135 Comments

1. Terrye:

I called Durbin’s office and told them that I was sure more people had suffered abuse in the Cook County jail than Gitmo. disgraceful. Do these idiots know nothing about history? Are they stupid or what? I really want to know.

It is not any surprise that Kos is singing his praises for trashing soldiers. No doubt they will soon be hanging out at bus stations waiting for soldiers to get off buses so they can spit on them. Just like the good old days. I guess the left wants America to know that they really do not give a damn about national security and want most of all to turn a bunch of crazies loose to kill them. Way to go, Kos and the gang.

It seems that everyone is entitled to due process but the military. Everyone from Senators to NGOs to obnoxious lefty bloggers and the media gets to pass judgment on the guy who has to do the job.

Well these guys are dealing with bad people who throw feces and body fluids on them and I doubt if the esteemed Senator would put up with that himself.

But it would be fitting.

Jun 16, 2005 - 12:27 pm 2. The Truth:

Is the new standard for America now, “at least we are not as bad as the murderous psychopath who preceded us.”

Are we to take it as a badge of honor that we do not — yet — mutilate prisoners? Is that to

You may want the nation that once stood for the ideals of human decency to become just marginally better than a third-world dictatorship, but I have higher expectations of my land than that.

I hear Pakistan also does not drip acid on its prisoners; perhaps you’d like to shift there?

Jun 16, 2005 - 12:29 pm 3. Bruce W.:

To say that our methods are “just marginally better than a third-world dictatorship” is just another way of saying that Gitmo is the gulag of our time.

Irresponsible, wrong and simply not worthy of further comment.

Jun 16, 2005 - 12:40 pm 4. Charlie (Colorado):

“The Truth” is an ass.

That said, however, I can’t bring myself to simply dismiss “The Truth” without comment, as is deserved.

See, “Truth”, the point is not that we aren’t defining the goal down to “not as bad as third world dictatorships.” We’re pointing out that calling what happens in general in Guantanamo and abu Ghraib “torture” is what we in mathematics call “an abuse of the notation.” It’s not that our our torture isn’t as bad as the other guys’ torture — it’s that it’s an insult, both to the US military and to people who have really been tortured in real and heinous fashion, to call this torture.

What’s more, it’s an insult that can only be explained by either complete madness to the point of legal incompetence, or the purely seditious desire to hurt US interests for some political gain.

This is what Orwell was talking about when he said certain things were “objectively pro-Fascist.”

You, and people like you, are making it clear that you will do anything, slur and slant and misstate and flat out lie, to hurt the Bush Administration and the United States, even if it means helping the beheaders; the Salafists who feel its appropriate to stone a rape victim to death and who think it’s all right to let little girls burn as long as it doesn’t mean they would be be seen unveiled; and the people who want to return tens of millions of people to subjugation and even slavery.

Which makes you someone to be despised.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:03 pm 5. Kyda Sylvester:

No doubt they will soon be hanging out at bus stations waiting for soldiers to get off buses so they can spit on them. Just like the good old days.

Already happening.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:06 pm 6. Gary Farber:

As it happens, I saw this videotape from China at length last night on that nasty, unreliable, MSM known as “CBS News.”

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:09 pm 7. Kyda Sylvester:

Charlie–

You go, guy!

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:09 pm 8. Pamela aka "Atlas":

GULAG vs GITMO

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:15 pm 9. Kyda Sylvester:

Well, now that our dissenters mention it, there is something about the China report that does hit a little too close to home:

Power station bosses are reported to have been negotiating with villagers to buy their land since 2003.

Local governments can chose to take the land and pay minimal compensation if the buyout is considered to be in the public interest.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:16 pm 10. Terrye:

Truth:

If Durbin is going to use the freaking Nazi word, which seems to be the only thing the left can do anymore, then perhaps they should know what that means.

At Gitmo a guard can not even turn the AC up or down without being monitored. he can not yell at a detainee. he can not get in his personal space.

This makes getting information difficult.

Now maybe Durbin does not comprehend that there is a vast difference between turning someone into a lamp shade and making him listen to rap music, but if so that lets you know just what a dumb ass he really is.

I keep hearing about the army being off recruiting about 6%, well can you blame people for not wanting to be called a nazi?

I heard that Durbin is a big hit on AlJazeera.

No doubt he will be the next big recruiting tool for AlQaida.

I just love it when people complain about Bush creating antiAmericanism abroad when the left has people like Michael Moore and this Benedict Arnold out there telling anyone who will listen that America is like the Khmer Rouge.

Disgraceful. I have become a Republican by default. I have to accept the fact that the Democratic party I was a part of all of my adult life is gone.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:18 pm 11. Morgan:

Patrick Curley summed up the substance behind “The Truth”’s complaint quite nicely several days ago:

This isn’t the country I grew up in, not one that allows poking in the chest with the finger and light pushing.

How can we condone such abuse?

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:21 pm 12. Kyda Sylvester:

Atlas, wouldn’t want to shrug off your fine link

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:23 pm 13. The Truth:

Mr. Charlie:

Read the following account:

“On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold….On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.”

Definition of Torture

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1984

Article 1

For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

http://www.apt.ch/un/definition.shtml

Now tell me, how is the United States not engaging in torture?

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:24 pm 14. Buddy Larsen:

Hey, The Truth–don’t let it bother you that Charlie despises your type–just change the meaning of the word ‘despise’, maybe make it mean ‘love’, or something.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:25 pm 15. Buddy Larsen:

The Truth’s quote is I believe the barbaric yawp that escaped from the esteemed Dick, Durban on the floor of Congress yesterday, during his speech on the Energy Bill.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:30 pm 16. Charlie (Colorado):

Read the article Kyda linked, and the follow-up. Just for the record, I was one of the people called “murderer”, and “baby killer”, and spat on during Viet Nam.

Just by the way, if you want to thank and support the guy Kyda’s link mentioned, you can do so here.

In case that didn’t get through, it’s: patrioticfamily AT hotmail DOT com .

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:32 pm 17. Fausta:

Just yesterday I was doing a little comparison between what hostages in Iraq go through, and what the conditions are at Guant·namo. Too bad Durbin and AI don’t visit my blog.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:35 pm 18. Terrye:

Truth:

Why don’t you move to a Muslim country and try to teach women how to read or provide them with birth control?

Let us see if someone there…. turns down the air or makes you listen to rap music or cuts off your head with a dull knife..which would you prefer?

or puts you in a cattle car with your entire family and takes you to a death camp where you all die.

or prepares special food for you and gets you medical care when you need it.

or drives you from your home and into the fields where you and your family work until you literally die and become part of a mountain of bones.

or brings you a holy man and your own Koran.

or takes you from your home in the middle of the night to Siberia where you work until you are either dead or a killed and become part of the perma frost.

or your case is considered by the United States Supreme Court with lawyers like Kunstler volunteering to help free you so that you can kill again.

whatever. these kinds of comparisons are assanine.

Does it not occur to the military bashing left that the guards are monitored and subject to discipline all the freaking time?

Tell me, what do you think the chances that the Khmer Rouge or the Nazis or the Soviets would even be having this discussion?

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:36 pm 19. Buddy Larsen:

The Senate’s #2 Democrat, BTW, giving a real speech on fictitious torture rather than debate an energy bill that has been stalled by the Democrats for four years now, so that they can flog the issue rather than do something to fix the problem, in the hopes that they can engender a “t’row da bums out” theme in the next election.

When you’re already toast, why not “burn, baby, burn”?

