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Post by casualplayerpaul on Jan 8, 2020 13:36:22 GMT -5
I never thought I'd say this, but I have new respect for the last Republican administration that lied us into a war.
Say what you like, they made a real effort to puff up the threat, scare Americans into thinking there was a rationale and trot out Very Serious People to make their case.
Trump knows that Fox News Nation will buy his b.s. and that the rest of America is wise to his con, so it's like he's not even trying to make a case.
That speech was a sniffling, mispronouncing, slurring joke.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 8, 2020 13:57:02 GMT -5
The takeaway there is it's time to take a hard look at the 19th Amendment. When I was young and complained about someone's stupidity, my mother would say, "Remember, his vote counts just as much as yours." (Actually that could have been zero, since I was under 21.) Then I spent a couple decades teaching college, and, yeah. And a few more looking over my wife's shoulder as she did. Still, yeah. Now I watch the news and shudder. Yup. On the other hand, "equal before the law" has to mean something.
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Post by majorminor on Jan 8, 2020 14:00:05 GMT -5
All the girls in this bar love me! Do you want to dance? NO! Do you want to dance? NO! Do you want to dance? NO! Do you want to dance? NO! Do you want to dance? NO! Do you want to dance? NO! Maybe. But just one. Then you have to buy me a drink and leave. Do you want to dance? NO! Do you want to dance? NO! I've often wondered how you and your wife met....
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jan 8, 2020 14:05:19 GMT -5
No argument on any of that from me. That was a hopeful speech. Anything jump out/cliff’s notes, for the media-challenged? ...I opposed the war in Iraq because the fact that a bad guy may do something bad to you doesn't satisfy the traditional requirements for just war. I can dig it. I will add you to a very short list that includes me, Bernie, Barack (the vote is on record) and a psych major I knew back then who traditionally skewed left of AOC. I remember being the *only* person besides psych guy in a busy, affluent, liberal eatery that was *not* pegging the jingo meter along with the rest of America. 43rd and his elders really stepped in it. Or, more accurately, jumped in it on purpose to see how much would splash around. The conflict between the Shia and Sunni started well over a thousand years ago. Not to be all debbie downer, but that doesn’t even take traditional tribal alliances—which I’m told can cut across and supersede sectarian lines—into account. I guess I’ll totally go all ballsy and make a prediction about this situation and the ME in general: things will be about the way they’ve always been. (Us going into Iraq in ‘03 excepted, of course.)
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Post by brucemacneill on Jan 8, 2020 14:11:18 GMT -5
This one is from the "So delicious I want to shoot it straight into my veins" file: You can read the whole thing here. Here's the break down: The takeaway there is it's time to take a hard look at the 19th Amendment. You got me. What's it have to do with the 19th amendment? It's not even a sexy map.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jan 8, 2020 14:21:08 GMT -5
You have to be able to speak Jeff, to understand the humor. I will translate: "This is why our Presidents are always rich, old, dudes." (How’d I do, Jeff?)
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 8, 2020 15:45:03 GMT -5
Michael, there were plenty of lefties of my acquaintance who refused to buy the arguments for the Iraq war. And we were getting our information from the same publicly-available media as everybody else. We just smelled the lies. (Perhaps because many of us remembered Vietnam quite vividly--the aroma is hard to forget.)
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Post by brucemacneill on Jan 8, 2020 15:51:10 GMT -5
As long as you're memory is still working, you should recall that the lies were based on "Intelligence" from the Clinton CIA.
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Post by Cornflake on Jan 8, 2020 16:11:12 GMT -5
"Michael, there were plenty of lefties of my acquaintance who refused to buy the arguments for the Iraq war. And we were getting our information from the same publicly-available media as everybody else. We just smelled the lies. (Perhaps because many of us remembered Vietnam quite vividly--the aroma is hard to forget.)"
Russell, I didn't smell the lies. I assumed that Saddam had WMD. I just thought that was a wholly inadequate reason for starting a war with Iraq. I'd feel the same way if we were about to invade North Korea. With a few asterisks, it's hard to be in the right when you start a war.
