pre 2001 levels.

It's silly to argue that Iraq's oil reserves were not at all relevant to American response, but the notion that access to oil was a major motivating factor does not hold up with the facts.; 9/22/14, 2:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Robert Cook wrote;

"I appreciate your respectful comments dissenting from mine. However, you are mistaken. We are not in Iraq because we are concerned with making it "safe," (except insofar as it being "safer" may have some ancillary benefit for us). We are there for the same reason empires always send their armies to foreign lands to fight: for access to and/or control of the resources to be had. Assuming human civilization is not grievously wrecked by the impending cataclysms of this century, other, later societies who follow us will, no doubt, be bad in the same way and for the same reasons."

Are you saying we lost the war with Iraq?

Because here I sit and there sits the Iraqi oil fields, owned and operated by everyone but America.; 9/22/14, 2:37 PM
Alexander said...: Looking at what I pay for gas now and what I paid for gas back in 2004... I bloody wish we had gone in as a historical army seeking to take the mineral wealth of foreign lands!

At least that way we might have actually done something.

Now frankly, I'm all for leaving the Muslims in their sandy hellholes. But if one is going to make the assertion that the United States engaged in a classic war of plunder, one is expected to show where in the hell the plunder is.

It's interesting how people like Robert Cook will go on and on about how much money is spent on wars that could go towards [social project X]... right up to the moment where they need the war to be massively profitable for the capitalist invader.; 9/22/14, 2:38 PM
Brando said...: "But if one is going to make the assertion that the United States engaged in a classic war of plunder, one is expected to show where in the hell the plunder is."

Our adventures in the Middle East--no matter how ill-advised or ill-executed--were never about "oil" except in the broadest sense that we only care about what goes on in that part of the world because so much of the world's oil comes from there so it gets our attention. But it makes no sense to go to war there to "secure the oil" because if all we care about is being able to get the oil to market, then it doesn't matter who rules those lands--they have to sell the oil to someone, and whether they sell it to China or the U.S. will have the same effect on world supplies. Besides, we get very little of our own oil from that region.

I doubt "seizing the oil" (by which I mean invading, and handing over the oil wells to American companies) would do us much good anyway--perhaps we could have it sold on the market and take a portion of the barrel price to go towards paying our war debt (this might have been what the pro-Iraq war folks wanted to do ten years ago but that didn't happen), but ultimately putting the oil on the market would keep the price from rising and we'd have to sell it competitively against other producers in the market.

All of these wars cost us in the end, and usually the cost is far higher than originally estimated. That doesn't mean it isn't justified--if we have a real imminent threat then we have to act in our best interests--but it is remarkable how many times since the end of the Cold War we have engaged in war almost willy-nilly for dubious accomplishments.

If this is a military operation we need to undertake, then so be it--but that has hardly been demonstrated and when Obama and McCain agree on something it's almost always a terrible idea.; 9/22/14, 3:05 PM
Nonapod said...: I really dislike the old moral equivalence argument.

The reality is that we live in a world that has a people in it who want to end the western way of life... people who believe in philosophies and theologies that are completely antithetical to the value system of the western world. They don't believe in egalitarianism, multiculturalism, religious pluralities, tolerance and acceptance of different sexual orientations, or gender equality. What's more, in the long run, they are not interested in real compromise, only delaying tactics at best and our eventual conversion or obliteration failing that at worst. They represent the last of the real old school barbarians at the gates.

There was a time when the world was not only filled with people who were of a similar mentality to those in ISIS, it was run by them. Such people had their boots at the throats of the masses. Whether it was the Romans, the dark age feudal kings, the Vikings, the Mongols, the various Chinese Dynasties, or the various Empires of India or the Aztecs and Incas Empires of new world; humanity has been repressed and held hostage by thugs for most of its existence.

It has really only been over the last maybe thousand years or so that these traditional power structures have been gradually subverted and degraded as we’ve pushed out the outright thugs and barbarians from their positions of power. We’ve replaced Kings and Emperors with Presidents and Prime Ministers who can still be corrupt in subtle ways, but are definitely preferable to the brutal monarchs and tyrants of old.

But we still have a few remnants of larger scale real dark age brutality in the world today. They can be found in places like Somalia, The Sudan, Iraq, and Syria. They can be seen in the acts of savagery and hate from the Death Cult that wants to be a State called ISIS or ISIL.

