The 100 Years War
In the past 24 hours, Dick Cheney has been in Baghdad, calling the Iraq War a "successful endeavor." John McCain's there too, and actually uttered those four magic words, "the surge is working," which only differs from Cheney's analysis in the scary possibility that McCain might actually believe it. Then again, maybe Cheney's pronouncement can be chalked up to youthful exuberance -- after all, he's almost 5 years younger than McCain.
And then there's that other possibility, the one that's starting to scare me: That by a certain neocon definition, Iraq is a success.
What if the war in Iraq did go on for 100 years, as McCain suggested it might? What are we looking at? An entire century of ever-increasing military spending, necessitating deep cuts in all other government programs -- like public education and health care and all that other sissy stuff. A staging ground for ten decades of warfare with Islamist militants, for whom the place is becoming a terrorist fantasy camp ("Come to Iraq and fight real Americans in your own back yard! Get your picture taken with real al Qaeda pros! Learn the fundamentals of blowing yourself up!"). And endless, lucrative contracts for American companies that support the war effort, from Grumman to Raytheon to -- of course -- Halliburton. Companies that in the absence of a Cold War might otherwise see their prospects dwindling.
What about that is not a success, by neocon standards? I've been scoffing at it for so long that think I missed the point. It's not a question of if the surge is working -- it's about whom it's working for.
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Bill Maher should stick to his foul mouthed comedy and forget attempting to state meaningful opinions about politics. He's of the moment and has no sense of history, his concern that the war takes funds away from education and healthcare doesn't take into consideration that neither of those subjects were a major national concern before he was born in 1956 and it would be a quarter of a century after he was born that it became part of the socialist scheme of things. The schools he went to were local concerns, the feds didn't butt in on education until after he finished school. On health care in his youth the medical profession provided the care with little control from the government and little attention from conniving lawyers. It was kind of nice in both cases, I lived through the same time before the liberals and socialists decided it wasn't working and that politicians and attorneys should watch over the issues.
God, How stupid can one person be?
Greetings, fyllus:
Poor Vernon. Stupidity is the measure of the slack-jawed, mouth-breathing Dupes who sit mesmerized when Rush Limbaloney is bloviating on the radio and when the scoundrels at Fox News Cesspool are dumping their bilge on them.
Don't blame poor Vernon who has effectively undergone a frontal lobotomy at the hands of his idols spewing the ultra-right, quasi-fascist propaganda at him and which he accepts without question. Bereft of critical thinking, he enters his ridiculous posts lacking in substantive meri, unaware of the spectacle he makes of himself.
It would be interesting to know how many of the squalling Dupes on Huff Post who are retirees have given up their medicare and social security-railroad retirement benefits as a symbol of their contempt for the "socialism that the liberals have foisted on America." Their idols tell them they should fend for themselves. They should try it with a lot of flag waving and cheering for the free market laissez -faire, until disaster strikes them of course.
This tune goes out to you, VernonC. Your post made me laugh out loud.
http://www
Um, Vernon, you're leaving a couple of things out: namely, that modern liberals didn't invent the basic fact that things aren't working; and that the unprecedented rise of corporatism is what's responsible for the rising cost of healthcare and the attack on schools.
You are quite mistaken, in saying that schools were "local concerns" until after Mayer went to school. Since before John Dewey (1916), public schools have been tracked and influenced by national priorities. You may be thinking of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which set aside funds for low-income students nationally. If you tire of hearing about injustice, you're welcome to tune back into Faux Sleaze, and set your (mind?) at ease.
As to health care being so much better before the government and "conniving lawyers" got into it, the real reason health care has decreased in quality and increased in expense is not because wronged patients sued, but because HMOs started making treatment decisions -- with a natural bent to their own bottom lines. Record malpractise awards are not a result of the lawyers trying the cases, but of juries who know very well who makes the money on health care, and who still persist in foisting shoddy treatment on the public.
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kill your tv, and grow a brain.
WE ARE THE LIBERALS AND SOCIALISTS
And we're coming to get you. You have been warned....
Yeah, the good old days...
Killer cars with the big 3 hiding their poor designs, black lung and so many other work place ills that could so easily have been prevented, white schools getting everything while blacks got the left over scraps (although not much better now), no rooting out the bad doctors so you never knew if you were putting your life into the hands of a quack....
you can have it back.
About 2 monts ago it dawned on me that Bush's consistant statement that he had made no mistakes, was actually correct. It was his plan to bankrupt the USA and make it difficult to get the government to actually function for us. Frankly if the USA were a corporation, we all would be shareholders, and Bush as CEO would have lost his job a long time ago. Time to impeach is now.
