Clarence Butterworth, maybe I crossed him up with this?

2005-01-27 11:30:45 AM Legalize It

Problem is, he DID, and one of the strategic reasons for going to Iraq is to be able to better deal with Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

If the stategy your referring is access to the fuel required to wage war on the other side of the planet, you may actually be onto something. Problem is: a war waged for those reasons is nakedly imperialist in nature.

So, which is it:
The administration is characterized is one of nobility and altruism such that the world has never seen?
Or, the administration has been lying through their teeth about a matter of fundamental national security?

If you were a Nation, you'd want Nukes too..

chi_guy:

I love reading the babblings of anti-American liberals. They try so hard to look like they know what they are talking about. Too bad it makes them look like the idiots they are.

I love reading the incredibly smug, yet completely vague and obtuse babblings of non-thinking conservatives. They think that by pointing their fingers at us and giggling we won't notice that they don't have anything to say in defense of the Bush administration.

Evi1Bo1weevi1

YES MIKE,You MUST be an IDIOT to be a neocon. A big ol' mouth breathin' tub o' tard short buser. Anyone who could consider spending the sheer amount of money the Bush administration does on a daily basis conservative is missing a few critical chromosomes.

You've just revealled the mistake in your thinking:

You equate "conservative" with "CONSERVATION".

You believe a "conservative"..."conserves MONEY"?

If so, then you're like the ugly buck-toothed guy in "The Water Boy" who said The Water Boy was the best tackler he'd seen since JOE MONTANA!

Legalize It

Was referring to the fact that hubie's from Maine, and so am I. (Stuck in NH right now, but always -from- Maine.) Maine happens to be the kind of state that elects the right people for the job... usually. Right now, both senators are Republicans, but not neocons by any means. Both women, both voting for their conscience rather than a party line. I never voted for either of them, honestly, but they're respectable at least.

When you're from Maine, I think you have more of a tendency to be rational about your views - even when you think you're on an extreme. Probably because so much of Maine just doesn't give shiat one way or the other.

What the world needs now is Jefferson Smith.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

/It's the only thing that there's just too little of

baraqel
Think about this; if we decided to engage Iran and attack their nuclear facilities, or even had the Israelis do it, what do you think NK will do? Sit back and watch? Doubtful. Preemptive strike against the US Western coast obliterating all the silicone.

You make two essentially baseless assumptions... One, that NK actually has a nuclear capability (no proof but they might) and two, that NK has a launch vehicle that can actually reach the American west coast (they don't).

Mike_71: If so, then you're like the ugly buck-toothed guy in "The Water Boy" who said The Water Boy was the best tackler he'd seen since JOE MONTANA!

*chuckles*

Iraq, N. Korea, Syria, a bunch of other countries. Everyone hates us. Maybe we are the bad guys? I'm starting to feel like the Germans from back in the day. They thought they were right too ya know..

/just sayin

...or we could have just not invaded Afghanistan in the first place just to not have any ties to Pakistan.

Moral: You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

hubiestubert

Enough pseudo intellectualism. Offer me a solution.

TellarHK

Thanks. My scarcasm detector went off so I was just checking.

/fellow Mainah

I love how we're safer since 9/11, where by focusing on one member of the "Axis of Evil" we are letting the other two become NUCLEAR farkING POWERS! Rah Rah go team and stuff!!!!

The A. Q. Khan network referenced by others was responsible for disseminating nuclear materials and techniques to rogue nations around the world. They had friggin' glossy brochures! This is nuts, and we really sit on our hands on this one because they're right next door to Afghanistan. So they tell us they've taken care of him, and that's that. Oh, execpt for the fact that Pakistani intelligence is run by "islamofascists".

Sure, it could have been a former soviet republic. But the state Pakistan is in right now, my money's on them. You know Musharrif is regretting ever wanting to be more than a general.

What the world needs now is another folk singer, like I need a hole in my.

I bought this bomb straight cash! I'm rich biatch! HONK HONK

1) Is Iraq a threat to US safety? Not anymore
2) Is North Korea a threat to US safety? I don't think so but I like Napalm
3) Should we be worried about terrorism? Stupid not to be
4) Is pre-emptivly attacking North Korea a good/fair plan? See #2
5) If attacking NK isn't a good idea, why does it matter that our troops are tied up in Iraq? Good question
6) If the Iraq war was over WMD and protecting America, why doesn't this apply to Pakistan/N. Korea/France? I'll get back to you on that

But I think it would be fun/easy to overrun France, take over the Fat Bastard wine making place would be great.