The USA and the Western powers at large are obviously far from morally unimpeachable. Many innocent civilians have been killed in our wars and operations. But to draw a comparison or equivalency between us and a group like ISIS is risible and absurd.; 9/22/14, 3:09 PM
Rusty said...: It's interesting how people like Robert Cook will go on and on about how much money is spent on wars that could go towards [social project X]... right up to the moment where they need the war to be massively profitable for the capitalist invader.

Comrade bob has no idea of how much defense we need,but he does know what we have is too much.; 9/22/14, 3:09 PM
Revenant said...: They have killed thousands. They are marching on. They have an army. They're well-organized.

So what?; 9/22/14, 3:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Revenant wrote:

"They have killed thousands. They are marching on. They have an army. They're well-organized.

So what?"

I think that about sums it up.; 9/22/14, 3:29 PM
Patrick said...: Robert Cook, to answer your question about how the US is better than USIL:The US military goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian death and casualties. Often to the point of subjecting US soldiers to grave risk they would not otherwise face. ISIL's entire MO is killing civilians who have done them no harm.

That is only one difference of many. But it is the most obvious.; 9/22/14, 3:34 PM
Robert Cook said...: "...if one is going to make the assertion that the United States engaged in a classic war of plunder, one is expected to show where in the hell the plunder is."

To the degree there has been plunder, it is in the hands of the oil companies. Remember, the government essentially serves the corporate interests, (as they always have--See Smedley Butler).

Also, just because we go to war for certain objectives doesn't mean those objectives are always successful. There is such a thing as trying and failing. There are also partial successes. But with our military might, we can keep on trying.

That said, there has been plunder:

"Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.

"From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm Dick Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000."; 9/22/14, 3:53 PM
Matt said...: Nearly ten years ago, I was debating an old friend who was anti-war like Robert Cook is. She insisted that it was a War for Oil. This was shortly after the first round of oil contracts were put into place by the new Iraqi government.

When I pointed out to her that not a single oil contract went to an American company, she changed her tune and said that we should get the oil since we paid for the war that freed them. I kid you not.

When it was a war for oil, Bush was bad. When it wasn't a war for oil, Bush was bad. We are no longer in touch...; 9/22/14, 4:19 PM
Mountain Maven said...: Feinstein should be put out to pasture; 9/22/14, 4:26 PM
Drago said...: cook: "To the degree there has been plunder, it is in the hands of the oil companies."

LOL

And, once again, to what degree, precisely, is Iraqi oil in the "hands of the oil companies"?

Feel free to distinguish between Western oil companies and State owned/operated enterprises and to whom they answer.

Don't worry, we won't be holding our breath for another of your simplistic marxist renderings of reality.; 9/22/14, 4:34 PM
Anonymous said...: "And, once again, to what degree, precisely, is Iraqi oil in the "hands of the oil companies"?"

It really does make no sense. Somehow, the Iraqi people are profiting, in a very large way, off of Iraqi Oil. Especially the Kurds in the North.

How they manage to do that when we defeated them in a war, a war that was meant to plunder their oil, is beyond me.

How does someone who believes as Robert Cook does explain that? If we went to Iraq for their oil, why are the Iraqi's getting rich off their oil and not the Americans who stole it?; 9/22/14, 4:38 PM
Fen said...: Cook: This is not about you or the individual soldiers, each of whom is there for individual reasons or circumstances, (e.g., they needed a job).

The guys I knew joined the Marines to help people.

"they needed a job" is how libtards like Cook justify their own cowardice.; 9/22/14, 4:42 PM
Drago said...: LOL

Cookie hits us again with "Big Oil".

I've got news for you, Big Oil isn't that big compared to Nationalized Oil entities.

Take a quick gander at the following list (which is up to date enough) and pay special attention to the proven reserves under control of the entities.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582522-day-huge-integrated-international-oil-company-drawing

It's not even close. All of cookies beloved nationalized companies control 95% of the proven reserves.

But "only" 95%.; 9/22/14, 4:43 PM
Drago said...: Michael K: "Osama had his acolytes fly those airliners into the buildings to free the underclass from oppression by the "elites."

Correction Michael.

Cookie here, we must remember, firmly believes that in terms of 9/11 Bush LIHOP/MIHOP and that Reagan/Bush1 conspired with the Iranian mullahs to keep Americans hostage.

