It's all Bush's fault!
Craig Ireneus
China quake death toll rises above 8,700
By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer 58 minutes ago
CHENGDU, China - A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing more than 8,700 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country's worst quake in three decades.
The 7.9-magnitude quake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. Striking in midafternoon, it emptied office buildings across the country in Beijing and could be felt as far away as Vietnam.
Snippets from state media and photos posted on the Internet underscored the immense scale of the devastation. In the town of Juyuan, south of the epicenter, a three-story high school collapsed, burying as many as 900 students and killing at least 50, the official Xinhua news agency said. Photos showed people using cranes, mechanical hoists and their hands to remove slabs of concrete and steel.
Buried teenagers struggling to break free from the rubble, "while others were crying out for help," Xinhua said. Families waited in the rain near the wreckage as rescuers wrote the names of the dead on a blackboard, Xinhua said.
The earthquake hit one of the last homes of the giant panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, in Wenchuan county, which remained out of contact, Xinhua said.
In Chengdu, it crashed telephone networks and hours later left parts of the city of 10 million in darkness.
"We can't get to sleep. We're afraid of the earthquake. We're afraid of all the shaking," said 52-year-old factory worker Huang Ju, who took her ailing, elderly mother out of the Jinjiang District People's Hospital. Outside, Huang sat in a wheelchair wrapped in blankets while her mother, who was ill, slept in a hospital bed next to her.
Xinhua reported 8,533 people died in Sichuan alone and 216 others in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.
Worst affected were four counties including the quake's epicenter in Wenchuan, 60 miles northwest of Chengdu. Landslides left roads impassable Tuesday, causing the government to order soldiers into the area on foot, state television said, and heavy rain prevented four military helicopters from landing.
Wenchuan's Communist Party secretary appealed for air drops of tents, food and medicine. "We also need medical workers to save the injured people here," Xinhua quoted Wang Bin as telling other officials who reached him by phone.
To the east, in Beichuan county, 80 percent of the buildings fell, and 10,000 people were injured, aside from 3,000 to 5,000 dead, Xinhua said. State media said two chemical plants in an industrial zone of the city of Shifang collapsed, burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia.
Though slow to release information at first, the government and its state media ramped up quickly. Nearly 20,000 soldiers, police and reservists were sent to the disaster area.
Disasters always pose a test for the communist government, whose mandate rests heavily on maintaining order, delivering economic growth, and providing relief in emergencies.
Pressure for a rapid response was particularly intense this year, with the government already grappling with public discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics.
"I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy," President Bush said in a statement.
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge sent his condolences to President Hu Jintao, adding: "The Olympic Movement is at your side, especially during these difficult moments. Our thoughts are with you."
Premier Wen Jiabao, a geologist by training, called the quake "a major geological disaster," and traveled to the disaster area to oversee rescue and relief operations.
"Hang on a bit longer. The troops are rescuing you," Wen shouted to people buried in the Traditional Medicine Hospital in the city of Dujiangyan, on the road to Wenchuan, in comments broadcast by CCTV.
"As long as there was a slightest hope, we should make our effort a hundred times and we will never relax," he said outside the collapsed school in Juyuan.
The quake was the deadliest since one in 1976 in the city of Tangshan near Beijing that killed 240,000 — although some reports say as many as 655,000 perished — the most devastating in modern history. A 1933 quake near where Monday's struck killed at least 9,000, according to geologists.
Monday's quake occurred on a fault where South Asia pushes against the Eurasian land mass, smashing the Sichuan plain into mountains leading to the Tibetan highlands — near communities that held sometimes violent protests of Chinese rule in mid-March.
Much of the area has been closed to foreign media and travelers since then, compounding the difficulties of getting information. Roads north from Chengdu to the disaster area were sealed off early Tuesday to all but emergency convoys.
In Chengdu, the region's commercial center, the airport closed for seven hours, reopening only for emergency and a few outbound flights. A major railway line to the northeast was ruptured, stranding about 10,000 passengers, Xinhua said. Although most of the power had been restored by nightfall, phone and Internet service was spotty and some neighborhoods remained without power and water.
Nervous residents spent the night outside, some playing cards or heading to the suburbs. State media, citing the Sichuan seismology bureau, reported 313 aftershocks.
"Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside and waiting," said Ronen Medzini, an Israeli student in Chengdu, via text message.
