Sep 28 2006
Democrat Disaster
In earlier post I linked to a drooling mad NY Times editorial where the Times goes off half crazed about the concept of declaring terrorists enemy combatants in a war and all that goes with that. I have been smiling all day because the Dems have decided to side with the terrorists and protect their rights in the middle of a life and death struggle. Nothing can kill an election like rooting for more chances for more 9-11s. And those Democrats dumb enough (or deranged enough by Bush Derangement Syndrome – BDS) are in for a media blitz the likes we have never seen.
The ability to separate Iraq from the war on terror was critical to the dems succeeding, but they violated their own rule here. The Bill that is now passed passing in the Senate (65-34) as I write this (and run out the door) is one directed ONLY at terrorists. Americans are not effected by this bill. We will not see any of our rights impacted (unless one of us decides to join our enemy). So the idea this threatens us and not terrorists is laughable. But everytime this Bill is brought up the Dems are going to say we need to be out of Iraq – where we have killed 4,000 terrorists according to Al Qaeda. The Dems are going to say we need to back away, but not to worry, we opposed being too harsh on them if they come here and try and kill Americans.
The Dems will now have ads placed against them rightfully claiming they hesitated to call our enemies our enemies. They will have ads saying the Dems could not muster the will to aggressively question people attempting to kill us in suicide attacks (like someone on a suicide attack run cares about the Geneva Conventions??). The Dems will now face ads where they want Americans to pay for lawyering up the terrorists (“Bin Laden, you have a right to an attorney, if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you”).
The final kicker is in NY. I don’t have time to link but Apparently a Democrat prosecutor has leaked private phone conversations of a Rep woman candidate for state wide office to the media. So apparently it is OK for the government to listen in on phone call regarding a marital problem – and then publicize it during an election – but we cannot listen in on terrorists because that is a threat to privacy!???? Did someone slip dumb-dumb pills into the DNC water?? Gimme a break! Since when is it OK to monitor a political opponent and not an enemy combatant (but we cannot call them an ‘enemy combatant’!). We could weaken our protections so no more Democrats can run loose and monitor political opponents and leak classified material. Or we can just make sure the Dems never, ever, return to political power. At least with the latter solution we know people will still be trying to stop the terrorists instead of leaking personal details to the public.
Strata calls me a “foil.” I call Strata a paranoid kook, if he is not merely an opportunist.
Anyone who believes America is in a “life and death” struggle
with a scattered collection of jihadists with no army,navy or air force is certifiable. Can militant Islam eventually reduce America’s
presence in the Middle East? Yes. Does it threaten the nation
itself? Only to a certifiable paranoid .
As usual, a Republican, ever eager to trample on the separation of powers and those philosophies that have successfully governed this country for so long, willingly trample on the Constitution in order to sacrifice our principles to score political points, and to give the Bush Administration more power, power it doesn’t need to effectively fight the war on terror, lacking only the competence to fight it successfully. Having no conservative agenda to stand on, all they can do is try to make Democrats look weak on terror. The sheer joy that Republicans such as these show in attempting to paint Democrats negatively shows the nation they’re only interest is to win, and for the Democrats to lose. Once again, Republicans prove they are great at obtaining power, and terrible at governing.
As usual, Republicans are unable to address the blindingly obvious paradox in this bill, that those held are not terrorists, but suspected terrorists. It never enters there mind that the numerous reports of browned-skin people being in the wrong place at the wrong time and subsequently held and tortured for years deserve to hear the evidence against them, deserve some basic fundamental human rights, rights that separate us from the dictators and warlords that govern other areas of the world. For, if the Bush Administration is so completely sure that those held are indeed terrorists, so sure that no evidence is needed to hold them, then why bother with a trial at all? The purpose of the trial is to determine their guilt, based on evidence, but evidence is no longer required to hold them. They live or die at the behest of the President, in his vague, ill-defined and never-ending war.
What a sad day in our country’s history, and we can thank th Republicans for once again proving the depths to which they will sink to hold on to power. Luckily, the public isn’t buying it anymore, and our long national nightmare will soon be over.
twice?
Ken Again,
It doesn’t take an “army,navy,or air force” to “threaten” our nation any more. That would only seem paranoid to a troglodyte who was unaware of the technology advances of the last 50 years.
“Anyone who believes America is in a “life and death†struggle
with a scattered collection of jihadists with no army,navy or air force is certifiable. Can militant Islam eventually reduce America’s
presence in the Middle East? Yes. Does it threaten the nation
itself? Only to a certifiable paranoid .”
Yep. A disaster indeed.
You don’t need a military to destroy a country – especially a liberal democracy.