THE TIME TO IMPEACH WAS 9/12/01...
For gross dereliction of duty. The Bush administration had been warned of 9/11 again and again beforehand and did nothing to prevent it. Gross dereliction of duty and gross incompetence -- definitely impeachable offenses..
Well what do you have against "My Pet Goat"?
Good assessment, Bill. Good call to action, onwatch. But the situation is much worse that many imagine.
The neocon goal has been to put an end to government "by the people", by bankrupting it so that it no longer has the capacity to do what people want (or need). At the same time, their goal is to improve the "economy"--which measures the wealth of corporations and major stockholders, not the lives of wage-earning Americans. The drumbeat of war has allowed them to borrow a billion dollars a *day* from the Chinese, and put it into the hands of their corporate donors, thereby improving the "economy".
That much is pretty evident. What is less evident, but nonetheless true, is that none of that money is coming back. The Fortune 500 enjoys such an embarassment of loopholes that many pay no taxes at all. Many of them do so by paying huge sums to offshore accounts in foreign banks. That money is never coming back.
And with the repeal of the "estate tax", the last defense against the formation of a hereditary aristocracy was removed. Even when that "anti-aristocracy billionaire tax" is restored, it will take decades before even a small portion begins to come back--the part that isn't offshore, in a tax-avoiding "trust", or stored as a corporate asset.
In short, the American taxpayer has been raped, pure and simple. The capacity of the government to act on behalf of its people has been strangled for two or three decades to come. There will be no money to empower an FDA to safeguard the food supply against ingredients that cause obesity and long-term disease. There will be no money for effective oversight of drug companies, to ensure rigorous testing. There will be no money for real public education-
None of this bothers the neocons, of course. Because to them, life is simple. Either you are at the top of the heap and have the money and resources to protect yourself and your family, or you deserve what you get. Because that is the law of the jungle they serve. (And these people go to church? Please.)
Cheney summed it up beautifully when he was told that 67% of the American people want the "war" (aka billion-dollar per day occupation) in Iraq to end. His response to Diane Sawyer, on camera, was: "So?" The response could not have been more telling. He and his kind do *not* serve the American people. They support the rapidly forming "American Aristocracy", who are much less than the remaining 33%. The hereditary aristrocracy he represents *benefits* from having things the way they are.
Note, too, that we are currently *buying* a semblance of peace in Iraq, by paying people who used to be insurgents. The surge is working? Please. The minute we stop paying them, they'll be back in the streets--because the political reconciliation that was supposed to be enabled by the surge has not come to pass. The only effect the extra troops can possibly have had is to make the insurgents lie quiet, for a time, As soon as the troops go, they'll come back. Which means that a) We can keep our troops there forever (and keep putting money into the hands of would-be insurgents), or b) We can start bringing our troops home--and no matter *when* we do so, the people who made that decision will be blamed for "escalating violence", when the simple fact is that there never *could* be more than a temporary lull.
The war is a success by Osama bin Laden's measure as well. Writing his call for Jihad, one stated purpose was to get oil over $100 a barrel, both to bring wealth to the Arab producers, and to cripple the US economy. Didn't hear any mention of that on the MSN, did we ?
This misbegotten war to stroke Bush's ego and enrich his corporate sponsors has played right into that goal, and will be the downfall of our way of life.
Gee, Bill, we haven't had a good 100 years war since the 30 years war. Don't be such a downer.
I agree, Bill. Our country is doomed by these greedy types, with their hands perpetually in our wallets and up our rearends. The Military Industrial Complex is dancing in the streets, waving dollars around, then placing them back in their pockets.
Your show is great, but I hope that I do not have to suffer too much, as I notice that you have had panels of crappy, right-wing repubs. on a few times. No problem, I just turn off the show and wait for you or your bosses to come to their senses. If I wanted to watch conservative drivel, then I can turn on Murdoch's "Fake News" shows, 24/7.
Great post, Bill. Saw you on Hardball and thought Chris Matthews was a terrible straight man for you - he didn't respond to any of your great remarks.
The problem is WE are not paying attention. Ever wonder how these companies get these contracts? Ever wonder how things went so horrible wrong in Iraq? Read the Pulitizer Prize- Winning book (yes a book - not an Internet link) before November: The Wrong Stuff - The Extraordinary Saga of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Most Corrupt Congressman Ever Caught by Marcus Stern, Jerry Kammer, Dean Calbreath, George Condon.