When it hit shortly before 2:30 p.m., the quake rumbled for nearly three minutes, witnesses said, driving people into the streets in panic.
"It was really scary to be on the 26th floor in something like that," said Tom Weller, a 49-year-old American oil and gas consultant staying at the Holiday Inn. "You had to hold on to something like that or you'd fall over. It shook for so long and so violently, you wondered how long the building would be able to stand this."
While most buildings in the city held up, those in the countryside tumbled. On the outskirts of Chongqing, a school collapsed, killing at least five people. Residents said teachers kept the children inside, thinking it was safer.
The city of Mianyang ordered all able-bodied males under 50 to take water and tools and walk or drive to Beichuan, where most of the buildings had collapsed.
State TV broadcast tips for anyone trapped in the earthquake. "If you're buried, keep calm and conserve your energy. Seek water and food, and wait patiently for rescue," CCTV said.
Although initially measured at 7.8 magnitude, the U.S. Geological Survey later revised its assessment of the quake to 7.9. Its depth — about six miles below the surface, according to the USGS — gave the tremor such wide impact, geologists said.
The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing, 930 miles to the north, causing evacuations of office towers. People ran screaming into the streets in other cities, where many residents said they had never felt an earthquake.
In Beijing, where hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors are expected for the Olympics, stadiums, arenas and other venues for the games were undamaged.
Li Jiulin, a top engineer on the 91,000-seat National Stadium — known as the Bird's Nest and the jewel of the Olympics — was conducting a site inspection when the quake struck. He told reporters the building was designed to withstand a 8.0 quake.
"The Olympic venues were not affected by the earthquake," said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee. "We considered earthquakes when building those venues."
Some 660 miles to the east in Anhui province, chandeliers swayed in the lobby of the Buckingham Palace Hotel. "We've never felt anything like this our whole lives," said a hotel employee surnamed Zhu.
The massive Three Gorges dam, the world's largest about 350 miles to the east of the epicenter, was not affected, according to the information office of State Council Three Gorges Construction Committee. The area around the enormous dam remains increasingly precarious as rising waters in the reservoir have led to landslides.
Premier Wen, after arriving in Chengdu, traveled to Dujiangyan, near the collapsed high school. On his plane, he appealed for people to rally together.
"This is an especially challenging task," state TV showed Wen saying, reading from a statement. "In the face of the disaster, what's most important is calmness, confidence, courage and powerful command."
Kyle Curtis
Brent Wolters
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Kyle Curtis
I'm curious as to what makes him racist. Care to fill me in?
Simon Taylor
1/2 an hour later
We packed up our things
We said we'd send letters
And all of those little things
And they knew we were lying
But they smiled just same
It seemed they'd already
Forgotten we came
Brent Wolters
Mike Huckabee on Fox & Friends this morning was making the point that the Democrats should have pretended that Bush’s remarks didn’t have anything to do with them. He said that if you throw a rock over the fence, it’s the dog that gets hit that lets out a howl.
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Appeasers
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Drew McDougal
by Frank James
Watching the appearance of conservative radio-talk show host Kevin James on Chris Matthews' "Hardball" show yesterday was a little like watching a car wreck. Very ugly but riveting too.
The topic was whether President Bush was correct, during a speech at Israel's Knesset, to criticize some people (read Sen. Barack Obama) as appeasers, just like Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who infamously tried to avert war by making concessions to Adolf Hitler.
James (no relation) said Bush was absolutely correct. Then Matthews, like a smart courtroom lawyer who knows beforehand how the witness will answer the question, asked James what exactly Chamberlain did wrong.
That's where the fun began. It was clear that James, who's more of a screamer than even Matthews, didn't have a handle on Chamberlain, at one time getting so flustered that he referred to him and "Nevillain Chamberlain."
"He was an appeaser" was the best James could shout. Which, as you can tell from the video, Matthews suspected all along.
I've seen before that look Matthews' had on his face as he toyed with James. It was on a cat I once owned which tormented a mouse it had caught.
"He's as bad as the White House press secretary that doesnt even know what the Cuban Missile crisis was," he added.
--
Buaidh no bas
Kyle Curtis
I don't think you'd feel safe until the entire country is surrounded by the 20 to 30 foot fences that encircle the Green Zone in Iraq. As Matt Taibbi points out, those walls have more to do with keeping something in rather than keeping anything out. Namely, the illusion that the Green Zone and the Americans' base is a "safe zone" where they are protected from any thoughts that may lead to doubts as to why they're there.