Mr. Clarence Butterworth

Answer the question, Mike_71 how does current Iraq
policy dovetail with trumping NK nuclear proliferation, harsh Iranian rhetoric and Syrian terror support?

....freedom.

/our Iranian policy isn't "rhetoric"
//Iraq, Iran, and Syria were, or ARE, run by terrorists.

What the world needs now is Jefferson Smith.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

What the world needs now is Teddy Roosevelt.

"WHat the world needs now is more Nathan Hales"

What the world needs now is an enema

You equate "conservative" with "CONSERVATION".

That's like equating

"Liberal" with "LIBERALISM"
or

"Socialist" with "SOCIALISM"

or

"over-punctuated caps-lock freakist" with "OVER-PUNCTUATED CAPS-LOCK FREAKISM"

ahhh, the dictionary...

conservative

adj
1: resistant to change [ant: liberal]
2: opposed to liberal reforms
3: avoiding excess; "a conservative estimate" [syn: cautious]
4: unimaginatively conventional; "a colorful character in the buttoned-down, dull-gray world of business"- Newsweek [syn: button-down, buttoned-down]
5: conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class; "a bourgeois mentality"

[syn: bourgeois, materialistic] n : a person who has conservative ideas or opinions [syn: conservativist] [ant: liberal]

underdog: intelligent neocons

Hun?

I vote we start a "People w/ an IQ greater than that of their shoes and the tendency to occasionally use it" political party. Too bad they'd never win an election due to their being vastly outnumbered by morans.

This cuts to the very heart of the problem. In times past, people understood that matters of statecraft were for smart folks to deal with. But now, everyone thinks they are well-informed, wise visionaries because they listen to talk radio and Fox News all day long.

And the people in charge can stay in charge by pandering to these useful idiots, and reinforcing their "common sense" view of the world...where destitute goat-herders are the "schoolyard bully" and we are the noble innocents who stand up to them and win the girl.

Whenever you hear people disparage intellectuals, academics and the like for not supporting their simplistic view, understand that this is part of an organized plan. It's being done on purpose.

the real reason the us doesn't attack them is that PRK can sustain 100,000 rounds of good old-fashioned artillery fire per hour into seoul for 5 days solid.

With Seoul being mere miles away from the border and a population of.. oh... around 10 million people (give or take a million), an invasion of North Korea will probably end up killing a few million civilians within the first week, easily. And you though the >15,000 killed in Iraq was a "blunder". THAT'S why we haven't invaded North Korea folks.

As whitty as your comeback isn't, I am right. The Republican party is based on fiscal conservatism, I was a part of it for entirely too long. Just because it's been hijacked doesn't mean that conservative now has been redefined to now mean "Blow up people with darker skin than us".

underdog

Can we all just agree to ignore Mike and focus on the more intelligent neocons?

I'm gonna change my name to "Noah". The farkers in his day laughed at him too....

..till the rain came............

Okay, NOW it's appropriate:



@ Conducting the 18th full-blown news conference of his presidency, the first of his second term...

@ Said the Education Department and Armstrong Williams made a mistake by paying the conservative commentator to promote administration policies. "There needs to be a nice, independent relationship between the White House and the press," Bush said, adding that the White House didn't know about the agreement.

@ (Maggie Gallagher, plus-sized conservative columnist, has also recently come out and admit she got money from the government, though she didn't remember until now.)

@ Bush mixed up the budget and deficit numbers when asked about money requests he would make in his budget proposal Feb. 7. "It turned out that the budget was $412 billion for last year," he said. That's the figure the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office cited for the deficit last year.

"Now, the budget is projected to be at $427 billion," he added. Again, that's the figure the White House projects for this year's deficit.

Reporters are now making apologies for Bush. What a farking idiot.

Overly self important much?

2005-01-27 11:00:52 AM DrewFL


I love how EVERYTHING that happens worldwide is somehow the fault of this
administration. First we shouldn't have gone to war, now we went to war with the
wrong people? If ourr soldiers were dying by the hundreds of thousands (because
that's what it would be in N. Korea) in North Korea, you guys would approve
because of a real nuclear threat? Give me a farking break. You bashers have no
position that makes any sense, you just say whatever sounds the most venomous
and cynical and makes you feel most like a rebel. It's tragically humorous,
actually.