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:38 pm 20. Charlie (Colorado):

Mr “Truth”: the fact that you can’t distinguish between being uncomfortably hot or cold, or listening to loud rap music, and “severe pain or suffering”, proves three things:

(1) You’ve lived a sufficiently privileged life that you’ve never experienced severe pain or suffering, and in fact think that being in a hot stuffy room qualifies;

(2) you’re a moral idiot;

(3) you are beneath contempt.

Being I’m a generous sort, however, you have my contempt none the less.

(You might also want to look up the source of your quote — it originated, I believe, in an FBI investigation that resulted in the people responible being charged. Suggesting that you’re not just a moral idiot but the more conventional kind as well.)

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:41 pm 21. Morgan:

The Truth’s passage is said to come from the report of an FBI agent who found what he or she observed at Gitmo “disturbing”.

Here is a .pdf of the report:

http://www.yuricareport.com/PrisonerTortureDirectory/acluFBI.5053.pdf

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:46 pm 22. Terrye:

Nothing in that Durbin quote was torture. Oh my God the 20th Hijacker pulled out his hair and got in a fetal position. Too bad he did not get on Flight 93 and die with his friends. Let’s give him a medal.

I had a friend that went through boot camp and was forced to run ten miles every morning with a pack on his back before he was allowed to eat breakfast. He never slept through the night. He was forced to stand at attention for long periods of time and subjected to everything from hand to hand combat to tear gas. He had to do up to 100 pushups without a break. and if he got tired the drill instructor screamed at him called him a pussy.

And this was just boot camp.

The new standard is that if all the soldiers are not perfectly good all the time then all the soldiers are nazis all the time and idiots who were not even there at the time can pass judgment on them whether they have all the facts are not.

bullshit.

The point is the FBI was there and they made a report. It is not as if nobody is watching. If they wanted to hide something Durbin would not even know about this.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:47 pm 23. Pamela aka "Atlas":

The Truth

Now tell me, how is the United States not engaging in torture

Men and women throwing themselves out of WTC windows to escape an even more horrifying death?

Hijacker #20? Everything you describe is too good for him, seriously.

Stawberry Fields aint forever

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:51 pm 24. Bruce W.:

I guess I’ve committed myself to not responding further directly to Pravda, so instead, let me commend Charlie and Terrye for doing so and thank Charlie for his previously thankless service to our country. Much obliged, Colorado.

Jun 16, 2005 - 1:56 pm 25. Terrye:

Truth is too much of a dolt to understand that if 68,000 people go through US detention and 27 die in homicides and there are 100 cases of abuse and about 300 people are either tried or charged that does not rperesent a military that condones torture. I doubt if our domestic law enforcement has that good of a record.

This represents a military that constantly evaluates itself and is subject to civilian control in a country that unlike the Soviet Union and Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Nazi Germany actually had a sense of right and wrong.

Too bad these young people who risks their lives have to be constantly questioned by people who more often than not are their inferiors in every way that matters.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:03 pm 26. Charlie (Colorado):

This from Cori Dauber is worth reading.

Oh, and Bruce, the hell of it was that I was in High School ROTC: I didn’t even pass my enlistment physical when I tried to enlist in 1975. So thanks for the thought but please don’t be too impressed by my service.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:04 pm 27. Steven Mitchell:

Well since Charlie came out and said it, I’ll say it again, explicitly this time. Almost right, except he abbreviated one of the possibilities and included a redundant one. It’s not “ass”. It’s:

1. Fool – too morally stupid to know any better.

2. Asshole – knows better, but willing to give say anythig as a political/ideological gambit. This is annoying over things like tax policy, but perhaps unavoidable. You can excuse a certain amount of that as grandstanding. However, when acting like this over bin Laden and Saddm, there is just no other word that works.

Bootcamp? Hell, my freaking highschool BAND camp was tougher than what was “inflicted” on these guys. And we had little 8th grade girls that signed up for it.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:05 pm 28. Buddy Larsen:

Terrye–”INGRATES!”

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:06 pm 29. PSGInfinity:

Question:

Does anyone here think that the Left will get physically violent soon? If so, what then? Is Civil War II possible? I ask because this stuff is really starting to wig me out…

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:09 pm 30. Buddy Larsen:

PSG, these are low-caliber people. They’re in love with safety and security and comfort. They’re not about to risk a goddamn thing for any sort of principle.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:12 pm 31. Rick Ballard:

PSG,

Nothing that a well led Brownie Troop couldn’t handle before nap time.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:14 pm 32. c:

the fact that you can’t distinguish between being uncomfortably hot or cold, or listening to loud rap music, and “severe pain or suffering”, proves three things:

1. you don’t have thermostat wars at home

2. you don’t have any teenagers at home

3. you cry over hangnails

And, you don’t comprehend the patently obvious fact that the terrorists and non-uniformed combatants being held at Gitmo want to KILL us. It’s insane for any American to publicly declaim against our military’s best efforts at protecting us from the jihadi insanity. It’s not enough that every Dem pol is not slandering our military and policy with unconscionable hyperbole; the so-called centrists need to loudly denounce the denouncers.

Didn’t know you were a ‘Nam vet, Charlie. Had to have been tough.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:22 pm 33. Morgan:

Here’s another report, apparently from the same person, about wrapping in the Israeli Flag:

http://www.yuricareport.com/PrisonerTortureDirectory/acluFBI.4737_4738.pdf

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:23 pm 34. Terrye:

Physically violent?

If these guys think life without air conditioning is torture I doubt they have the balls. They might break a nail, stub a toe, something icky poo like that.

Buddy, another word is parasite.

I used to have a dairy farm and I had to milk 1100 pound Holsteins when it was 102 above or 10 below zero. I have worked in far worse conditions that the Gitmo crybabies live in. And btw we did not have air conditioning in the farm house and I heated with wood for years. no kidding.

I wish some of the law makers would stop granstanding and do their jobs. In fact that is one of the reasons these people are still in a legal limbo. Incompetent mouthy Senators.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:23 pm 35. Terrye:

An Israeli flag????

Oh my God, the horror.

I thought the women in scanty panties was bad, but this is just too much to bear.

she said shuddering.

Jesus wept. We live in a world where women are raped in places like the Sudan day in and day out and we are talking about flag wrapping as torture.

darn, I guess we will just have to start shooting them.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:28 pm 36. Bruce W.:

Never fear PSG, just imagine how nice the accommodations would have to be if we were captured. I’m ready to give up my steal of a NY apartment right now!

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:31 pm 37. Buddy Larsen:

Hey, I’m an ex-dairy farmer, too. That’s rich, a site for psychologists and dairy farmers. Must be a message there, tho I prob don’t want to hear it.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:31 pm 38. Morgan:

The interesting thing about the second document is that is details the only “non-FBI approved tactic” this agent observed. Apparently hot and cold rooms and loud music are kosher, even if the Israeli flag is not.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:31 pm 39. PeterUK:

How can you people stoop so low as to put air conditioning in a prisoners cell? Then go even further by turning it down,even the French didn’t descend to do that to their old people during a heatwave.

“For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which “severe” pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,”

The operative word is SEVERE pain,100degrees is not hot to those from the Middle East and it isn’t exactly warm at night in Afghanistan. It isn’t a deep freezer it is an airconditioner.Hell,I’ve been colder than that waiting for a bus.

The truth of the matter is there are those who are making a noise for political reasons and there are those who are defining what constitutes the ill treatment of enemy combatants down to a level where the only action feasible is not to take prisoners.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:35 pm 40. Bruce W.:

Chilly rooms outfitted with nothing more than Israeli flags printed on wool.

Detaineeee-controlled AC units that blare the Hatikvah when turned on.

Torture to Truth?

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:40 pm 41. Morgan:

Peter,

Nail. Head. Bam!