The world is a dangerous place, you've made that clear over and over again in your posts. Anything that may lead to any other conclusion would result in people voting for Democratic candidates. Your posts remind me of Al Franken's story of being chased through the streets of L.A. by a pack of rabid street dogs, and he realized that, at that moment, he was a Republican voter.
Tell me, are you scared all the time, or only when you're in the voting booth?
From: brenton...@comcast.net
To: js...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Appeasers- Quote of the day.
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 13:51:56 -0700
Brent Wolters
Kyle Curtis
Like making cracks about somebody assassinating Barack Obama.
A result, I'm sure, every conservative would want to see though they deny it....
Kyle Curtis
The funny thing is, every time you bring up Daniel Peal, I think, "Hm. Perhaps Barack Obama is right for stating we should be ready to have military action in Pakistan whether supported by Pakistan's leadership or not. Maybe John McCain really doesn't have an idea of what he's talking about..."
Have you started building that 20-foot wall around your house yet?
Brent Wolters
Brent Wolters
Kyle Curtis
Which is a reason why he'll have his ass handed to himself come November.
I wonder if McCain will be able to win his home state this election. You know, Panama?
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Bitchslapped
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 22:44:14 -0700
Drew McDougal
Buaidh no bas
Kyle Curtis
Speaking of foreign policy, ironically more Americans have been killed in the Middle East due to Bush-McCain's foreign policy than under Clinton-Gore's. Interesting, no?
From: brenton...@comcast.net
To: js...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Appeasers- Quote of the day.
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 22:49:52 -0700
Brent Wolters
-----Original Message-----
From: js...@googlegroups.com [mailto:js...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kyle Curtis
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Kyle Curtis
I mean, at the time both countries were at war with us. Conservatives made it quite clear that we were fighting Vietnamese backed by commie China, and the Soviets fought a series of proxy wars with the U.S. Those two countries were actively killing Americans, unlike Iran, and yet somehow these Republican appeasers met with the leaders. If you knew anything about history, you would be aware of this. But you don't.
Oh yeah, we were an "exporting nation" thirty years ago. Now the only things were export are our jobs while we import billions of dollars of unnecessary crap from China.
Anyways, conservatives called Reagan an appeaser during the 80s. Maybe we'll just refer to him as the Great Appeaser from now on...
I mean, what's your point?
KGC
From: brenton...@comcast.net
To: js...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Appeasers
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 09:34:58 -0700
Kyle Curtis
Oh well. Yes, allowing China to get nuclear secrets was bad. I mean, we should've at least got a case of mangoes, like Shrub was able to arrange from India in exchange of sharing nuclear secrets! (And then telling Pakistan to do an impossible anatomical act to themselves.)
I mean, we should've at least got some won tons or something?
From: brenton...@comcast.net
To: js...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Appeasers
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 09:34:58 -0700
Brent Wolters
I'll have more to say on this later as a broader point in the wake of the appeasement kerfuffle, but there is obvious problem here. The belief that radical Islamic terrorists and rogue regimes can simply be negotiated with is a false premise. We negotiated with the Soviet Union because in the end they were a rational government (i.e., they wanted to live), even if we disagreed with them violently over ideology.
People that want to wipe a democratic country off the map, are perfectly happy making national (and international) policy based on the coming of the 13th imam, and are willing to die making all the above happen aren't going to have a pleasant talk with us and suddenly change their ways because, well, it's the right thing to do.
There is a difference between an ideologue and a zealot. It's an important distinction to bear in mind.
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Jsmog
Jsmog
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051503306.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
McCAIN: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."
Aside from the GIANT flip flop here, what was that about appeasement again?
The Bush/McCain statements that negotiating with America's adversaries is naive, irresponsible, and constitutes "appeasement" is, well, as naive and irresponsible as expected. Refusing to speak with the enemy flies in the face of the bipartisan policies of generations of American presidents--Republicans and Democrats--including such great "appeasers" as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton And George H.W. Bush. They all successfully negotiated with America's adversaries and enemies, sometimes even those who had tens of thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at America's heartland and who were arming guerilla armies (today we would call them terrorists) who were killing American troops.