We have major problems in this country and, as always, it starts at the top of the food chain. If we, the People, don't reign these people in and start getting leaders in our government, we will be giving up all our freedoms and rights.
And Jerry Lewis, Larry Craig, and John Doolittle - you need to resign because you are traitors.
A hot tub bath with "Duke" aboard the Dukester, a trip to the men's room with Larry, or John Doolittle's reputation - GOP hypocrisy.
We're not expected to choose from these options, are we? Ewwwww.
Totally missing it again, Bill. We can turn the Mideast into allies just like we did Germany and Japan. I say, Hooray for Mr. McCain! He is exactly right to honor what we are doing in Iraq. It brought him this far and will take him to the White House. People fail to recognize the extraordinary outcome resulting from our Mideast policies. Doesn't everyone see that the radical Sunni feeling of inevitability has been broken? Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia as a government were promoting Wahabism and on a roll. Muslims have a simplistic faith. When things go well for the bad guys, like after 9/11, Allah is happy with them. This gives them momentum on the “Arab Street.” Allah is with them, obviously. Now, not so much. By empowering the historically more peace loving Iraqi Shiites we did more to stabilize the Muslim world than is generally given credit for. Saddam was the biggest enemy of the Shiites and a barrier for the Saudis, who flourished and could afford the luxury of supporting hate of the West without opposition or distraction. Now Saddam is gone, Obama hides in a cave, and the Sunnis and Shiites can concentrate on their longstanding historical enmity with more even odds, leaving us alone. Another massive plus is that the theologically more traditional and numerous Iraqi Shiites have risen in power to counterbalance the Shiite loonies in Iran as well. Any way you look at it, it is a beautiful strategic win for the US and the entire West!
JKoos: First of all, "Obama hides in a cave?"
Secondly, here's a simple test that should tell us if the Iraq Occupation has been a success: has it created more terrorists than it's destroyed? All intelligence on this says that the answer to this is YES. Therefore, I submit to you that this has been a disaster.
Last I heard, Cheney was the one that couldn't be pried out of his spider hole...
Even if all you have said is false, which I don't agree with completely on some of your premises, the bottom line is we ARE there! Packing up and leaving is NOT a strategy!
Any person that has a minimum of intellect will know there will be a power vacuum if we just cut and run. So what is the alternative
All this talk of keep your eye on the ball-its the oil! or its this or its that. None of the facts bear out all this I hate Bush tin foil hat wearing people. Even if I concede your harebrained reasons for the war, the question is STILL what is a realistic plan? A power vacuum is not a realistic plan
By peace loving Iraqi Shiites do you mean the Mehdi Army? And Obama is campaigning publicly not hiding in a cave. He will occupy the White House next January.
THERE'S A BUS LEAVING FOR BAGHDAD AT 4...
Be under it.
The countries in the Mideast that we are talking about don't want to be our allies. This is not Germany and Japan. We haven't "saved" anyone that wants us around at all. If they did, now that Iraq is up to pre-war oil production, and at over $100/bbl, they would be helping us out a little with the money - don't you think? No, they're glad to keep draining us.
We haven't stabilized the muslim world! The Saudis are pissed because we've allowed the Iranis to gain too much regional power and they will enter into the war if we let the Iranis have Iraq. Now THERE are some Sunni AlQueda types! The Iraqi and Irani Shiites are getting together already - note Kyra Phillips mentioning it in her recent interview with Gen Petreius. You left out the Turks, who are itching to start something on a grander scale in Iraq. How far do you think the arabs will let them get before one or more groups gets after Turkey?
The American think tanks goofed badly at the outset of the Iraqi campaign. Iraq is surrounded by three countries itching to partition it among themselves! If the U.S. leaves, Turkey will move into Kurdistan, Iran will take the Shiite Basra, and Syria will take the Sunni areas adjacent to its border! All this should have been factored into the decision in case the war went sour! But it was not. President Bush declared "victory" years ago thinking that the war was won! America is now trying to strengthen Iraq so that it can defend itself. But al-Maliki bids his time, knowing that America will leave when she things "he is strong enough."
But Iraq can never be strong enough to fight Turkey, Syria, and Iran. They were having trouble to vanquish Iran alone under Saddam! This is why I have said for many years now, that partition is the only solution in Iraq. Our partition will be more "democratic" than theirs! Therefore, partition by the U.S. is the best of all bad choices: partition by the U.S. will prevent the bloody partition by Turkey, Iran, and Syria! America has this historic prerogative, as the occupying power, perhaps the only sound prerogative! At the least, America may be able to establish solid bases in Kurdistan and Sunni, and Shiite areas, preventing foreign adventurism for years to come!