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:42 pm 42. Connecticut Yankee:

I like Gerard van der Leun’s idea: Move Gitmo to Neverland: http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/005587.php

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:48 pm 43. Rick Ballard:

PSG,

Seditionists have incited violence several times in the past. The NY draft riots of 1863 were caused by seditionist sentiments published in the press. There was a relatively small amount of seditionist violence that occurred in 1916-17 – prior to the US entry into WWI. Then there was the seditionist violence surrounding the Democratic Convention of 1968.

I don’t believe that seditionist sentiment is either strong enough or focused enough at this point to generate violent confrontation. There are probably thousands of little Pravdas all across the country who are spending their days typing one handed in the hope of experiencing that frisson of excitement that even negative notice arouses. In that sense, the internet provides an outlet that might otherwise be provided by taking to the streets as part of a demonstration.

Pravda is a boring little seditionist without the backbone to even use his name. As such he is unremarkably despicable, worthy of a bit of sport but different in nature than Durbin who deserves to be removed from office at the earliest opportunity.

The challenge for those who support our troops AND their mission is to move the discussion from a comparison with an unrealizable perfection to a comparison with what has occurred in the long and bloody history of warfare.

The simple fact is that the military forces of the United States have freed more people with less damage than has ever been done in the recorded history of the world. The simple fact is that the United States is treating contemptible thugs who have no rights whatsoever under any standard of warfare better than any other military force has ever treated lawful prisoners of war. The simple fact is that the policy of the United States has been and is to use interrogation techniques that do not exceed those used in training our own troops to resist interrogation.

Those are the positive truths that I would brand on every seditionist had I the means to do so. Seditionists are always contemptible, todays seditionists are also pathetic and none more so than Sen. Dick Durbin.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:49 pm 44. Charlie (Colorado):

The thing that kills me is that I’ve been places where men pay $20 a song for some of this torture.

Purely as a student of mass culture, of course.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:50 pm 45. IrishLad317:

Isn’t there some strange irony in having senators keep this whole issue in the news complaining that it’s ruining our image? Isn’t that a little like yelling fire in a crowded theater and then bitching because the isles are crowded? What would’ve happened if they had honestly looked at the evidence and in a united front, said, “Hey, these people are terrorists and enemy combatants. We treat them extremely well under the circumstances. That’s all there is to say.”? Can’t these people understand that THEY are the ones hurting our image by A) Appearing incredibly weak, and B) Disparaging our own military.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:54 pm 46. mrp:

“Truth” -

You may want the nation that once stood for the ideals of human decency to become just marginally better than a third-world dictatorship, but I have higher expectations of my land than that.

Just marginally better than Pol Pot’s Kampuchea?

Just marginally better than Kim Jong-il’s North Korea?

Just marginally better than Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe?

Just marginally better than Bashar Assad’s Syria?

Just marginally better than Muahmar Ghaddafi’s Libya?

Just marginally better than whomever is running the Congo?

The Left has never, ever believed that the United States was the ideal of human decency. Aren’t there slavery reparations to be paid? What about the genocide inflicted on Native Americans? No mention of the Japanese-American internment camps, like Manzanar?

We’re in a war, “Truth”. The government hasn’t excercised its iron fist on the media and its political opponents like Woodrow Wilson did in 1917 or as Lincoln did in 1861. Remember, “Truth”, how Abraham Lincoln, without any authority from Congress (although our recessed solons eventually got around to passing enabling legislation), suspended habeus corpus, which allowed any 2nd lieutenant or ensign to arrest and detain anyone for as long as Donal- Edwin Stanton wished? Without any judicial hearings? Without access to a lawyer? Do you know “Truth” what the conditions were like in the Old Capitol Building during the Civil War? Now there’s an ‘ideal’ to live down to.

Lord, how the Left hates history; it makes them look less like Greek gods and more like vicious, self-loathing nitwits.

Jun 16, 2005 - 2:57 pm 47. cubanbob:

This I hate to say it is Bush’s fault. he should have declared war on September 12th against all terrorist and terrorist aiding states. If he had done that, we would not be in this absurd position. As for the “prisoners” in Guantanamo, Bush ought to issue a Presidential order declaring that under the conventions signed and ratified by the United States, this trash are not legitimated P.O.W’s but merely pirates under international law. As pirates they have no rights whatsoever and are subject to summary execution at anytime simply for being pirates and start hanging the lot. Ban lawyers and journalist from going to Gitmo and start prosecuting the extreme leftist for sedition when they cross the line. Press Congress and the IRS to strip tax excempt and charitable contribution status of the NGO’s and other such organizations that clearly aid the pirates. Make it exceedingly clear to any nation that aids the pirates and front organizations that such aid will be considered a hostile act to the fullest extent and that any attempt to prosecute any American for “rights” violation without the express consent of the USG will be considered an act of war. Remove the Presedential order against execution of foreign pirates by the CIA. Death to the enemy. We owe our troops and our dead no less.

As for scum like Durbin,cannot he be expelled from the Senate? Surely there must be a Senate rule or a law that would allow for removal for such outrageous conduct. If such action is available, expell the lot from both houses of the Congress.It’s time to go on the offensive and denounce and challenge the leftist scum. Prosecute when there are actionable behavior. No mercy.

Whether we like it or not we are in a war so let’s act accordingly. We owe our troops no less.

Jun 16, 2005 - 3:13 pm 48. ex-democrat:

take another look at PeterUK’s conclusion and connect it with the story discussed here. http://antiprotester.blogspot.com/2005/06/michael-ratner-and-ccr-fighting.html

Durbin’s garbage is closely allied with the efforts of these people. It’s high time that american business leaders — who unwittingly sponsor the “pro bono” efforts of these first tier washington law firms — put an end to it.

and trust me, they could.

Jun 16, 2005 - 3:23 pm 49. Kevin P:

the Truth;

Since you have reduced the meaning of severe to include “any” pain, physical or mental let me tell you something. The stupidity and lack of moral clarity of your post has induced the highest degree of mental pain in my life. Reading your words that are so absent of logic has made me so hot that my temp has increased to a point that I almost passed out. Since the fact that people like you and Durbin excist and live on this earth and that they try to compare our wonderful men and women to Nazi’s, gulag thugs, and Pol Pot psychopaths has driven me to such a state of despair that I may never recover. Considering all these facts I am going to submit my complaints to the world court and hopefully you will be prosecuted for torture at the Hague.

Jun 16, 2005 - 3:40 pm 50. Buddy Larsen:

ex-dem drifts into the heart of the Durbin matter…who is “in” and who is “out” in DC.

The two parties are boiling down to those that see the nation as a fragile and worthwhile experiment in raising the value of mankind, versus those who are just playing their own careers and incidentally, habitually, lying to their constituents.

Jun 16, 2005 - 3:43 pm 51. TmjUtah:

What we attempted to do beginning on September 12, 2001 is dying the the death of a thousand cuts.

This conflict will not be won by surgical strikes, regime changes, and free elections. At one time it could have been. We should have adopted a “hot pursuit” policy and wiped out Syria’s Ba’athists in 2003. We should have declared war via an act of Congress, and identified the enemy explicitly as any identified jihadist group, or any state providing haven, support, or transit to the same.

The enemy has taken our measure, and knows that it has friends in high places in our councils.

A democratic republic united to face a common threat and committed to the principles of justice and simple survival might have pulled off an unprecedented low-mortality solution to this clash between civilization and barbarism. We’ve blown that opportunity. Our political Left, fresh off losing thirty years’ worth of elections, has transferred their emptiness and anger to the politics and persons chosen by the electorate to replace them.

And our right has failed to lead effectively.