In the short run, such attacks by Bush/MCainb might make a good bumper sticker in an attmep to define Obama as weak on national security before Obama fully defines himself. But, as shown by his Philadelphia speech on race and his criticisms of the McCain and Clinton's gas tax holiday proposals, Obama has an uncommon ability to successfully inject a certain level of nuance into the political debate. McCain may gain a temporary advantage with certain Americans for jumping on Bush's "appeasement" bandwagon. But over the course of the campaign, Americans will see that he represents a continuation of Bush's tough sounding talk, but counter-productive policies, that have only strengthened America's adversaries like Iran and North Korea, protected Osama Bin Laden and his top Al Quaeda lieutenants hiding in the mountains of our "ally Pakistan, weakened our armed forces by tying them down in an unwinnable civil war, and made the country less safe.
If Bush and McCain want to assert that an American President negotiating with America's adversaries and enemies is appeasement, than virtually every American President--both Republican and Democratic--since the Second World War is an appeaser.
• The US allied itself with the communist Soviet Union and its notorious leader Josef Stalin during the World War II and American Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Trumen, along with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met personally with Stalin three times during the War. In 1933, realizing that isolation had not stopped communism from taking hold in the Soviet Union and US interests required Soviet cooperation, FDR invited Stalin's Foreign Minister to Washington for negotiations, which ended in an official agreement establishing formal diplomatic relations. In 1941, two days after Nazi Germany invaded the communist Soviet Union, President Roosevelt promised assistance and unfroze Soviet assets. American diplomat Averell Harriman and Churchill's minister Lord Beaverbrook led a special mission to Moscow and soon a confidential protocol was signed in which the US and Britain agreed to send military supplies to the Soviet Union. In December 1941, after Pearl Harbor, the United States and the Soviet Union became wartime allies. President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and General Secretary Stalin personally met for negotiations twice during the war to plot common strategy against German and Japan, at the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Yalta Conference in early 1945, followed by a third summit with Stalin and the new American President Harry Truman and the new British Prime Minister Clement Atlee at the Potsdam Conference in the summer of 1945. The result of Roosevelt's, Truman's and Churchhill's willingness to negotiate with communist adversaries--victory over the Germans and Japanese in World War II.
• Throughout the Cold War with the Soviet Union, which followed World War II, American Presidents held "Summit Meetings" numerous times with their Soviet adversaries when they believed it was in America's interest.
• In 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated the Democrats for President, in part by promising "I shall go to Korea" to resolve the Korean War. Within weeks following his election, Eisenhower made a secret trip to Korea to meet with Communist leaders. His meetings with our adversary led to an Armistice that ended the Korean War.
• Despite the intensifying Cold War and the growing arms nuclear race between the US and the Soviet Union, President Eisenhower believed it was better to have in person negotiations with Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, to ease Cold War tensions, even as Khrushchev famously proclaimed, "We will bury you". In 1955, President Eisenhower, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden and French Prime Minister Edgar Faure met with Khrushchev at the Geneva Summit. Despite the arms race, Khrushchev eventually advocated a policy of "peaceful coexistence" and in 1959, at Eisenhower's invitation, he spent 10 days touring the United States and meeting with the President at Camp David, leading to a significant thaw in US-Soviet relations.
• During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US and the Soviet Union came as close to nuclear war as at anytime in Cold War history. But while staring down Khrushchev, Kennedy also held off his generals who were prepared for war, and negotiated with Khrushchev to remove Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba in exchange for the US agreeing not to overthrow Fidel Castro, along with a secret accord to remove certain American missiles from Turkey nine months later. Kennedy's hard-nosed diplomacy averted a worldwide nuclear catastrophe. Ironically, it also started to build a certain trust between Kennedy and Khrushchev that led to the signing of a nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.
• While the US and Russia managed to avoid a hot war, throughout the Cold War they fought numerous proxy wars in various parts of the world, most notably in Vietnam where Russian and Communist Chinese arms were supplied to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong (whom today we would call terrorists) which were used to kill American soldiers. This didn't stop Richard Nixon, perhaps the most anti-communist of all American Presidents, from pursuing negotiations with Russia and China and eventually negotiate an end to American involvement in the Vietnam War. Despite China's military support of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, in 1972 Nixon became the first American President to visit Communist China, eventually leading to the normalization of relations. Simultaneously, Nixon pursued a policy of détente with the Soviet Union, leading to the signing of the SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) treaty during Nixon's visit to Moscow in May, 1972. In 1973 he signed a peace treaty with North Vietnam, ending America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Today, America carries on peaceful trade with communist Vietnam.