And I love how the only way people like you can defend your position is to use logical fallacies like they're going out of style. When people criticize an administration they are not saying EVERYTHING that happens is their fault. I can't answer for the enemy you seem to speak of, the "cynical rebel", but I can say for myself that we shouldn't have gone to war with iraq in the way we did. If you want to keep breaking it down into a black and white argument so that your talking points can continue to sound like they have substance, then feel free to carry on by yourself. But the truth of the matter is that this isn't black and white, in my world anyways. Then you say "we went to war with the wrong people?" Is that the only solution you can come up with? Is the reptilian part of your brain so overgrown that it overrides your intellect when thinking about conflict resolution? No wonder we're in the pickle we are now.

This sucks for S. Korea more than anybody. N. Korea would never nuke it's neighbor to the south, but they will use them as a target for invasion. Much like Isreal in the mid-east. When we put the hurt down on Iraq in Gulf War 1 they couldn't touch us, so what do they do? Lob SCUDS at Isreal, a target they can hit. I think the same thing will happen on the Korean peninsula. If we try to do anything N. Korea will use their tens-of-thousands artillery guns all pointed at Seoul to pound them into dust.

Think this is a cause for international scorn for the US and it's gung-ho invade anybody attitude? We invade country X and their neighbors catch the S***-storm!

Mike_71


Mr. Clarence Butterworth

Answer the question, Mike_71 how does current Iraq
policy dovetail with trumping NK nuclear proliferation, harsh Iranian rhetoric and Syrian terror support?

....freedom.
Clarify please, one word answer not sufficient as to how perceived success in Iraq directly effects the others
/our Iranian policy isn't "rhetoric"
That's why I said Iranian rhetoric, not US rhetoric in response to plicy statements Iran has made
//Iraq, Iran, and Syria were, or ARE, run by terrorists.
Simplistic statement. Clarify, please.

I'm gonna change my name to "Noah". The farkers in his day laughed at him too....

..till the rain came............

Maybe change your name to Carrot Top, because he gets about as much respect, and makes as much sense as you.

Mike_71

Noah talked directly with God.

you are asking for too much Mr. CB...

underdog


Can we all just agree to ignore Mike and focus on the more intelligent neocons?

Isn't that like saying "can't we ignore the troll and focus more on unicorns?"

/Doesn't believe in fairytale creatures either.

On another note - anyone else do a GIS for "strangelove"?

Result number 4 was interesting.

Possibly NSFW

In other news, how many does America have?

/be careful of hypocrisy

Mr_Fabulous
Hear, hear. I agree 100%. So much so, I will flood your body with natural pleasure chemicals by displaying this adorable puppy!

SweetlyKali

Is North Korea affiliated with China? Beside the obvious ancenstral history, of course.

No sarcasm, I swear. My geography/history memories are always sketchy when it comes to that area.

WAYYYY back in the 50s there was this UN sponsered action called the Korean War. The US was doing the heavy lifting of the UN (well, who didn't want to kill a commie for mommie?). Mac was generally giving the northern commies a pretty decent butt kicking. Suddenly the US starts killing Chinese troops, but there were so many of the little yellow fellows that they drove the forces of light and right back to the middle of the pennisula. A cease fire was signed and a DMZ set up between the North and the South. The war (or police action if you please) never was delcared over. The armistice still holds... for now. But the forces of evil are ever lustful and full of malice and hence the South must be ever vigilant.

Seriously, a good bit of monetary support for Kim comes from China. Also, it seems that a large part of South Koreans hate the US troops. I say we leave Korea and let the rest of the UN man the DMZ. I am sure China, France, Germany and other kinder, more civilized nations can handle the situation just fine.

Richard_Feynmans_Big_Toe
1) Is Iraq a threat to US safety?

Sure, potentially.

2) Is North Korea a threat to US safety?

Sure, potentially. Also theoretical, potential threats to US safety: Japan, Disney, and you.

3) Should we be worried about terrorism?

Worried? No. Should we plan for it to happen? Yes. Should we be aware of how we're perceived by the rest of the planet and deal with that straightforwardly? Yes. Should we take sensible precautions to prevent it? Yeah, bearing in mind the very limited scope of that word "sensible". Should we go all off our rockers and shut down the Statue of Liberty, ban football games, and pay neighbors to spy on each other? No.

4) Is pre-emptivly attacking North Korea a good/fair plan?

All's fair in love and war. It's probably not too shabby of an idea, though "lets invade North Korea" does not amount to a plan, by far. North Korea scares me a lot more than Iran...Kim Jong is a devious freak with a zombie army and nukes. Not good.

5) If attacking NK isn't a good idea, why does it matter that our troops are tied up in Iraq?