The Left are wilfully blind to the fact that if they sabotage our effort to win this war as a domestic political tool, they will have set the machine to gotterdammerung on rails. They will not see past the loss of petty political fiefdoms to a future guaranteed to hold events much worse than 9/11. Losing Vietnam killed millions of Asians – but the cameras turned away in embarassment. The veterans were in turn vilified, pitied, and exploited as domestic political pawns. Let us declare defeat now, and it will take more than a remote control selection to insulate us from the consequences.

I fear for my family. And we are about to allow a betrayal of our servicemen and women on a scale that will make post-Vietnam look like a noble era.

Thousands, if not millions, more infidels are going to have to die at the hands of Islamists before idiots like Durbin and Truth and AI and the readership of Common Dreams gets it in their head that there are worse things than a Bush presidency. The muslim man in the street will just go back to business as usual once we are gone from the region. They will align with the powerful, or await the midnight knock on the door, as they have lived for generations.

It’s not about country, it’s about POLITICS, and they would gladly rip the beating hearts out of babies on an altar if they thought it would get them one step closer to power.

Jun 16, 2005 - 3:51 pm 52. Steven Mitchell:

TmjUtah, maybe, but I think a free Iraq is going to be the pebble on the scale that tips it the other way. Combined with the internet, that is a powerful antidote to the nonsense.

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:16 pm 53. Buddy Larsen:

Small quibble with a great post, TmjUtah, but history will probably come down on the side of GWB’s measured, careful response to 911. It costs soldier’s lives, and that is bitter, but it is making friends for us in the mideast. And that’s what the world needs. A mideast with a long-term affection for the principles the USA tries hard to live by.

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:26 pm 54. PJ:

I agree TMJ that it looks pretty dark. Bush so far has stood up to the abuse, but can that last, or will the Reps facing elections in 2006 or 2008 force his hand? I don’t understand how politicians can be seriously calling for a phased withdrawal, having experienced the chaos that caused in their own lifetimes.

Kerry can pilot one of the helicopters to the roof of the US Embassy when the “peace with honor” happens.

And, Truth, if you want to see something about the equivalence of our mean behavior and Baathist terror, read this, if you can, from the Jawa Report.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/092559.php

The Geneva Conventions are rules of war between civilzed combatants; these holy warriors are mass murders, not civilized combatants. But then your side does not believe that, and that’s the real cause of the disagreement.

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:30 pm 55. TmjUtah:

Buddy -

It cannot be merely measured and careful.

The enemy must be identified, confronted, defeated, and ultimately pursued and destroyed where he lives.

That first step – identified – has failed to happen. We are mixing dollops of realpolitik in our strategy in fractions that defeat the key requirement necessary for a constitutional republic to fight and win: common cause.

If half the cops in a gunfight refuse to draw their weapons, the bad guys are going to win – or kill a lot more cops than they should have before the fight is over.

That’s where we stand today. I am very, very worried that a tipping point has been passed.

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:34 pm 56. AJ Kaufman:

Despicable and inane comments from an Al Sharpton or a Dennis Kucinich are often worth a laugh, but it is very telling when they come from the leaders of the Democratic Party, like Dean, Reid and now, Dick Durbin.

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:34 pm 57. Rick Ballard:

Tmj,

When has it not been about politics? If Hitler had not attacked kind, old, Uncle Joe we would have been chock full of seditionists in ‘42. Look at the Bund movement and the comsymp press of ‘39 and ‘40 for confirmation.

“Dick” Durbin is just tag teaming with Howlin’ Howie at the moment. Attacking the military is a stupid move only if you aren’t depending on the forgetfullness of the American public. The “Dick” is in a very safe seat and can spew hate without fear of consequence.

UnAmerican? Sure, but not so very far under expectations for the second ranking member of a party headed for oblivion. The extreme left wing of the party is where the dough is these days and they need a steady diet of red meat in order to keep the checks flowing. The labor movement is not going to be providing funding over the next two years as they have in the past and Terry’s primo Rolodex is not available to Howie.

What’s an unprincipled bastard to do?

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:35 pm 58. Buddy Larsen:

Well, you’re certainly right that a house divided cannot stand. If one of our two parties is going to try and lose this one too, then we might as well bring the troops home–from everywhere–and wall off the nation, blow the Chinese navy out the water while we still can, build 20 new carrier battle groups and 20 new SSBNs, and dare anyone to look sideways at us. After we vaporize a few nations for getting uppity, then the Democrats will have a real psychotic nation to be offended by. Except, they’ll be the psychotic nation.

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:45 pm 59. Buddy Larsen:

Pax Americana my ass–we’re Park Rangers at best. A Pax nation with our military would just charge a tax on global trade, and we citizens could all lounge back and enjoy the bloodbaths of the world coliseum.

Jun 16, 2005 - 4:55 pm 60. c:

“What’s an unprincipled bastard to do?”

Fake it. When it comes to our WoT, he should at least pretend to acquire half a brain, a semblance of spine, a stiff upper lip, some guts, and a strong heart for our side. And he should lose his spleen and vacate his bowels where we don’t have to see or hear it on the evening news.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:06 pm 61. TmjUtah:

“Well, you’re certainly right that a house divided cannot stand. If one of our two parties is going to try and lose this one too, then we might as well bring the troops home–from everywhere–and wall off the nation, blow the Chinese navy out the water while we still can, build 20 new carrier battle groups and 20 new SSBNs, and dare anyone to look sideways at us. After we vaporize a few nations for getting uppity, then the Democrats will have a real psychotic nation to be offended by. Except, they’ll be the psychotic nation.”

I don’t want one twenty year-old volunteer hanging his ass out on the convoy run to some shithole FOB one day longer than absolutely necessary. If our elected representatives aren’t going to fight this war in the manner necessary to win it, bring our troops home.

The Democrats are acting in a manner that clearly indicates that they are willing to bring about the total collapse of our efforts to democratize the middle east for their own domestic political agenda.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:07 pm 62. PeterUK:

In many ways the problem is that America has got too powerful,it is simply too great a prize not to dazzle the eyes of an ambitious politician.

External conflicts are mere trivialities when weighed against having the power in America.So just as a pretender to Ceasar’s Imperial purple would cheerfully poison a General fighting on the Rhine if he were a rival,so are the left willing to sacrice the military in the pursuit of power.

This is not a new phenomenon it is as old as power itself.What is new is that the obvious solutions ar not available to a democracy.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:09 pm 63. Buddy Larsen:

Of course, later, in the throes of armageddon, we can remind the loyal opposition that a world war fought with ICBMs over the manner–whether by market or by extortion–of apportioning the necessities of life, was totally avoidable once upon a time, when we had a stabilizing sequence in place, that needed only a little ’shut-up’ from the stupid party.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:15 pm 64. Kyda Sylvester:

Bravo, everyone. Really.

Brit Hume led off with Durbin as did Hugh Hewitt. Durbin, one of the most useful idiots of recent memory, is employing the standard weasel word defense (you may think you know what I meant when you heard what you think I said, but that’s not what I said and, even if I did say it, it’s not what I meant. it’s all so unfair. my heart breaks with every military death. quotes Colin Powell. horror of Guantanamo. blah blah blah oh, and it’s all about oil) and other Dems are keeping their distance. The Republicans are reliably milquetoasty. A pox on both sides of their aisle.

Does anyone here think that the Left will get physically violent soon?

Not in any significant numbers. They’re fools but not necessarily stupid; they know, for example, the answer to the question ‘who in the United States has most of the guns, the balls to use them and the US military on it’s side?’.

Can’t speak for the rest of you, but I’m about ready to vote for the take no prisoners option. I hope, and trust, the intelligence garnered at Gitmo makes up for all this shinola.

Lord, how the Left hates history; it makes them look less like Greek gods and more like vicious, self-loathing nitwits.