• Although President Reagan termed the Soviet Union "the evil empire" and in Berlin famously called on Soviet leader Gorbachev to "tear down this wall", a much as anything, it may have been Reagan's personal diplomacy with Gorbachev that led to the end of the Soviet Empire. Beginning with the Reykjavik summit in 1968, Reagan met annually with Gorbachev. Gorbachev returned to Moscow convinced that Reagan was not, as he earlier thought, a "caveman" and did not intend to attack Russia militarily. This gave him the political opening to continue his policy of perestroika which involved economic liberalization, democratic reforms and drastic military cuts. President George H.W. Bush continued Reagan's negotiations with Gorbachev until the collapse of the Soviet Union. If there was ever a lesson in the potential benefits of talking with our adversaries, it was in the extended negotiations between Gorbachev and Presidents Reagan and the first President Bush which ended the Cold War.
• Although the second President Bush proclaimed last week to the Israeli Parliament that negotiating with adversaries is "appeasement", the Israelis themselves have never shrunk from negotiating with either enemy Arab governments, or Yassar Arafat and the PLO--which carried out terrorist attacks in Israel--when Israel believed it was in its self-interest to do so. Egyptian armies attacked Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973, the last time under the leadership of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Within a year of assuming office in 1977, President Jimmy Carter met with Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. In November 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel, speaking before the Knesset and implicitly recognizing Israel, despite threats from several Communist Eastern European countries to retaliate. In September, 1978, President Carter invited Sadat and the hawkish new Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David for direct piece talks. Begin and Sadat personally hated each other but were repeatedly lured back into the negotiations by Carter's personal appeals. In the end they shook hands and signed the Camp David Agreements under which Israel returned the Sinai Penninsula to Egypt, which it had occupied in the 1967 War, in return for normalization of relations and access to the Suez Canal. As a result of these negotiations, the strongest military force in the Arab world was no longer at war with Israel and Israel was a safer nation. In 1993, Yassar Arafat of the PLO and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin signed the Oslo Accords in the presence of President Bill Clinton. While the accords did not ultimately resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they led to nearly 7 years of relative peace. There have been numerous direct talks between the PLO and the Israel government since then, despite the PLO's history as a terrorist organization.
It is President George W. Bush who has moved decisively away from the tradition of the previous 11 American Presidents--both Republicans and Democrats--of negotiating with our adversaries when they believed it was in the strategic interest of the United States (although even W. has occasionally done so.) Early in his Presidency, Bush proclaimed that Iraq, Iran and North Korea constituted an "axis of evil" and increased American hostilities against those countries. The result has been that America is less safe than it was 8 years ago.
Under President Clinton, the United States negotiated an accord with North Korea to ban their development of nuclear weapons in exchange for certain food and energy aid. Under President Bush, such aid largely halted and North Korea then expelled international weapons inspectors and detonated its first atomic weapon. Only late in his Presidency has Bush returned to a more conciliatory policy towards North Korea, through 6-party talks which may in part have put the North Korean nuclear threat back in the toothpaste tube. (Although the US has always held Libya responsible for the Lockerbie attacks on Pan Am Flight 103, one of the biggest terrorist attacks on Americans before 9/11, the Bush administration led talks with Libyan leader Qaddafi under which Qaddafi gave up his nuclear program. Libya 34th nation to sign the nuclear test ban treaty).
As for the other two members of the "Axis of Evil", Iraq and Iran, Bush's policies couldn't have been a bigger disaster. As well as costing the lives of over 4,000 brave American troops, bankrupting the nation with $2 trillion dollars in long-range debt, bogging America down in a civil war, weakening our armed forces, and distracting us from capturing Osama Bin Laden in the mountains of our "ally" Pakistan, the Iraq War has greatly strengthened Iran. The leaders of the government we support in Iraq spent years of exile in Iran and are allied with the Iranian government. Most of the various Iranian factions and militia receive arms and support from Iran. When the Iraqi government needed to forge a ceasefire with Sadr and his Mahdi Army, it was the Iranians who brokered the deal.
The day before President Bush, supported by John McCain, denounced negotiations with Iran as appeasement, Bush's own Defense Secretary said of Iran, "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them."
So if George Bush and John McCain want to debate Barack Obama on whether talking with America's adversaries is appeasement, that should be a debate Obama, as he has said, is happy to have. Obama has the authority of 11 Republican and Democratic Presidents parties standing behind him. Eight years of a Bush Presidency has made America less safe. John McCain apparently wants to continue the same policies. Despite Bush/McCain's charges of appeasement, negotiating with America's adversaries helped win World War II and the Cold War, end the Vietnam War, and bring peace between Israel and Egypt.