Cheney is over there now trying to get the Saudis to produce more oil over the summer to get oil/gas prices down to help get McCain elected -- so that the war can continue longer and profits to big oil and big war continue.
omg, if the prius weren't so expensive, I'd get one now....
I have a theory.
The cable news channels got their start with the OJ trial - whites against blacks, women against the man. Lots of race and sex to jazz things up.
The media's prejudice in the OJ trial was against any possibility that OJ could be innocent. I decided, because of the prejudice shown, OJ could likely be innocent. Still believe that.
In this 2008 Election season - so far it has been blacks and their sympathizers against whites and men against the woman.
So I have reason to believe - because of the prejudice against Hillary, she is most likely the best candidate for President.
Maybe it is the media propping one candidate up to keep the conflict going.
They have to prop up Obama or ratings would fall.
Interesting discussion , and all good points. Expressing outrage over the rape and pillage of America by this administration may make you feel better in the short term, but Dick Cheney had it right when he uttered his now famous quote..."s
In today's WAPO, Mickey Edwards, Harvard professor, long time supporter and House member serving with Cheney has come out warning us that maybe our Vice President isn't such a savory character after all. The change is roaring in from across this country with a vengance, and when Cheney expresses disbelief or regret that such a thing could happen, my response will also be...so!
http://www
Yes Bill, it's a fact. Germany's Military Industrial Complex has made the transition into America's Military Industrial Complex; just as Prescott Bush intended it to.
ACTUALLY, PRESCOTT BUSH SEEMS TO HAVE...
Intended just the opposite..
This is what I have been saying all along. Iraq is a success and went exactly according to plan. Total disembowelment and chaos WAS and IS the plan. Extract as much money from the taxpaying sheep and the invaded country as possible.
Iraq must be partitioned, and the plan should start now! If Iraq is not partitioned by the U.S., it will be partitioned by Iran, Syria, and Turkey when we leave! Which is better, that's the million dollar question. I tend to believe that America has tha first go on partition given the many lives she lost trying to fix Iraq. If we let others partition, we will be historical losers!
Michael Ware nervously reminded us of the giant pool of oil beneath the sands in Iraq. Who cares who the "enemy" is? keep your eye on the ball. We are all sharp elbows as we go for the rebound. This war is about greed. The economic situation is about greed. Manifest destiny itself is and was about greed. Greed has become our creed.
Corporate America has become a machine for death and destruction or economic imperialism. Take your pick, neoliberal economic imperialism or invasion and occupation. The plank or keelhauling.
The right of self determinism has fallen by the wayside. The Rubicon has been crossed.
The "enemy" is those "extremist
"Imagine, a drunken frat boy deciding who the 'evildoers' are."
**********
Truth is stranger than fiction.
WHAT BUSH REALLY SAID WAS...
"I'm for de cider, especially de hard stuff"....
Bill,
You make so much more sense when you address the issues that are killing us; thank you, and we need more posts like this.
And, yeah, those of us who have yelled so long and so hard about this war need to consider just who is really making $$$ from it. As long as they profit, men and women will die. We desperately need to be reminded of the fact that the neocons and their surrogates -- McCain et al -- will drag us onward toward Iran, or any other lucrative venue for weapons sales, service and fuel.
Bill,
I have seen Michael Ware twice lately gushing about the war in Iraq. He says we have to stay there forever. Does it ever occur to anyone that he would be without a job if this war were to end? Perpetual war is great politics because it gives the president wars powers, provides a "test" of patriotism, and an endless stream of money for the war.
The emphasis of Mr. Ware on the fact that the soldiers "stick together " though they cannot identify who the enemy even is, reminds me of the war in Vietnam where any peasant in a rice paddy could be pink and deserve to die. It's nice that soldiers bond but is this patriotism or its opposite.
To me, patriotism is choosing wars for the defense of our nation, not for access or control of oil and gas resources. I am sure that it would have warmed the heart to see the bonding between soldiers on both sides of our own Civil War, but that mean that the "support the troops" dogma made both sides "right."
The war is not about supporting the troops any more than chess is about supporting the pawns. The game is about the King. Supporting the troops would mean giving then better veterans benefits or better equipment and conditions. Americans loved being lied to. The "big lie" technique works every time.
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