Iraqi Freedom for fun and profit

On 9/26/06, D. L. (A friend of mine that believes this kind of sheet, God Love 'im) wrote: (Fwd)
  
   David Limbaugh: New Column: Who Makes the Terrorists Hate Us?
  
  What other nation in history has obsessively investigated itself during
  time of war? When are we going to quit beating ourselves up and move
  down the road?
  Just a few weeks ago, we were treated to Phase 2 of the Senate
  Intelligence Committee's report analyzing our failures of prewar
  intelligence for the millionth time. The Committee -- with a nominal
  majority of Republicans and a working majority of antiwar members --
  reported that the administration had been wrong in alleging a
  relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
  As Republican Chairman Pat Roberts made clear, the working majority
  cherry picked the evidence to conclude there was no relationship when
  the weight of the evidence indicated there was -- going back 10 years,
  no less. Condoleezza Rice confirmed that there were always dissenting
  opinions, but that the prevailing view among our intelligence agencies
  was that there was indeed a relationship.
  The committee demonstrated its absurdity elsewhere, too, when it
  concluded, preposterously, that Saddam didn't consider the United States
  an enemy because he said so during his debriefing. The committee chose
  to believe that obvious lie from a lying, murderous tyrant over his
  consistently contradictory statements and behavior over the previous
  decade.
  So we're paying federal dollars to be told we must ignore our lying eyes
  and ears: that we must conveniently forget Saddam's myriad verbal jihads
  against the United States because he later made the self-serving
  statement that he hadn't considered us an enemy? This is too much. You
  might also recall that we fought a war against this maniac in 1991. I
  suppose he didn't consider us the enemy then either, or when he shot at
  our planes in the no-fly zones.
  The same kind of counterintuitive, nonsensical analysis has surfaced
  again this week through yet another leak from the treasonous New York
  Times, which selectively reported that an April 2006 National
  Intelligence Estimate concluded the Iraq war has exacerbated worldwide
  terrorism.
  Of course, this little leak wasn't designed to feed into the Democrats'
  November election propaganda message, now was it? Surely you've heard
  the line many times before: President Bush diverted resources from
  capturing Osama bin Laden -- the only terrorist chieftain in the
  non-global war on terror -- to pursue his recklessly quixotic vendetta
  against Iraq. This unprovoked, preemptive strike on the non-threatening
  Saddam has caused Muslims the world over to hate us and swelled the
  ranks of terrorism.
  When will these tone-deaf people get it through their heads that Islamic
  extremists have hated us since before the flood (figuratively, of
  course)? When will they comprehend that Osama attacked us before we
  attacked Iraq?
  Besides, who would expect that our attack on Iraq would endear us to the
  enemy? It's not like we sent them a love letter. But if Iraq were not a
  terrorist-supporting state, why would the terrorists care? Why have they
  invested so much of their resources to disrupt the Iraqi freedom
  experiment? Why are they trying to foment a civil war there if Iraq has
  nothing to do with the global jihad?
  More importantly, why does the left keep dredging this stuff up? The
  answer is they have no alternative plan for Iraq and they figure the
  only way they can make headway on the national security issue is to
  continue to paint Bush as a liar, which brings me to the main point.
  Democrats have been telling us nonstop that President Bush's policies --
  his alleged unilateralism in general, and his attack on Iraq
  specifically -- have caused an otherwise loving enemy to hate and wage
  war against us. If that's true -- which it isn't -- how much more true
  is it that the feelings of the Muslim world (and the European left)
  toward the United States have deteriorated as a direct result of the
  Democrats' constant lies about President Bush?
  If they truly believe our policies have intensified the hatred of
  Islamic extremists toward the United States, then why don't they quit
  telling the world -- when they know better -- that President Bush lied
  about Iraqi WMD and about Saddam's relationship with Al Qaeda? Why don't
  they quit falsely charging that it is the covert policy of this
  administration to torture enemy combatant detainees at Gitmo? Why don't
  they quit saying that President Bush attacked Iraq for its oil?
  Easy. They either don't believe negative world opinion of the United
  States spawns terrorism as they claim, or they don't care whether it
  does or not -- at least they don't care as much about that as they do
  regaining political power.
  
  Posted by David Limbaugh on September 25, 2006 07:05 PM to David
  Limbaugh
  




Part-time Thinker weighs in:


None of this is news, I forget, what is that word for arguing against something nobody ever said just to get your own rhetoric out? Anyway, the fact remains that the invasion of Iraq ////whether there were WMD or not\\\\ was a war of convenience far removed from the WAR ON TERROR. Given a list of threats in the region at that time and even now; Saddam's Iraq *might* have made the top five. It looked like a simple task that would paint a glorious War President and his so-called conservative base as liberators, defenders of Freedom, heroes among men. It hasn't worked out quite like that, of course.

  I personally haven't heard too much from the Democrats, they appear to be as rudderless as ever. The best they can do concerning the coming elections is to stay quiet and watch the so-called conservative Republicans up for election/re-election continue to disintegrate. I keep saying "so-called" conservatives because no person truly holding conservative ideals has ever had anything but contempt for this pretender nor his toadies in the congress. Not in October of 02, and not at any time since. The saddest part of the last four years is how many of them, and their Democratic counterparts, signed on for this waste of human lives, military resources, not to mention the goodwill of many nations around the globe. Signing on for this supposedly simple romp through the desert and easy victory was done soley out of fear of doing otherwise, for the sake of votes.

I'm perplexed about the flood remark, it is fairly common knowledge that Mohammad lived in the 6th and 7th centuries A.D., so I'm supposing that it is a remark towards Arabs. Which, truth be told, that small Earthly percentage of Muslims (about 22%) is the most vocal and active America-haters, most devotees of Islam would relish the annihilation of the Western World. So this guy is an anti-Semite as well? Or maybe he only researches the facts about Islam that back up his rhetoric.

"Osama attacked us before we attacked Iraq." That only begs the question of why abandon the search for bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to attack Iraq? Simpleton.


Changing the reasoning for a war after it's begun has been done before, older folks than myself will back me up, but the bitterest pill is the inane response that "Well, Saddam was a bad guy whaddn't he?" Was he the only nutjob dictator that needed to be removed or just the most ---- convenient.


Bad press for the Administration is what makes terrorists hate us, is that the nugget of wisdom from this rant? Sure, whatever you say dude, you should bottle that and get kids addicted to it for fun and profit. --- Richard

"Who Has Left This Hole In The Ground?"

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days
after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what
happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the
remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in
the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared
still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York
policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or
more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always
shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have
"forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping,
opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a
commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago
could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our
eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us
could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud
defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards
and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months
after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field --
Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot
hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their
reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we
can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and
jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the
money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and
buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of
doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on
these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The
terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic
sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this
city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the
promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and
painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout
the country. The government, the President in particular, was given
every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government
cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only
be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but
to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being
American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor
did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them,
"bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would
have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as
morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the
Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the
terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection"
meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a
despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee,
hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a
war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is
"lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume
responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to
this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect
and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he
alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated,
that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for
anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most
radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be
televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by
bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted;
the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of
office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem
like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the
unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and
needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and
suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three
elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as
long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this
government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from
March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and
this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting
episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials
disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for
calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests
he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and
suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced.
An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor,
returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by
hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small
device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that
there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of
the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they
can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it
up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves
tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and
explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts,
attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a
thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its
own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be,
if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public
chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of
it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we
merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into
this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this
administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.

Keith Olbermann - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/