As President Kennedy said, "We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate."
Jsmog: 100% Correct
Brent: 100% Wrong
I'll have more to say on this later as a broader point in the wake of the appeasement kerfuffle, but there is obvious problem here. The belief that radical Islamic terrorists and rogue regimes can simply be negotiated with is a false premise. We negotiated with the Soviet Union because in the end they were a rational government (i.e., they wanted to live), even if we disagreed with them violently over ideology.
People that want to wipe a democratic country off the map, are perfectly happy making national (and international) policy based on the coming of the 13th imam, and are willing to die making all the above happen aren't going to have a pleasant talk with us and suddenly change their ways because, well, it's the right thing to do.
There is a difference between an ideologue and a zealot. It's an important distinction to bear in mind.
"At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." -John McCain
Brent Wolters
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Why does Brent support Republican Appeasers?
Kyle Curtis
"Stinking corpse"... "Great Satan".... "Evil Empire." I understand the only foreign policy enthusiastically supported by so-called conservatives is to utilize full military might because one country's leader calls another country names.
Yes, Al Qaida is a dangerous threat. Yes, they should be pursued and challenged at all costs. No, they do not control any country. (Unless you include Pakistan, in which Obama used the decidedly non-appeasement language of having military action in Pakistan's borders to pursue Al Qaida, with or without the approval of Pakistan's leaders. Conservatives even bitched and moaned about that. Probably because they didn't say it first...)
Al Qaida wasn't a presence in Iraq prior to the occupation, as Iraq was too secular & Sunni. Now it's a fundamentalist Shiite country (one of very few in the Middle East), and as such is a haven for terrorists. You read such nonsense on stupid blogs like "Sound Politics" about "How if I was an Iraqi, I'd fight with the Americans to get foreign fighters out." It's a complete irrational mindset like this that led to this utterly hopeless foreign policy fiasco. In reality, there is no such thing as an "Iraqi." It's all broken down by ethnic and tribal standards. And considering the Shiites in control of Iraq have more in common with the Shiites in Iran, they're doing exactly what was suggested: Fighting to kick out the foreign occupiers. Namely, us.
But, I know! Let's increase the number of U.S. troops so they'll have more targets to shoot at! Brilliant!
It'd be a lot nicer if the politics on display here were a bit more 'sound.' I've said it before and I'll say it again: More dead Americans in the mid-east under Bush-Cheney-McCain foreign policy than under Clinton-Gore-Obama foreign policy.
From: brenton...@comcast.net
To: js...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Appeasers
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 11:28:33 -0700
Jsmog
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/15/bush-suggests-obama-wants-appeasement-of-terrorists/
BUSH: "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along, We have heard this foolish delusion before, As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Nevermind, that when an American official is overseas, including the president himself, you never talk bad about another American on foreign soil. No Democrat, no matter how much they dispise Bush, would trash him like Bush has blatantly abused his power in this case. Disgraceful. But seriously, if you think who Bush is refering to here is Carter!? From 30 years ago? C'mon. You've got to do better than that.
Kyle Curtis
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 10:49:00 -0800
From: junea...@gmail.com
To: js...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Appeasers
Kyle Curtis
As James Rubin pointed out in that story you didn't read:
A new low? For Shrub??? Is that even possible????
Worst. President. Ever.
Subject: [Jsmog] Re: Why does Brent support Republican Appeasers?
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 12:15:37 -0700
Brent Wolters
Priceless: ‘‘I understand when you’re running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case,’’ said White House press secretary Dana Perino.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/952114,app051508.article
Bush never called Obama an appeaser. Bush never attacked Obama, if anything he was referring to Jimmy Carter. Obama must be guilty as well since he automatically ASSumed Bush was referring to him.Obamas response to the Bush speech reveals two things: 1) He is an appeaser.2) He is not ready to be promoted.
Brent Wolters
Add a new one to the list: Can't mention his wife's troubling rhetoric and record.
Brent Wolters
Kyle Curtis
Maybe we should be like John McCain and "take Bush at his word." Because, you know, Bush has never told a lie...
