I was just listening to a sound byte from George Bush on NPR and realized something. I never once felt terrorized by Iraq. On the other hand, George Bush being in charge... that scares me a little.
Posted by jzawodn at September 23, 2004 04:21 PM
Jeremy~
JK is very guilty of propaganda too. There is no good candidate. My vote is for Bush II - the lesser of two evils.
Only a little? Then you haven't been paying attention... :-P
Saddam Hussein in power - definitely scary.
Propagandists like Michael Moore and his legions of naive young skulls full of mush followers - a little scary.
Have you ever felt terrorized by Osama Bin Laden??
When you actually feel terrorized by somebody - usually it's too late. That's why you have to strike the terrorists before they strike you.
> On the other hand, George Bush being in charge... that scares me a little.
Evidently, it scares people *outside* the US quite a lot. :)
Check this.
What was that old Star Trek saying?
Ah yes:
"The good of the many outweighs the good of the one."
-- Spock in Star Trek III
keep politics out of this blog jeremy - there's plenty of that elsewhere.
Jeremy, it's your blog, say whatever you want to. I the mean time I'd be very very afraid of Bush II.
What's hard to believe is how anyone can believe anything that comes out of Bush's mouth. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. About fool me over and over?
Wait, if you're not feeling terror then hasn't G-DUB succeeded?
Yes, Jeremy, you have never felt terrorized by Iraq; however, a lot of Iraqis felt terrorized by Saddam Hussein.
>When you actually feel terrorized by somebody - usually
>it's too late. That's why you have to strike the terrorists
>before they strike you.
With that kind of stupid arguments, any unjustified brutality could be performed. Eeerrrr... Forgot... During Bush, it already has...
Hitler was also democratically elected, popular domestically but launched insane military campaigns abroad with "pre-emptive" arguments. "One Reich" nowadays is the US way. God save the country that doesn't agree to it. Then some lame excuse is made to attack. "Weapons of Mass Destruction", yeah right...
As a European, I can only hope EU grow stronger to be able to function as a balance to Bush's unbalanced foreign policy.
/Michael
The idea of the EU growing stronger is absurd - as long as France is a member...
something you notice when you live outside the US is the fact that, for many americans, their identity is founded upon fear. but, like any insecure bully, they cloak their fear in the illusion of strength.
this, in part, accounts for the striking difference between kerry and bush supporters. kerry supporters tout a wide range of issues upon which they'd support their candidate. bush supporters have one: terrorism.
my country (canada) is, by all accounts, feeble, militarily. however, very few people have any trace of the fear evident in our firends to the south. we're just not worried about defence. we have (almost) no enemies in the world. our leaders have the respect of (most of) the world community. now, enemies don't fall out of trees. you have to go out and create them, and the USA has a habit of doing just that.
my friends in the US would say that canadians are smug in the security provided by our neighbors to the south, and that may be partially true, but the reality is that we just don't need it. all the animosity directed towards us stems from our close friendship with the US. and the only likely military threat comes from the potential side effects of an attack on the US.
my point? canada's reality is true of most industrialized nations. bush supporters could do well to drop the nationalistic (read, racist) fervor, put down the guns and flags, and get some perspective. you can't hide under a rock forever. and you can't govern or self-identify upon fear alone.
there has never been a time in US history when Orwell's 1984 would have been more apropos.
sorry for the long post...
from over here in the UK, all this American "fear" of terrorism is taken with a wry smile, and a condesending shrug, with words "blitz" and "IRA" usually thrown in , before finishing off with a "grow up", and "real world".
> Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. About fool me over and over?
That's what Michael Moore's fans LOVE. Joeseph Goebbels would be proud of his work. So would the former Iraqi Information Minister.
BTW, terrorist ALSO want John Kerry to win.
agreed. please, please keep politics out of this blog. for such an otherwise smart guy they make you look very naive.
Does it upset you, ac2, that a smart person might disagree with you?
Rob,
With all due respect to our gentle nieghbors to the north, but you are living in a fantasy world if you think "we have (almost) no enemies in the world."
Most muslims look at non-muslims with deep distain, and radical muslims have no aversion to eliminate any "infidel." Canadians may not be in the crosshairs of Islamic rage today; if I was a Canadian, I wouldn't put any bets on tommorrow.
What do you mean by "almost"?
why "almost?" very good question, and fitting.
almost is a qualifier. it's my way of recognizing the fact that there are exceptions to every rule.
it's fitting because of the way you have used an exception to villify, in its entirety, an incredibly diverse group of races, cultures and sects.
i know many muslims. some are clients, some merely acquaintances. none are extremists. none have any feelings but love for canada, its people, and its insistence on diversity (and the institutional secularism that fosters it).
before the two WTC bombings (and others, elswhere), the most destructive terrorist activity in america was the work of christian fundamentalist mililtiamen. why, then, do not all christians bear the extremist stereotype? christian terrorists ARE the exception, no?
interesting that i'm never been harassed, threatened or lectured on religion by muslims. by christians? absolutely.
i have only ever been the subject of intolerance when in the presence of followers of christ. such incidents are, of course, almost always the exception.