I’d be thrilled if they’d satisfy themselves with merely hating it. Instead they’re also pathologically compelled to not only ingore history, but actually rewrite it. And that’s where danger lies. (Terrific comment btw–should be a slogan for something.)

Call for the censure of Dick Durbin.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:18 pm 65. Terrye:

Buddy:

Hey I did an evening milking with a broken finger once. I was all set to milk and I look out at the road and this heifer is just prancing along, proud as you please.

So… I got really pissed and went and grabbed a halter and took off after her. I got my finger caught in that halter and SNAP, a compound fracture, right hand index finger. Man….did that smart. I got the heifer up and did the milking, the ol man was gone and it had to be done.

like I said, torture. And then there was making hay. People who have never done it think it is idyllic. I remember we had a big old truck with what we called Granny gear. It would go about five miles an hour. We would have hay in the field and start the truck up and I would follow it down the field helping to throw hay up until it was time to turn it around and I would jump in the truck and make the turn. If I tried something like that today I would no doubt kill myself.

back to business.

I think any call to bring troops home is irresponsible and it might actually get more people killed. I think that if people stood firm the terrorists might lose hope. But why should they when the opposition party and a couple of turn coat Republicans are sending them signals to the effect that killing people is working for them.

I heard on Fox today that the FBI agent who did that report said Durbin “mischaracterized” the report. No surprise there considering what a blatantly dishonest little prick he is.

It was two years old anyway.

A spokesman for the Pentagon suggested Durbin go to Gitmo and check the place out for himself before he starts judging it.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:22 pm 66. Buddy Larsen:

Peter, you’re spot on. That is the mentality alright. “The world? We don’t need no steenkin’ world!”

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:24 pm 67. Charlie (Colorado):

I think any call to bring troops home is irresponsible and it might actually get more people killed. I think that if people stood firm the terrorists might lose hope. But why should they when the opposition party and a couple of turn coat Republicans are sending them signals to the effect that killing people is working for them.

Sadly, Terrye, that’s exactly right.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:27 pm 68. Terrye:

Kyda:

I gotta ask, why won’t the Republicans just get ugly with these idiots? They surely must not believe Bush is really Hitler because these guys would have been sent to Treblinka long ago.

I mean the left is getting more and more obnoxious. Poor Arnold can not even give a speech without them ruining the whole thing for everyone else.

But I forget..the rest of us are just a store display in the shopping mall of their lives.

I know I know….

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:31 pm 69. Rick Ballard:

(C)harlotte,

If he faked it he would abrogate the terms of sale agreed to by the DNC and SBL, Ltd. That would accelerate final dissolution and put the “Dick’s” job on the line. Not gonna happen.

This NRO piece by Pacepa outlines the real political stakes involved. The heat in this is coming from the left and it’s not going to be turned down.

I fully support Kyda’s suggestion of a motion of censure for the seditionist Durbin. I’m not sure it would pass because the Seven Spineless Dwarves would probably become incontinent at the suggestion.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:32 pm 70. Buddy Larsen:

Terrye, that’s right, you miss a milking and the production falls a few percent for the rest of the breeding cycle. And that few percent is your mortgage. And, lord, if you can’t find a few teenagers to wrestle thousands of 80 lb haybales into the barn under a 100 degree sun, yes, suicide is the better option. I sold my biz several years ago, and I still wake up grinnin’ like a possum with a corn cob.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:34 pm 71. Kyda Sylvester:

Peter, you know us (Americans, that is) better than most of us know ourselves.

The ACLU has announced that it will look into the “terrorism” arrests in Lodi. Who had 5:30pm PST 6/16 in the pool?

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:34 pm 72. Terrye:

Charlie:

Well hopefully the capture of Zarqawi’s boyfriend and the continued efforts to bring the country together will begin to have an effect. It seems that our losses cycle. We will go along for awhile with just a few and then there is a road side bomb or a car bomb and five or six guys are killed.

It seems that the violence is actually a little better than it was a couple of weeks ago, but it is still too much.

But when you think of bombs going off in Pakistan and Indonesia and the Phillipines and Kashmir you have to wonder if there will ever be a time when all this stops?

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:37 pm 73. Terrye:

Rick:

Maybe I will suggest a censure for Durbin to Lugar. But I read somewhere that a Senator can not be disciplined for what he says on the floor. What he says at some senile old man’s birthday party is another matter of course.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:41 pm 74. Buddy Larsen:

I swear, those Santa Monica Junior College students that shouted down the Governator looked to be mostly about 35 yrs old. Looks like life would’ve informed them by now that a state hemorraging businesses to Texas and trying to stave off bancruptcy needs to belt-tighten awhile before it can go mad again. As Peter said wrt to the glittering prize America, I guess the same is true with the Golden State. Alas, no money trees anywhere. And if there were, the money wouldn’t buy anything.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:45 pm 75. PeterUK:

Buddy,

The left is the same the world over,they would rather crow on a dunghill than never crow at all.

Jun 16, 2005 - 5:54 pm 76. Buddy Larsen:

I believe your John Milton said it best, Peter, in “Paradise Lost”: “Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven“.

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:02 pm 77. Buddy Larsen:

The speaker, of course, was the proud, utterly self-involved, Unclean One.

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:04 pm 78. PeterUK:

Kennedy?

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:08 pm 79. Kyda Sylvester:

Looks like life would’ve informed them by now that a state hemorraging businesses to Texas and trying to stave off bancruptcy needs to belt-tighten awhile before it can go mad again.

The crowd doing the hectoring doesn’t give a rat’s patooty about businesses leaving the state. Their attention is focused entirely on themselves. Arnold is a threat to all the cozy financial arrangements they’ve made and come to see as their due through the years.

I told my husband that we had to make our move before the boomers start retiring because once the STRS, PERS and other public honey pot pensions start paying off, this state is toast. One big San Diego.

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:17 pm 80. Buddy Larsen:

As the great Ronald Reagan said to that Tarleton Tory from Georgia “There you go again!”

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:21 pm 81. Buddy Larsen:

Kyda, that’s the tautology from hell, alright–don’t teach ‘em anything so that they’ll never know you didn’t teach ‘em anything.

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:25 pm 82. Rick Ballard:

Terrye,

I would be interested to hear what Luagr’s office says. Sometimes he’s on the reservation and sometimes he wanders off.

Considering that you see more people on a day to day basis than many of us do, you might want to consider letting them know that you’re very “concerned” that the leaders of the Dem party are comparing our fighting forces to Waffen SS death camp guards. If they act interested you could then tell them that Howard Dean says that there is no place in the Democratic Party for white Christians and you’re very troubled by it. Having been a staunch Dem and all.

That might be a helluva lot more effective than talking to Lugar’s office. Although I’m not sure if Indiana could get any redder.

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:28 pm 83. PeterUK:

Buddy,

If the great deceiver walked the earth again, he would have to come in the guise of a liberal.

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:29 pm 84. Charlie (Colorado):

Heh.

“Historically, all reactionary forces on the verge of extinction invariably conduct a last desperate struggle against the revolutionary forces, and some revolutionaries are apt to be deluded for a time by this phenomenon of outward strength but inner weakness, failing to grasp the essential fact that the enemy is nearing extinction while they themselves are nearing victory.”—Mao Ze Dong

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:31 pm 85. Terrye:

pter:

Sounds like George Galloway to me.

I hear that jihadi George might have stolen a few votes. I guess he was afraid the ‘Jew in the woodpile ploy’ would not be enough to put him over.

My old man always said that crime does not pay, but some of these folks make me wonder.