When conversing with cookie, it's important to bear that he truly believes these things all the while he is minimizing/deflecting from any/all monstrocities enacted by non-Westerners/Non-Americans.; 9/22/14, 4:47 PM
Lnelson said...: Robert Cook said...
How are we less monstrous?

Robert, you usually makes intelligent observations, but this one seems to have come from a Colorado dispensary. Then you keep digging and get condescending to Achilles, who has at least seen and experienced real monsters first hand.
I'd suggest stop digging.; 9/22/14, 4:52 PM
Drago said...: Cook: ""From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm Dick Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000."

So, whose fault is it exactly that many of these foreign nationalized oil companies don't possess the educated/experienced resources required for extraction/transportation/refinement etc?

I mean, what's next? Accusations against private western oil interests that they purposely keep nationalized industry personnel untrained and backward?

In any event, the oil is still owned and sold by the nationalized entities.

Cookie glosses over that part.

Personally, I don't think he comprehends it's import.; 9/22/14, 5:12 PM
Drago said...: Cook: "This is not about you or the individual soldiers, each of whom is there for individual reasons or circumstances, (e.g., they needed a job)."

This "job" thing is what I routinely hear from people with no connection to the military nor it's personnel.

There is no question that in recent (last 50 years) the military was seen as a place of relative merit where minorities could be successful if they proved themselves, but that's very different from just folks needing a job.

The reality is that individuals who join the military, particularly in it's combat arms, do so for the physical and mental challenge. They want to test themselves in ways that human beings have been doing since time immemorial.

Coffee shop leftists really have nothing to offer when it comes to assessing why an individual puts themselves in the path of danger via military service.; 9/22/14, 5:17 PM
furious_a said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/22/14, 5:23 PM
furious_a said...: Shorter Cookie:

OOH, HOO, HOO, WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!!; 9/22/14, 5:26 PM
n.n said...: The dynamic in the Middle East is worse, or perhaps just more complicated. The primary consumers of oil from that region are Europe, China, India, and Japan. Americans have an integrated but not principle interest. We would have less interest with an investment in domestic energy production, and divestment of recovery, manufacturing, and recycling of green technology in environmentally unsound nations.; 9/22/14, 5:35 PM
Revenant said...: "So what?"

I think that about sums it up

Well, yes.

We're talking about 10 to 30 thousand ISIS troops waging war against Syria (an enemy of the United States) and Iraq (which has 250,000 troops and refuses to let us base forces there.

It is a war in which we have multiple enemies and zero allies. Getting involved is retarded. Let them butcher each other wholesale; so what?; 9/22/14, 5:35 PM
Sigivald said...: Diane Feinstein wasn't exactly gung-ho about Operation Iraqi Freedom (though to her credit she didn't actually seem to oppose it).

Which is relevant because the Husseins were not nice people, to little girls or anyone else who opposed them.

"This is the mentality of the group that we are so concerned with. They have killed thousands."

The difference being that now there's a Democrat in the White House, is my only plausible assumption.

Better late than never, I guess?; 9/22/14, 5:50 PM
Revenant said...: Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies.

Well, that's an interesting way of putting it. A more accurate way would be that sales of Iraqi oil were controlled by the United Nations, under a sanctions regime enforced by the United States.; 9/22/14, 5:51 PM
Michael K said...: "To the degree there has been plunder, it is in the hands of the oil companies. Remember, the government essentially serves the corporate interests, (as they always have--See Smedley Butler). "

Classic Marxism with a touch of lunatic conspiracy theory, which is often a component. The left is deeply (!) involved with magical thinking. Things happen not because of human actors, like Saddam's sons who had a Billion dollars in cash (!) in a house, but because of mysterious forces that only lefties can identify.

Cheney, who lost $5 million in Halliburton options when Bush asked him to be VP, is still directly Halliburton through his dental work, or something.

There is no point in arguing with lefties. They are a closed hive mind.; 9/22/14, 6:33 PM
Jason said...: Poker1One: I've seen a photo on the net, for which I do not have a link but it should be searchable, of what looked like a little girl's lifeless body. She was wearing a blue dress, she may have been headless but I didn't want to look too closely.

Ok, I'll bite... just how close do you have to look at a photo to realize "wait a minute! This girl doesn't have a head!!!???"; 9/22/14, 6:52 PM
Rusty said...: Revenant said...
Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies.