You just have to make it impossible for the people inside to live free – which is the strategy of fundamentalist Islam.
Go ask a frenchman or a spaniard. They’ve already given up. Britain still hangs in the balance but it’s not looking very good. Ask The Van Gough’s family.
The objective isn’t “U.S. out of the mideast”, either, it’s “Islam worldwide”. Their words. I take them at their word; how is it that the party of the bestest and brightestest won’t?
Islamists don’t have traditional armies or weapon systems, true. Without oil wealth they would have been assimilated into civilization a long time back; assimilated, obliterated, or reduced to a low-rung ecotour destination. But that’s not how the geography worked out. But they’ve been killing westerners who do for over fifty years now, and have just hit their stride in the last decade or so. Meanwhile the west has advanced to the point where sizable minorities seem to think that individual freedoms, representative government, and a life unmarked by violence or repression by state or criminal elements is normal. Normal to the point that employing force to protect said blessings is somehow immoral.
Here in this country they’ve taken the party that won World War II by the shorthairs and run it off a cliff.
I tell ya, the party of the little guy just can’t seem to understand that the little guys have figured out that the party could give a rat’s rearend about them. Dems aren’t being overwhelmed by a JeebusFundie tidal wave. Not even close. It’s just voters with jobs, families, and freedoms who object to being taxed to death and then killed outright by medeival barbarians that are the real problem.
I’ve got the 2006 campaign slogan for them:
“We Surrender”.
TMJUtah reveals the shallow political literacy of the average
American.
Bush is already turning the US into the police state by exagerrating the threat from scattered jihadists.
France Spain and England have a Musim immigrant problem bearing no resemblance to America and its comparative paucity of Muslims as a percentage.
Rapendergast
I believe the terrorists in Guantonimo were caught on the actual battlefield fighting our soldiers. How much more proof do you want? They were caught red handed. You liberals would probably take into account their deprived childhoods and let them off.
Ken
Where is this police state I have seen no sign of it.
This is probably a dead thread, but Ken’s slur really needs to be answered:
Just how “exagerrated” is the threat?
I start my timeline for being personally aware of Jihadist Islam in 1983. Six funerals are hard to ignore, so I thought “what the Hell, might as well read up on these bastards”…
I served with a staff sergeant who was among the guests of the Ayatollah. He had some interesting reminisces, to say the least.
Our enemy is a fundamentalist movement – a movement sometimes anchored in and/or serving as proxies for a limited number of despot states. Case in point was the Taliban of Afghanistan, who not even the Left could really defend (though that didn’t stop some from trying); Iraq might not have had squat to do with 9/11, but that regime was already marked for change, as an official U.S. policy, long before Bush was sworn in the first time. Granted, nobody, certainly not the Democrats, held any misconceptions about Clinton actually following through on such a policy.
The Bush Doctrine isn’t about empire, Ken. It’s not about oil and it’s not about hegemony – beyond achieving the U.S. government’s constitutional duty to defend the nation. It’s a product of an honest understanding of history, tempered by the optomism inherent in a leader who understands and more importantly believes in democracy and representative, constitutional government. It’s about defuzing a ticking bomb that will turn several hundred million muslims into air pollution. That’s going to be the future hard option siezed at the point after some obscene, but much smaller cumulative body count, of infidels hits the air currents first, of course.
Ken, you don’t see ANY national threat; you refuse to countenance even the steps we are trying to take now in our defense. I wake up everyday dreading to hear the EWS tone on my bedside radio. I wake up wondering why there are any living soles in Warzistan, Pakistan, if that’s where we know both al Q and the Taliban remnants to be holed up.
Between the two of us are several hundred million Americans (assuming you’re a citizen) , all with opinions somewhat different than either of ours, who will all weigh in on national policy, as is their right, every two, four, six years.
What seperates us from them is that their message of death and destruction is mostly bluster punctuated by senseless horror and meaningless carnage. The day that we go to an election with “We’ve had it with these barbarians” as the result, the next day will bring death on a scale that would make Curtis LeMay blanche.
We cannot impose governments that will make democracies of holes like Afghanistan or Iraq or Saudi or Iran… but we can work in good faith with the people of those places to build their own. And it must be their own efforts and sacrifice in the long run, because that’s how democracies really work – from within.
We began tossing out our nascent socialists in 1980 and the process has continued, in fits and starts and with minor lapses (hey, it was the end of history. And it was the economy, stupid)… ever since. In recent years
The process will continue in 2006, too, because there are probably more people who fit your “shallow” label than you think, even in your worst nightmares.
Have a fine one.
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