Jun 16, 2005 - 6:48 pm 86. PeterUK:

Terrye,

It isn’t crime that doesn’t pay,it’s getting caught that doesn’t pay.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:07 pm 87. ex-democrat:

gotta love it: http://www.scrappleface.com/

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:11 pm 88. Buddy Larsen:

Terrye, I think what “crime doesn’t pay” means is, it doesn’t pay if you have a conscience (regardless of the P&L statement), and if you don’t have a conscience, then it ain’t crime to begin with. This is where Gorgeous George lives. Makes for good liars, tha’s fer sher.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:15 pm 89. PeterUK:

Buddy,

Amazing how many consciences can be salved by cash.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:19 pm 90. c:

The White House and Senate Republicans have piled on Durbin (even Martinez of FLA joined in), but good golly gosh, their rhetoric condemning the creep is no where near as colorful, untruthful and vicious as the Dems use against the WH and Repubs on a regular basis: “beyond belief”, “a real disservice”, “loose comments”, “no basis of fact”, “a most egregious misjudgment”. Where is the Republican hissy Dean, red-meat Reid, politics and booze red Kennedy, or Carvillian junkyard dog, and why do the GOP pols have to sound temperate, grown-up and statesmen-like when conducting the nation’s business and whilst we are at war?

(Save for a few RINOs who are not unforgivably rude and seditionist, exactly, but merely weak, tearful and hand-wringing…)

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:19 pm 91. Rick Ballard:

Terrye,

I think you’ll like this one.

Also, Hugh us calling for censure so maybe the floor rule doesn’t apply. I know that a legislator can’t be charged with libel for anything said on the floor but I’m not sure as to censure.

Delenda est Durbin.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:21 pm 92. Kevin P:

Roger;

That waste of air Durbin is now trying to say that what he said is not what he meant. Even his whinning excuse is a lie. Some senator should get on the floor and read every story from every country that writes about his words. They are all going to read Durbin compares US to Hitler, gulag and Pol Pot. Scott McClellan was asked by the foreign press this morning “Senator Durbin compared the action in Gitmo to the nazi’s” That punk should have to face the truth. He knew what he was saying and he meant it. Now he doesn’t have the balls to stand behind his words. The entire world knew exactly what he was trying to say. Screw Senate civility. He should be denounced by someone with a spine in the Republican Party. He shouldn’t be allowed to dance away with his slander.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:22 pm 93. PJ:

“Does anyone here think that the Left will get physically violent soon?”

I think assassination attempts are a possibility. The last time such a campaign of hatred from world and domestic press and opposition politicos occurred during the Civil War, so ’nuff said…

I think a tipping point will occur when the Iraqis become a true military. I hope it started when they captured Mr. Wood. As he said, “Thanks to all the Iraqi boys,” as they beamed next to him. They now have a taste of victory and national pride.

The ITM bloggers too have described profound changes in the Iraqi mindset: first thinking after the invasion, oh, now we have a good king, and then back to business as usual. Now they are realizing that it’s their country and their responsibility because we are leaving.

Charlie, good quote. I would add to the wimps like Durbin, “dare to struggle, dare to win.”

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:24 pm 94. Terrye:

Rick:

Hey yeah. That was interesting.

I have noticed some folks getting all creeped out by what Durbin read, but come on….the Soviets and the Khner Rouge and the nazis..why not throw in Attila the Hun, Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Khan.

I hear there were charges over this by the way.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:27 pm 95. PeterUK:

In the Gulags they must have been dreading somebody playing with the airconditioning.

I don’t know what the procedure in the US, is but if an MP had said something similar in the Commons,the Speaker would probably have banned him.Often the party removes the whip,which is essentially the miscreant gets no cooperation of any kind.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:28 pm 96. PeterUK:

Terrye,

Yes lets have some etnic diversity,how about Vlad the Impaler?

BYW is Senator Dreben related to the chap in Naked Gun?

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:33 pm 97. Rick Ballard:

Folks,

Please read this.

“Dick” Durbin isn’t worth the dust on this man’s boots.

There is no “middle ground” with seditionists and traitors. I have no interest in the Seven Dwarf Republicans who seek “compromise” in the Senate. There is no compromise with a party that has Dick Durbin as a leader. None. Not in this matter nor in any other.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:40 pm 98. Buddy Larsen:

yes, and that flap over Prince Harry’s swastika armband was a good sign that symbols–such as the person of a senator–need to mean something.

Jun 16, 2005 - 7:51 pm 99. Buddy Larsen:

Helluva piece of writing, that link, Rick.

Jun 16, 2005 - 8:52 pm 100. TmjUtah:

Charlie (C) -

If your Mao quote was intended partly for me (hubris? paranoia? heh…)I’ll gladly own up to being wrong when the time comes.

Deliriously happy to own up, matter of fact.

Jun 16, 2005 - 8:53 pm 101. Buddy Larsen:

I read him to be referring to the Left in general–the full reactionary mode it is in, and the irony that the words are true, that Mao described his own movement’s eventual collapse.

Jun 16, 2005 - 9:05 pm 102. Rick Ballard:

Buddy,

Blackfive has his favorites list up again. I just picked Russ at random and there may very well be others who express themselves as well. It wouldn’t be any surprise at all given the quality of the people who are serving our country in the Armed Forces.

I took Charlie’s Mao quote the same way you did. There are ‘Going Out of Business’ signs up for all the world to read but many are paying too much attention to the shrill yammering of those who ‘didn’t get the memo’. In 40 years of watching politics I’ve never seen the level of hysterical shrillness that the Democratic Party is exhibiting. It is not a sign of strength.

Jun 16, 2005 - 9:22 pm 103. Buddy Larsen:

No, it’s not a sign of strength, but it’s also not a sign of strength for the whole country, either. It’s a murder-suicide type thing. Brit Hume reported today that none of the three broadcast networks have reported any of the recent Howard dean trash-talk, but are covering the reaction quite closely, as if the DNC boss ia under unfair attack by the cruel VRWC. Exactly as the NYTimes. This is just the latest example of what I believe is called “jumping the shark”. That’s what Durbin did, too. Drop all pretense at honesty or fairness, and just go for the throat with teeth and fingernails. Desperate and very very destructive. Batten down the hatches.

Jun 16, 2005 - 9:41 pm 104. Jamie Irons:

Kyda, Rick, TmjUtah, Terrye, Rick, Peter, Charlie, Buddy, and many others…

I have really enjoyed reading your comments.

I hope these developments represent the last gasp of a dying left, but I am not sure.

Elpis en anthropois moune theos esthle enestin. (Theognis 1135)

(Roger’s blog doesn’t permit me to use the Greek alphabet

Jamie Irons

Jun 16, 2005 - 9:49 pm 105. Buddy Larsen:

Jamie, you didn’t by any chance buy any shares of Google today, did you? Because you just sent a few hundred people over there.

Jun 16, 2005 - 9:59 pm 106. Jamie Irons:

Buddy,

No. It’s just a fragment of Greek I remember from long ago, meaning roughly

“Hope is man’s one good deity.”

Jamie Irons

Jun 16, 2005 - 10:03 pm 107. Skookumchuk:

Man, what a night for Typepad to not let me in for five hours at a stretch . . .

Great thread. Rick, PeterUK, Charlie, Buddy and the rest.

Peter nailed it – obtaining power is infinitely more important to many Senators than is victory.

Also, we tend to forget that the unanimity of media opinion in World War II was the exception and not the rule. This war is much closer to the Mexican War or the Civil War. On the Corner somebody (Goldberg?) posted that in the Mexican War, the Mexican Army fielded whole units of Americans who deserted or otherwise were opposed to the war. I never knew that. And we all know about the Civil War.

Among my first thoughts as I watched the towers fall was of Lincoln in the Civil War and how he had to navigate treacherous waters between the rocks of hostile domestic and foreign interests all of whom wanted the US to break apart. Same now. We have to forget our gauzy sentimental picture of World War II public unanimity and see this new world with colder Lincolnian eyes.