N/A. It is a good idea. And it does matter that our troops are off somewhere performing dangerous duties that don't serve the interests of the citizenry.

6) If the Iraq war was over WMD and protecting America, why doesn't this apply to Pakistan/N. Korea/France?

Because the rest of the world wouldn't tolerate the neocons attacking those militarily...yet. Just wait.

unowho13


I'm a stubborn SOB, sometimes.

since they certainly have the missle technology (they can hit the West Coast) and the nuclear know-how.

Yep, they can give the west coast a taste of their Dong.

Im sorry. I couldn't resist.

"Alright - if the US had tackled the NKorea problem (and started a war with CHina in the process), how many of you libs would be whining about the torture and genocide in Iraq?"
---------------------------------------------------------
That is the problem with you guys, you can't imagine any solution that doesn't involve some kind of war.

The only reason why other countries are brought up like N. Korea, Pakistan, ect.. is they are guilty of the same things that you guys said were the reason we so desperately had to go to war with Iraq ASAP. Instead with countries like Pakistan and China we kiss their butts and with Pakistan we give them money in foreign aid while we import everything we can from China to finance their economy while letting them be one the of countries which are the biggest holders of treasury bonds (the money we have borrowed to finance the national debt and pay for this war and Bush's "tax cuts").

We are not saying we should have gone to war with them instead or also, we are wondering the reason why you guys are not as adament to go to war with these other countries since they are just as guilty as if not more than Iraq in not being democracies, torturing their people, posessing WMD's and so on. The better question is why do you guys not give a shiat about the poor tortured citizens and WMD's of any other country than Irag?

Isn't this policy of invading countries without nukes like Iraq yet wanting to negotiate or even kiss the butts of countries who posess nukes sending the wrong message and encouraging countries to want to develop them? No wonder Iran is in such a rush to ge them.

Considering our founding fathers worked hard to guarentee our right to question our government when they are messing up, like they are now, how does it make a person anti-American? Doesn't that mean they love America enough to want to make it better? Isn't the people who want to silence any critical voices the ones who are un-American since that is what guys like Stalin, Hitler, and Hussein did?

I know I am using common sense and reason on FARK so I don't expect a reasonable answer but more "whiny liberal" soundbytes.

Richard_Feynman's_Big_Toe

Because your name rocks, I'll take a shot at it.

1) Is Iraq a threat to US safety?
Iraq as a nation was not a threat to US safety prior to the renewed pressure and attacks brought on by the Bush (2) administration. Currently, as a congregational point for anti-American activity and terrorist attacks, the region of Iraq does play host to a number of threats that did not exist previously.

2) Is North Korea a threat to US safety?
Directly, no. However North Korea is a threat to international stability, and is a nation which is technically still at war with the US and South Korea, under the terms of an armistice - but not a complete cessation. The threat from North Korea is to South Korea.

3) Should we be worried about terrorism?
Absolutely. Terrorism, at home and abroad, is the greatest threat in our time. However, Terrorism is a tactic and you can never defeat a tactic by military might, you can only defeat a tactic by proving it ineffective. Unfortunately, there is no way to stop the ultimate terrorist - a lone actor with a willingness to die for his cause - without an awful lot of luck. The cure for terrorism is a very long-term one, which will take generations of work. Encourage these cultures to value living more than dying for faith.

4) Is pre-emptivly attacking North Korea a good/fair plan?
It would be an absolute disaster. Even without nuclear weapons, the political fallout internationally would cripple the American economy.

5) If attacking NK isn't a good idea, why does it matter that our troops are tied up in Iraq?
It doesn't matter that the troops are tied up in Iraq, what matters is that the administration has given every indication that they were focused on non-existent threats to US security from Iraq while North Korea went from "maybe the ability to build" a nuclear bomb, to "one or two to as many as eight" nuclear weapons with one being shipped FedEx from Pakistan (or a former Soviet state) Ground troops are not the answer and should never be a pre-emptive weapon, they are a last resort second only to nuclear weapons themselves and should be treated as such.

6) If the Iraq war was over WMD and protecting America, why doesn't this apply to Pakistan/N. Korea/France?
Because the "liberals" among us realized from the start that the Iraq war had no justification on the basis of WMD's and security for the US. After the invasion of Afghanistan, which was completely justified, terrorists found it much easier to run and hide in countries like Pakistan and Iran, than they found it in Iraq. Under Hussein, those people would find no shelter. After Hussein, with many parts of the country considered unsecured, they could find plenty.