Well, that's an interesting way of putting it. A more accurate way would be that sales of Iraqi oil were controlled by the United Nations, under a sanctions regime enforced by the United States.

An even more accurate way is to say that Saddam worked every angle he could to make the UN look like chumps as he-Saddam_ made deals under the table with many European countries.
Saddam never had any intention of adhering to the UN guidelines.; 9/22/14, 7:05 PM
Jason said...: "Fully nationalized" = stolen from the Iraqi people and used to line the pockets of the Hussein family and their brutal, repressive, corrupt organized crime family in opulent wealth even as their common people languished in poverty, misery and terror.; 9/22/14, 7:23 PM
chickelit said...: Robert Cook said...
What about all the Iraqi and Afghanistan children whose heads (and limbs) have been separated from their bodies or whose bodies have been rendered into fragments by our bombs?

What about the heads and limbs severed in auto accidents? Do you get the sads over that too?; 9/22/14, 7:23 PM
chickelit said...: Robert Cook said: That our wars in the middle east are unnecessary and pointless, that they are fought primarily for the oil interests, (don't think they're not), makes every death more ghastly.

So I ask again, are the dismemberments on the highways not as atrocious to you? After all, the people are engaged in the use of refined crude oil.; 9/22/14, 7:35 PM
Unknown said...: I remember the Kuwaiti infants ripped from incubators, too. I believe no one in this. Nor, I'm afraid, in any other matter of official truth. I don't necessarily disbelieve it either. Trust is long, long gone. I believe only that they'll do what they want, regardless, and justify in with truth, or half truth, or lies according to what's handy.; 9/22/14, 7:39 PM
Unknown said...: I remember the Kuwaiti infants ripped from incubators, too. I believe no one in this. Nor, I'm afraid, in any other matter of official truth. I don't necessarily disbelieve it either. Trust is long, long gone. I believe only that they'll do what they want, regardless, and justify in with truth, or half truth, or lies according to what's handy.; 9/22/14, 7:39 PM
chickelit said...: Isn't this the same Robert Cook who insisted during the Iraq war that al Qaeda were just Freedom Fighters?

Does the same "Robert Cook" now stand up and call ISIS "Freedom Fighters"?; 9/22/14, 7:39 PM
traditionalguy said...: The reason we fight murderous ideologies is that they cannot stop murdering until they take us out. That is their vision.

Obama also wants them to succeed so that. in the chaos he and his gang can steal everything we have got left...and then kill us for not being Marxist Party members which is Obama's vision.; 9/22/14, 8:35 PM
traditionalguy said...: BTW North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Britain, France and Israel along with the USA , China, and Russia all have nukes. So letting wars among others burn themselves out is a terrible idea. We need Pax Americana back.; 9/22/14, 8:42 PM
RecChief said...: maybe she should author an ISIL assault weapons ban bill; 9/22/14, 9:32 PM
Revenant said...: The reason we fight murderous ideologies is that they cannot stop murdering until they take us out. That is their vision.

Any randomly-selected schizophrenic homeless man on the streets of America is a greater threat to you and your family than the whole of ISIS combined.; 9/23/14, 12:13 AM
Anonymous said...: "Carni. Don't you WW2 was the "good" war."

WWII was the last good war fought by the West.
Every war after that was us killing babies (according to Cookie, the red Nazi).; 9/23/14, 12:23 AM
Anonymous said...: "If America had not acted in 2001 and 2003, far more people would be alive today than are, far fewer people would be maimed or would be homeless refugees."

See how cookie has no trouble at all with his friend Saddam, or with those humanists, the Taliban.; 9/23/14, 12:25 AM
Revenant said...: See how cookie has no trouble at all with his friend Saddam, or with those humanists, the Taliban

Because the world is, of course, divided into "people we have no trouble at all with" and "people we will kill or depose, no matter the cost in lives and money".; 9/23/14, 12:55 AM
Achilles said...: Revenant said...
"The reason we fight murderous ideologies is that they cannot stop murdering until they take us out. That is their vision.

Any randomly-selected schizophrenic homeless man on the streets of America is a greater threat to you and your family than the whole of ISIS combined."

Don't underestimate them. Yes most of them are not very smart. But they are committed and there are some smart ones. They also have some rich backers. Our way of life is also more vulnerable than you think.; 9/23/14, 1:42 AM
Achilles said...: Revenant said...
"See how cookie has no trouble at all with his friend Saddam, or with those humanists, the Taliban

Because the world is, of course, divided into "people we have no trouble at all with" and "people we will kill or depose, no matter the cost in lives and money"."