Kyle Curtis
Gosh, if only the DNC turned the focus on the fact that John McCain's "cunt" of a wife is a convicted felon and drug addict. (Actually it might make him more electable with drug addicts and convicts. Aren't they a solid Democratic demographic, Brent?)
Kyle Curtis
Daniel Curtis
I don't really care. In the end, it's just as much of a non-issue as monica was. Just funny how value systems don't swing both ways for some folks...
Michael Haase
free ride is about over.
Kyle Curtis
Keating Five? Yawn.
Kyle Curtis
Brent Wolters
Was that in '79 or '84? Really Keating 5 is McCaincient history.
No virus found in this incoming message.
Kyle Curtis
i knew it!
Jsmog
- He's an old geezer that can't remember what he said last week, much less the fact that he uttered the exact opposite of the nonsense he's speaking now, just two years ago.
- He's a liar and a panderer.
- He's got the current administration shilling for his campaign using the public podium and public resources to do so.
- He's not only under qualified for the job of president, but he is a danger to this country for how he plans to make us even less safe than Bush has already done so.
Engel: "You said that negotiating with Iran is pointless, and then you went further. You said that it was appeasement. Were you referring to Senator Barack Obama?"
Bush: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has. People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously. And if you don't take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn't take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolph Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/24696309#24696309
Somehow the topic changed to nuclear weapons!? How does that answer the question of whether he was referring to Obama in his comments about appeasement, much less Carter? Maybe Dana Perino knows more about what Bush is trying to say than Bush actually knows?
On the bright side of all this all, Bush and the right calling Obama an appeaser is only going to help Obama that much more at this point. Beyond the fact that Mr. President 28% Approval Rating has zero credibility on anything, least of all in the Middle East, his attack on Obama is absurd. Since Bush is so reviled at this point, the right must be just furious at him, because now they can't use their appeasement smear against Obama seeing as how Bush has gone and ruined it with his low popularity, zero credibility, and being wrong all the time. "Right! He's an appeaser. Sure Bush, whatever you say, dumbass...." Obama's call for negotiations with Iran has been welcomed by governments throughout the world and follows the advice of the conservative "Iraq Study Group" headed by Lee Hamilton and James Baker. How that stance constitutes "Appeasement" of any nation or any leader is anybody's guess. Yeah, this is going to stick about as much as the Renko? Recco? what was his name again? Ah, yeah, Rezko.
I am so sick of hearing the "Appeasement" argument trotted out whenever some right-wing blowhard wants to sound "tough" and dismiss diplomacy no matter how badly the historical context screams out for it. Bush has been using this old canard throughout his entire presidency to try to politically isolate anyone who doesn't see the world through his jaundiced eyes. John McCain naturally agrees with Bush and vowed never to talk to U.S. adversaries unless they totally capitulate to U.S. demands ahead of time, which they will have no idea what those demands are since nobody will have ever talked to them.
So what is it we debating here really?
- Is it the sidestepping by pretending we are 4 year olds pushing each other at the water fountain by trying to say no, Bush was actually referring his appeasement remarks to Carter, not to Obama, instead of addressing the real issue?
- Is it the fact that it is still completely inexcuseable for President Douch Bag to make denegrating political remarks towards another fellow American, former ex-president, presidential nominee, or otherwise, in front of a foreign allied government's elected parliment of which a word such as appeasement is very closely linked to the word holocaust?
- Is it to conflate what Neville Chamberlain's biggest mistake was in the 30s, which was to not include Russia in their negotiation talks, instead of trying to push Nazi Germany east to fight Russia by giving them Czechoslovakia, even though bringing Russia to the table initally would have kept Germany's power in check by a two front war from the start, which is the real lesson of why full diplomacy works among adversaries?
- Is this whole debate rather about the failed non-diplomatic cowboy policies of the Bush administration that has led to the 7 fully operational nuclear war heads in North Korea after Bush Sr & Clinton had verifiably brought their nuclear production to a complete halt, not to mention Iran's saber rattling in response to Bush's aggressive policies and the fact that they are a much stronger country as a result of the Iraq war?
- Maybe this is a debate about whether negotiations and diplomacy actually work, despite the many historical examples that show it to be the most successful tool when dealing with one's adversaries, so much so throughout history, that the day before President Bush, supported by John McCain, denounced negotiations with Iran as appeasement, Bush's own Defense Secretary Gates said of Iran, "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them."
Simon Taylor
And all of those little things
And they knew we were lying
But they smiled just same
It seemed they'd already
Forgotten we came