(PS: I'm still not sure the arguments about WMD were "lies," in the sense of being knowing falsehoods. I think Bush and others were all to ready to believe a proposition that justified what they wanted to do. We're all prone to that. And my opposition to the war wasn't purely moral; I also thought it was a dumb move.)
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jan 8, 2020 16:30:04 GMT -5
I’d like to take a breathless pause while we are on page 16 to say that I appreciate much of the care and thought going into this conversation.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jan 8, 2020 18:08:29 GMT -5
You got me. What's it have to do with the 19th amendment? It's not even a sexy map. If you don't get turned on by cartography, I don't think I can explain it to you.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jan 8, 2020 19:23:07 GMT -5
You have to be able to speak Jeff, to understand the humor. I will translate: "This is why our Presidents are always rich, old, dudes." (How’d I do, Jeff?) I think it's way funnier than that. Take every sneering, sarcastic thing I said earlier about the little Napoleons in Washington at their cocktail parties, and leaven in with the knowledge than the Washington political leadership was elevated to their positions by a populace that can't find Iran on a map. It's the self-reverence and unjustified sense of seriousness that amuses me most. Surely you have to see God's sense of humor in the fact that that particular concentration of people has been elevated above all others, and granted the power to drop bombs on whomever they choose, and with nary a thought that they might personally have to endure even the mildest consequence or discomfort.
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Post by james on Jan 8, 2020 20:09:36 GMT -5
It appeared that Trump was slurring and sniffing his way through his drugs quite messily.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Jan 8, 2020 20:21:15 GMT -5
As long as you're memory is still working, you should recall that the lies were based on "Intelligence" from the Clinton CIA. There never was “Clinton CIA.” The CIA has never belonged to one administration or another. I don’t really have to explain the DEEP STATE to you, do I?
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jan 8, 2020 21:32:17 GMT -5
Get this: As US-Iran tensions continue to rise, the eyes of the world are set on Iraq, where parliament has called on its government to expel all foreign troops, including more than 5,000 American forces...
"The non-binding resolution must now be sent back to Cabinet for it to become a law - although Iraq’s current caretaker government cannot pass legislation. The controversial, but largely symbolic decision was adopted in surreal circumstances. The session was boycotted by nearly half of all Iraqis parliamentarians and led by caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a man who had resigned from his position last month. He was largely discredited among Iraqi youth for overseeing a ruthless crackdown that took the lives of hundreds of unarmed protesters - many of whom died at the hands of pro-Iranian militias represented in parliament.www.thenational.ae/opinion/editorial/iraqi-sovereignty-is-not-just-about-troop-presence-1.960679
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Post by TKennedy on Jan 8, 2020 21:40:32 GMT -5
Speaking of the CIA and MI5 I just watched two good movies that center around shady shenanigans by those folks.
“Official Secrets” about a low level MI5 Chinese translation specialist who stumbled on a plan by the British government to augment the credibility of Tony Thatcher’s backing of the Iraq invasion by a majority vote in the United Nations. The plan centered on, with the help of the CIA, shadowing members from lesser nations and digging up dirt to blackmail them into voting to back military action. She became a whistleblower and leaked it to the press, and set off a shit storm. I won’t say more but it was a great movie and apparently very true to life with little embellishment.
“The Report”. A great and again apparently very accurate film about the man who lead the Feinstein investigation into the CIA black ops sites and torture of prisoners after 911. After movies like Argo I have become quite suspect of Hollywood style embellishment and looseness with facts but most of the reading I did seemed to indicate that both these films were largely accurate.
This is a good time to watch them.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jan 9, 2020 1:42:33 GMT -5
I am a total hypocrite for even posting this, but I just had to; for epaul , if nothing else.
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Post by aquaduct on Jan 9, 2020 20:39:14 GMT -5
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Post by jdd2 on Jan 10, 2020 18:07:54 GMT -5
Just wanted to revive this to note that if Soleimani had agreed to investigate joe biden, he'd still be alive today.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2020 18:22:42 GMT -5
Just wanted to revive this to note that if Soleimani had agreed to investigate joe biden, he'd still be alive today. Good point! Maybe he had dirt on Hillary Clinton!! ::rimshot::
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