Is there any other way it should be? Should we only fight if it is easy?

And as for the taliban. They are all disgusting people and they should be hunted down and wiped out. And if we weren't held back it would be fairly easy. Same with ISIS. As long as that was the goal the strategy and tactics wouldn't be difficult to execute. Nation building not so easy and not really an achievable goal.; 9/23/14, 1:51 AM
Revenant said...: Don't underestimate them. Yes most of them are not very smart. But they are committed and there are some smart ones. They also have some rich backers. Our way of life is also more vulnerable than you think.

The biggest threat to our way of life is the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt we're accumulating each year so we can wage war against fourth-rate "threats" a world away.; 9/23/14, 3:11 AM
Revenant said...: Is there any other way it should be?

Innumerable ways.

Should we only fight if it is easy?

We should fight when we have something to gain by fighting, and what we gain can be obtained at a reasonable cost in lives and money. Neither of those things applies to sticking our noses into the war in Syria and Iraq.

They are all disgusting people and they should be hunted down and wiped out.

So pick up a gun and go kill them.

There are hundreds of millions of disgusting people in the world, including the majority of the population of the Middle East. Your options are genocide or containment. Piddly-shit wars of choice just waste money and lives.; 9/23/14, 3:26 AM
Michael said...: At least Cook got to write "Halliburton". Think of how satisfying that must have been after all these years.

I suggest BLPDCH as a time saver: bushliedpeoplediedhalliburtoncheney; 9/23/14, 5:48 AM
DanTheMan said...: >>Any randomly-selected schizophrenic homeless man on the streets of America is a greater threat to you and your family than the whole of ISIS combined.

There are about 3000 people in NYC who aren't here to disagree with you.; 9/23/14, 8:19 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Isn't this the same Robert Cook who insisted during the Iraq war that al Qaeda were just Freedom Fighters?"

No.

You may be misremembering--or purposely misrepresenting--my comments regarding those fighting against American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Namely, that many of them, maybe most, are not terrorists--not persons who ever held animus toward America or ever planned terrorist attacks against us--but simply nationalists fighting back against foreign troops who have invaded their country. You know, just as Americans would take up arms and fight back if foreign troops invaded our country and were shooting and bombing and killing our people.

Or would you welcome arms-bearing invaders shooting up your family and neighbors?

Just because a foreign populace has the temerity to resist American troops does not mean they are "Al Qaeda." (Al Qaeda fled Afghanistan within a month or two of our invasion, if you bother to recall, and never did have a presence in Iraq until after we invaded and ousted Saddam and destroyed whatever stability existed.); 9/23/14, 8:39 AM
Patrick said...: If I were in a country run by the Taliban, I would not take up arms against those who came to liberate that country.; 9/23/14, 8:48 AM
Robert Cook said...: How do you know, Patrick? You might agree with and like the Taliban if you were a citizen of Afghanistan, or, at least, prefer them to things as they were before the Taliban came to power. Or, you might dislike the Taliban yet hate the invading force more, particularly if you felt your own life or the lives of your loved ones were more at imminent risk by the invading forces than by the Taliban.

(Here's a fun fact: most Afghanistan people have no idea why America invaded their country. They just see us as just another of the many succeeding foreign forces to have entered their land.)

Moreover, who says we went to "liberate" Afghanistan? We went there, purportedly, to get bin Laden, who escaped us fairly swiftly. Why did we stay? Who the fuck knows?! Because we had been hit on 9/11 and we simply wanted to righteously kick someone's ass, get a little revenge? I think that had a great deal to do with it. Are there other geopolitical reasons behind our continuing, baffling presence in Afghanistan? I'd say there must be, but they're not saying why. It's certainly not to "liberate" the country. What does that even mean? Stop believing the fairy tales we tell ourselves about America as Dudley Do-Right fighting against Snidely Whiplash.; 9/23/14, 9:12 AM
Jaq said...: Robert Cook will not recognize any difference between genocide and combat.; 9/23/14, 9:25 AM
Robert Cook said...: tim in vermont:

Can you add anything that might make your senseless non-sequitur...make sense?; 9/23/14, 9:57 AM
Rusty said...: I don't know comrade bob. He should first deal with your logical fallacies.; 9/23/14, 1:12 PM