>With that kind of stupid arguments, any unjustified brutality could be performed.
only stupid liberal could define a strike on terrorists, which have only one agenda - to kill you - as "unjustified brutality"
>Hitler was also democratically elected, popular domestically but launched insane military campaigns abroad with "pre-emptive" arguments.
are you really trying to compare Hitler who tried to "clean" the world from people which he claimed were not as pure as Germans - like Jews (6,000,000 of them, btw)- to Bush who was attacked, and then responded by defending his country and trying to eliminate terrorist evil from this world??
Almost every conflict in the world today - has terrorist Musilims involved. Think about it: India/Pakistan, Israel/Palestinians, Chechniya/Russia, Ex-Yugoslavia, Sudan and the list goes on... but we shouldn't treat "terrorisst" with "brutality" - give me a break
terrorism occurs worldwide, and has since the dawn of time. the IRA, Aum Shinrikyo (tokyo subway bombing), basque separatists in spain, christian militias in the US (have you forgotten timothy mcveigh already?) and, going back a few years, french separatists in quebec, the ANC in south africa, the native american resistance during colonisation. no muslims in this (much abbreviated) list.
terrorism is not a religious principle. its a symptom of a very speicific circumstance: the abuse or oppression (or perception thereof) of the weak by the strong. it's a response to injustice, and a desperate strike against domination.
so, america starts a war in iraq. the people there see an occupation, see the deaths of tens of thousands of compatriots (mostly civilians), see the destruction of what little infrastructure they had. what, exactly, would an american do under those circumstances? what if you had no army, and nothing but improvised munitions?
this is where "perspective" comes in to it.
Lefties crack me up. Now they're feeling sorry for the "poor", "oppressed", "weak" former brutalizers of Saddam's regime. Give it a rest.
labels crack me up. does this mean that one who lacks the intellectual clarity to distinguish between an explanation and an excuse is a righty? or maybe the notion that it's better to prevent terrorism than to have to fight it is commie claptrap?
i always feel sorry for the "poor", the "oppressed" and the "weak" it's my nature, and the word we use to describe this quality in man is "conscience."
perhaps the difference between us, dave, is that my conscience covers all of humanity (yes, including you), and yours does not.
Sigh, there's never any shortage of parent-subsidized naive far-left hypocritical university students with far too much time on their hands like 'rob'. You've just labeled several other types. Drop your holier-than-thou America-hating ideology and get a life. The "poor", "oppressed", and "weak" terrorists in Iraq wouldn't hestitate an instant to include you in their attack, nor feel any remorse. Get a clue too.
i've never been to university ;). but if i wasn't working so much, i wouldn't be at my computer, i'd spend more time out there in the world looking for answers (hint: you won't find any on FOX).
there's no need to get personal, here, but if your concern is to correct my impressions, the effect so far has been the opposite.
most of my family and about half of my friends are american. if i didn't love americans (as i love all humanity, no exceptions), i wouldn't care to involve myself in these kinds of converstions.
i thought your government went to war to "liberate" the "poor", "weak" and "oppressed" from the regime of saddam hussein. now all those victims are suddenly aggressors! i wonder how they managed that?
i'll concede this point: terrorists in iraq wouldn't hesitate to include me in their attack. of course, for that to happen, i'd have to actually be IN iraq, in which case i'd probably seen as an occupier.
fortunately for us, iraq has never been implicated in an attack on any target in north america, including the WTC bombings (bush has admitted as much), as those were the work of saudis.
unfortunately for us, bush has stirred up a hornets' nest with roosevelt's big 'ol stick.
Why do you have to be a 'leftie' to be scared of W? I'm a Republican and I'll be voting for Kerry in November.
All you have to ask yourself is, "Is the world a safer place now than it was before 911?" That answer is a pretty clear, no.
If the draft goes through, maybe some of you who are so quick to get on the war drum bandwagon will get your chance to visit Iraq.
> I'm a Republican and I'll be voting for Kerry in November.
Uh, no, you're not a Republican. And you obviously don't understand how politics works.
> All you have to ask yourself is, "Is the world a safer place now than it was before 911?" That answer is a pretty clear, no.
Yes, the world is definitely a safer place, thanks to GWB's and the US's policies. No thanks to countries like France.
>When you actually feel terrorized by somebody - usually it's too late. That's why you have to strike the terrorists before they strike you.
I'm afraid it will be too late by the time the people who support the current US administration wake up and realize it. There is still time to correct this mistake.
Well now, Kerry said if he is elected he will "change the dynamics on the ground" in Iraq. No problem...
(If anyone out there believes that one, I have some jewelry in the back of my pick-up for sale)
