Tell that to Bookworm and mention Ymar being blocked.

Sally, perhaps you and I are not that far apart; we certainly have some areas of agreement. I’d like to know, for instance, how many of those who are horrified by stinging criticism of Bush’s policies are among those who tried to crucify Clinton for his sexual activities.
Sauce for the goose? Not even that, I think; I think Bush is far more deserving of public outrage for his policies than Clinton for his sex life.

“Terrorism is a bad thing, period, full stop, no ‘but’s'” — another point on which we agree.

I haven’t yet come to a conclusion about the Euston Manifesto.

You have a point about Pearl Harbor, but I believe I do too. I think that waging aggressive war — which the Bushies give the mealy-mouthed weasel-word term “preemptive” — which was pronounced by the Nuremburg Tribunal as being the basic war crime within which all other war crimes are contained, is indefensible. You seem to be saying that aggressive/preemptive war is justified if it’s waged by the good guys, as defined by you; I think the waging of that war in itself, not to mention the secret renditions, secret prisons in Eastern Europe, full-bore support for torture to be allowed by the CIA in certain circumstances, the stain of Gitmo, and the secret illegal wiretapping pretty much forfeit any right for this administration to call themselves “good guys”.

tequilamockingbird

Okay, thanks, and I’ll withdraw my classification of you with the “indecent left”.

You’re professing to attack a few radical indefensible weirdos, “the indecent left”, when really you are lumping in everyone whose political views are opposed to your own.

No, I’m really not. Like neo, most of the people I know have political views opposed to my own. With some, it’s unfortunately true that we can’t have a civil conversation about politics, but with others, including some of my oldest friends, we have regular debates and arguments, which I think are good for us all and are certainly helpful for me.

I do, however, think the present administration is an unmitigated disaster.

I don’t, but that’s just a difference of opinion. I do think that much depends on the tone of this difference, however — I think there’s a whole block of the current “angry left” so over the top in their rhetoric about Bush that their entire political judgement gets called into question, much as the political judgement of significant portions of the right was damaged by their rabid hostility to Clinton during his presidency.

Tell me, sally, how do you define “the decent left”?

I’ve used the people behind the Euston Manifesto as my example of what I see as a “decent left”, but it’s certainly not limited to them. So far as the war on Islamist terror is concerned, one test for decency on any wing would be someone who could feel quite comfortable saying “terrorism is a bad thing, period, full stop, no ‘but’s'”, and leave the litany of faults on the part of Bush, America, and/or the West for another time.

sally: “I think there’s a few more than a handful of you, tequila” — that of course is your point. You’re professing to attack a few radical indefensible weirdos, “the indecent left”, when really you are lumping in everyone whose political views are opposed to your own. I repudiate entirely any effort to associate me with those juvenile, cartoonish “Commandments”. I do, however, think the present administration is an unmitigated disaster. It’s tragic for the world that the U.S. has experienced two presidential terms of a feckless, unqualified know-nothing president doing his feeble best to learn on the job and failing miserably.

Tell me, sally, how do you define “the decent left”?

‘The “indecent left”, and that neo had interpreted as “that segment of the far left that makes excuses for and/or sympathizes with terrorists”‘ — ah, yes, of course. You don’t mean the 68% and climbing percent who feel W is doing a bad job; you don’t mean those of us who feel that history will judge W as the worst president in history, and that the invasion of Iraq was the worst military decision since Japan invaded Pearl Harbor; you don’t mean those of us who would like to see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rove, Perle et al waterboarded until they tell us what they knew and when they knew it. You mean a handful of certifiable lunatics no rational person could possibly defend. I see.

Isn’t tequila really clear in his prose? I mean, who can not understand his above… um sentence? I mean, how could such clear and cogent analysis produce any doubts or questions?

People talk the talk but not walk the walk. That’s okay I guess, for um propagandists and con-artists.

I recommend people read Admiral Kimmel’s accounts of Roosevelt and Pearl harbor. It is more similar to 9/11 than you will ever have guessed.

Kimmel’s story

My new account is tequilamockingbird555. Any of you who want to impersonate me, my password is fuckyouyoucocksuckers.

I think we should all thank Tequila for his kind mocking words as well.

I think there’s a few more than a handful of you, tequila, unfortunately, and I think you’re more neurotic than certifiable. So I doubt that you actually do see, but you’re right at least about the rationality part — no rational person, for example, could possibly defend a comparison of a surprise attack by a fascist disctatoship on a democracy to a response by a democracy that had already been attacked to a terrorist-sheltering dictatorship that was under world-wide censure. Your waterboarding fantasy is a nice additional symptom too.

(BTW, 7 December 1941: a day which will live in infamy? Apparently not. By the standards of Bush & Co., it was an entirely justifiable preemptive attack by a world power that saw its interests in the Pacific being threatened and decided that war would be necessary and therefore should be fought on Japan’s terms — unfortunately for them, the smoking gun did indeed turn into a mushroom cloud).

tequilamockingbird

It’s tactical vs. strategic. The behadings and bombs of the terrorists, even 9-11 are purely tactical events- they fit within a strategic framework, but these tactics, in and of themselves can never bring them victory. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a strategic decision/goal, and produced victory and all that entails, including the likely saving of millions of lives. At a bare minimum, tens to hundreds of thousands in occupied China/SE Asia while the war ground down conventionally.

I think that illustrates the point well enough. There is no upside to the terrorists tactics (in and of themselves).