And we are in this for the long haul. For decades if not for the remainder of this century. Lots and lots of Durbins yet to come. We have to win anyway – despite them.

Jun 16, 2005 - 10:05 pm 108. Charlie (Colorado):

Tmj, it defintely wasn’t aimed at you; Buddy has it closer, plus I just found a copy of the Little Red Book and was enjoying what I could find in it.

As to the other, it’s Greek to me. Which, since I have little Latin and less Greek, is sort of a shame.

(Jamie, you can actually enter Greek in here, eg, θεοσ but it’s a pain in the ass. Let me know if you want to know how.)

Jun 16, 2005 - 10:10 pm 109. Jamie Irons:

Charlie,

Yes, by all means inform me!!!

(Just leave me a message as I have to get to bed now; have to be up at 5:30 AM.)

Jamie Irons

Jun 16, 2005 - 10:18 pm 110. Buddy Larsen:

Skookumchuk, that’s perhaps the take-away thought from all these discussions, that we have to win anyway, despite them. And you’re dead right, WWII’s unanimity was the historical anomaly.

Maybe we can handle the Deans and Durbins and AIs and Newsweeks better if we can see them as a chronic but not necessarily debilitating disease. We just can’t lose this thing over ‘em, that is simply unacceptable, the consequences will reach inside and kill the great experiment for the forseeable edge of eternity.

Jamie, great quote, akin to ‘hope springs eternal’–and good that it does, or we’d still be in the first good cave we found. Anyhow, looking for your quote I found this fascinating read.

Jun 16, 2005 - 10:21 pm 111. papertiger:

the Soviets and the Khner Rouge and the nazis..why not throw in Attila the Hun, Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Khan.

How about a little accurate comparison with one of our domestic contemporaries.

Gitmo treatment compared to Branch Davidian treatment in Waco Texas.

Gitmo detainees are subject to Christina Aguiliara music for a limited time and it is characterized as torture. What did Dick Durban call it when the Waco prisoners were subject to loud speaker music for weeks?

March 12 Jeff JAMAR, the FBI lead negotiator, orders all electricity to be cut off for good,(the FBI had been cutting the power for breif periods prior to this) because “he wanted those inside the compound to experience the same wet and cold night as the tactical personnel outside.” The justification for cutting the power is that it is going to be a very cold night and maximum effect would be gained in making the Davidians uncomfortable inside the compound.

March 13 the Davidian’s complain of freezing cold.

March 14 FBI begins to illuminate the compound with bright lights “to disrupt sleep, to put additional pressure on those inside and to increase the safety of the HRT.”

March 15 The FBI establishes a “modified negotiation strategy,” continuing to insist on peaceful resolution but refusing to listen to any more of what they call “Bible babble.”

March 21 In the evening hours the FBI begins playing very loud music, including Tibetan chants, over the loudspeaker system.

It goes on and on like this until the fire which killed 80 people including women and children on April 19th.

These were American citizens, most of them not even accused of crime. They were not enemies who vowed to kill Americans. Why was it right to use these tactics on Americans including women and children to coerce them to leave their home, and now it is torture for these tactics to be used on murderers to coerce them to give information?

Jun 16, 2005 - 10:29 pm 112. Fresh Air:

Rick–

FYI, Soldier Currie (not sure what his rank is) plans to run for Congress when his hitch is up. And he’s from California.

There may be hope for you yet.

Jun 16, 2005 - 11:44 pm 113. Buddy Larsen:

“Living in the U.S., one could make the cold-blooded calculation that 21,000 dead and 55,000 injured from all terrorist acts over 10 years is a drop in the bucket and that the war in Iraq has mainly increased the rate of death. This may be true. But if as many suicide bombs went off in Manhattan as have gone off in Israel, Manhattanites would have demanded martial law and the summary execution of suspects on street corners. Their greatest goal in life would not be, as it is now, the closing of interrogation rooms on Guantanamo but instead the erasure of terrorists hiding across the East River.”

A snip from Daniel Henninger in the WSJ this morning.

Jun 17, 2005 - 6:13 am 114. Knucklehead:

Is the new standard for America now, “at least we are not as bad as the murderous psychopath who preceded us.”

Based on the descriptions Durbin gave it seems the standard is now to treat the prisoners at Gitmo roughly on a par with ordinary levels of hazing such as are done for freshmen additions to HS or college football teams, fraternities, and even sororities and substantially better than we treat our own troops for escape and evasion training.

Jun 17, 2005 - 6:18 am 115. vegetius:

Between Voinivich’s weeping and Durbin’s foam flecked speech, the Senate has just lost its’ title of the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body”.

Someone please loosen these girls corsets lest they faint from the vapors.

The whole Senate reminds me of the Germans speaking of the British as “a nation of lions led by donkeys”.

Jun 17, 2005 - 6:31 am 116. PeterUK:

Buddy,

That ie the type of risk analysis that governments have to make all the time,pinpricks are acceptable for the general good and there is some kind of boundary.After al Qaeda took down the Twin Towers it was obvious that here was a new enemy that had no boundaries and was eager to wreak even more havoc.

This also destroyed the utilitarian argument for taking the blows in the general interest of peace.

It is also hard for those living peacefully,going about their daily lives with no apparent threat,to even begin to imagine what a mad tribesman thousands of miles away intended for them.

The “Phoney War” in 1939 was very similar hostilities had not fully begun,people lived their lives,aparently the weather was good,yet in a few month the Wehrmacht was only the width of the English Channel aawy and the bombers were overhead.

This was a more concrete threat than Jihad and one more readily observable to the public and herein lies the rub,convincing a large section of the public that there is a mortal threat,once that is done,the maunderings of the likes of Senator Dreben will be silenced.

Jun 17, 2005 - 6:41 am 117. Buddy Larsen:

Peter, yep…these times are indeed a lot like–what was the other derisive name?–the “sitzkrieg”. Today’s sneerers use the same logic as the 1939 “wets”: Since we can’t stop the random attacks, this must be a phoney war. Feh.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:00 am 118. Bruce W.:

The Froggy Ruminations post is the best response to Curbin I have seen yet. Thanks for that Rick. And the Mao quote could not be more on point.

Great collection of comments in this thread.

Listening to the news this morning (and a few minutes of Air America, ugh) was the first time that I got a real shiver of concern that the rhetoric of the Left and the way this WoT is covered could actually and significantly affect its success or failure (or lead to the latter). Or was I suffering from optimistic willful blindness until today as to that possibility? How sad that the Left does not evolve and learn from its mistakes.

One of the big differences this time around, as opposed to Vietnam, is that we have available to us this medium for the free exchange of ideas and facts before things go too awry. And, as was said, these things do go in cycles. I am hoping that the capture of Zarqawi’s main squeeze is a presage for a big cycle change, as the new captive seems to be quite the singing bird.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:06 am 119. Buddy Larsen:

Vegetius, “the World’s Most Deliberately Grating Body”–?

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:06 am 120. jerry:

One of the great self-congratulatory myths of the Left is that they fought the good war agains Fascism. The truth is that they didn’t fight for freedom, but instead fought for Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. The most important WWII date for people like “The Truth” aka “The Moron” was not December 7th, 1941 but June 22, 1941, which was the day Hitler invaded the USSR.

The left has been at war with America since 1917. Durbin and his cohorts are just the manifestation of this phenomenon. They are in love with all revolutionary movements that oppose the idea of freedom. Socialism is the experiment that can never fail and the Left continues to look for “socialism” in action even if it is National Socialism.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:11 am 121. Skookumchuk:

Buddy:

But if as many suicide bombs went off in Manhattan as have gone off in Israel, Manhattanites would have demanded martial law and the summary execution of suspects on street corners.

Maybe. Or maybe not. Remember Teresa and her statement to the effect that Europeans have lived with this for years . That is a lefty code for simply learning to live with it, like snow in the Manhattan winter. In the words of her husband – “a nuisance.”

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:19 am 122. Ray Zacek:

I doubt Senator Durbin is “in love with all revolutionary movements” as much as he is in love with himself, his own image and his overblown rhetoric. It has been a while since I’ve thought of the US Senate as a deliberative body; I think of it as the Wax Museum, filled with life-like but lifeless theatrical displays. Turn the heat up, and most of them will melt.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:21 am 123. Bruce W.:

Skoo: Perhaps true of those outside the danger zone, but remember NIMBY: the limousine liberals’ most important value. Lefty New Yorkers would start getting religion the way they did in the aftermath of 9-11.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:30 am 124. jerry:

Ray:

Whether Durbin is personally in love with Revolutionary movements is beside the point. He, and most of his Party, believes that it is in their political advantage to appear so. They have become willing proxies of respectability to those who seek the destruction of democratic societies based upon market economies.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:32 am 125. Skookumchuk:

Bruce W:

Hmm. Still not quite convinced. That they would push to harden our own internal defenses, yes, no question. But a response in terms of taking it to the enemy from half a mile away with a McMillan .308, no. Reactive self-defense. It is all about self-victimization. Again Hillary, when she made loud noises about our firefighters and EMTs not being sufficiently involved in the front line of the WOT.

Well, they should be the last line.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:41 am 126. PeterUK:

Why not post a rogues gallery on the internet?

The speeches by Dreben and those of his stamp,alongside all the foreign newspapers who quote them and use them as a justifcation to knock the US.

Make sure their words are there for posterity.

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:42 am 127. Charlie (Colorado):

Peter — excellent idea. Is “objectivelyprofascist.com” too long?

Jun 17, 2005 - 7:51 am 128. Buddy Larsen:

Peter, Charlie, here’s a start.

(ht–GOPINION)

Jun 17, 2005 - 8:00 am 129. jerry:

If the Truth is still out there …

What’s Up Sen Durben (From CQ)

Durbin Oddly Silent About The Torture Closer To Home

Dick Durbin set himself apart in the Senate on Tuesday by proclaiming that one could not tell the difference between the behavior of detainees at Gitmo by American military person and that of Nazis, Stalin’s gulag guards, or Pol Pot. Despite a national furor over his remarks, Durbin has refused to retract them, although he laughingly added yesterday that it was wrong to think that he had minimized the horrors of the Holocaust and the gulags by equating them with a lack of climate control and indoor plumbing in Gitmo interrogation rooms.

However, in his zeal to protect America from the Creeping New FascismTM of American servicemen, Durbin somehow missed an opportunity to find similar horrors much closer to home. John in Carolina notes that Durbin’s political ally and fellow Democrat in Chicago, Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan, operates a jail that sounds like it has a lot more problems than Gitmo or anything else run by the American military.

Let’s see if we can guess where the following abuses took place — Gitmo or Cook County:

In one incident, an elite squad of 40 guards took over a maximum-security [unit] … for the sole purpose of beating and terrorizing the prisoners. A jail investigator determined that the guards’ misconduct was covered up by … medical personnel, who filed false reports and refused or delayed treatment to the prisoners, and by the … inspector general, who refused to cooperate with the investigation. In the other incident, five inmates in a special incarceration unit … alleged that they were beaten by 20 or more … as they lay cuffed and shackled on the floor.

Was that done in the sunny climes of our Cuban installation? No — that happened in Sheahan’s Chi-town jail, in 1999 and 2000. Durbin’s pal promised that his jail would improve and that reports of torture and abuse would stop. And they did, mostly because unlike the whistleblowers at Abu Ghraib who were lauded for their efforts to end the isolated cases of abuse at that prison, Sheahan made sure he got rid of the squealers at the Cook County lockup.

Let’s try this again. Gitmo or Cook County:

[A] prisoner … said he was beaten unconscious by guards who had wrapped handcuffs around their fists to make the beating worse. … Several days later, the whites of his eyes were nearly obscured by the red from blood vessels that had ruptured during the beating, and deep lacerations were held together by staples that had been applied to his scalp. Late last year … another prisoner … told of being dragged by several guards through a fire of burning paper and debris that had been raging in the cellblock. His account of this abuse was substantiated by blisters and deep burn marks on his leg.

Now that sounds like what Saddam did on off days when he wasn’t feeling all that dastardly — so this had to have happened at Gitmo, right? Wrong. That’s still Durbin’s pal Sheahan’s Cook County lockup. Why hasn’t Durbin taken to the floor of the Senate to decry this treatment? One would think that a man who wants to protect America from the taint of torture and abuse in order to ensure our purity might start in his own back yard.

We’ll start taking Durbin seriously when he calls for the National Guard in Illinois to take over the Cook County Jail and demands a federal investigation of his political ally Michael Sheahan, for years of allegations involving abuses much more profound than anything contained in that silly e-mail Durbin read on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. Until then, chalk up Durbin’s feigned moral outrage to the worst kind of political opportunism.

Jun 17, 2005 - 8:09 am 130. Buddy Larsen:

Peter, you guys really need to reclaim the right to bear arms.

Jun 17, 2005 - 8:10 am 131. Knucklehead:

Pax Americana my ass–we’re Park Rangers at best. A Pax nation with our military would just charge a tax on global trade, and we citizens could all lounge back and enjoy the bloodbaths of the world coliseum.

But… but… Buddy, isn’t that what we’re doing? What about those couple years of steel tariffs? Ask the Canadians ’bout the perfidous lumber tariffs! The treasure… the treasure…

Aren’t we plying the seas with ships stuffed to the gun’ls with Other People’s Gold? And don’t you get the Colliseum Channel in HD?

Jun 17, 2005 - 8:22 am 132. Buddy Larsen:

Tariffs are objectionable on principle, for sure, but a Commerce Dept. has to have the leeway to rise above principle when the circumstances demand a longer view. I think those two tariffs were knuckle-raps (no pun intended).

YES! Stuffed to gunnels with other people’s gold–because they handed it to us to protect it for them–knowing we’ll give it back on demand. Our fee is “behave yourself, please!”.

Jun 17, 2005 - 8:50 am 133. Steven Mitchell:

Buddy, I wouldn’t stick with, “hope springs eternal” on this issue. The whole couplet from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man”:

Hope springs eternal in the breast of man,

Always to be blest, never to be.

Or something very close to that, as I’m quoting from memory. It means the exact opposite of what most people mean when they use the except. Of course, the whole “Essay on Man” is exactly the kind of hard-nosed look at the nature of man that it would benefit most liberals to read.

Now if we could just get people to use Pope’s original, “foolish inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” instead of Emersons deliberate bastardization, we’d be getting somewhere. (And if you think about for two minutes, Pope definitely had the measure of the bigger problem. The guys Emerson was complaining about never did anything big enough to worry about.)

Jun 17, 2005 - 10:44 am 134. Richard G. Combs:

I expressed my outrage to Durbin’s office a couple of days ago. But it’s time to move to the next level. We need to encourage people to write letters like this one to their senators calling for the Senate to formally censure Durbin and repudiate his statements.

Jun 17, 2005 - 11:24 am 135. Buddy Larsen:

Richard, good letter, and I’ll follow your sugestion.

Steven, that’s for sure, I’ve used that phrase exactly wrongly all these years. Thanks for the the several heads-ups. Must read some Pope.

Jun 17, 2005 - 1:17 pm

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