[extropy-chat] can't war protesters do better?

Sun Aug 7 20:37:54 UTC 2005

This is comprehensive post. But nothing I've read convinces me the war ought to be terminated now. If you want to think my position is America's role in Iraq is innocent until proven guilty, fine. It probably is.
And of course the war is mainly about oil, it is a given; petroleum is the lifeblood of the economy.

Great.

Al, baby. War protesters DO BETTER. In fact, now that the 
administration's approval rating on Iraq is down to 38%, I'd say that 
the anti-war message is finally getting across effectively. Body bags 
and information tend to do that and every once in a while stories from 
Iraq do get home - mostly the bad news of more dead people. Go team! 
Kill, Kill, Kill!

Secondly, it's easy to make fun of idiots. That's why people no longer 
make fun of that drug addict with the white hair and television show.

In fact, it's too easy. In fact, the anti-war movement makes such a 
good rational case for not being at war with Iraq that it appears the 
only thing left to do is make fun of the idiots that still buy into it. 
If you doubt this, please explain why we're at war in Iraq remembering 
some essential facts:

1) There are now WMD's there, there haven't been for years, and both 
the CIA and British intelligence KNEW this and told the American and 
British Administrative branches BEFORE they decided to go to war and 
make the case before the UN. The UN inspectors were there verifying 
this before the war and when they were kicked out by US threats of war, 
they exclaimed that there simply was no threat there. This is 
unsuprising given the years of UN inspections and the awesome economic 
burden we put on Iraq after the Kuwait Invasion.

2) Al quaeda was completely uninvolved in Iraq before the war and 
their current involvement is at best questionable. In fact, due to the 
outrage at us having invaded Iraq, the level of islamic extremist 
terrorist threat worldwide, but especially for US and British targets, 
has increased - as predicted by the CIA prior to the invasion of Iraq.

3) The level of nepotism in Iraq is unparalleled. Haliburton - the 
company that still gives Cheney a million dollars a year - LOST a 
billion dollars after having won an unreviewed government contract 
without competition. UDI, a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group on whose 
board sits Pappy Bush himself, is the biggest defense contractor and to 
date the one who's made the most money from this war. Prior to the war 
itself, Iraqi expatriots and a few oil companies met to divvy up the 
spoils and our own deputy defense minister said that it was "job number 
1" to secure the oil fields. Make no mistakes, they're in it for the 
money.

4) There are other countries in the world that actually DO have 
weapons of mass destruction - like Korea and Pakistan - that actually 
ARE ruled by maniacs - and Pakistan is an ally of our and we're not 
invading North Korea any time soon. Why? Because it's not our job to 
fix all the governments in the world. It's neither our job nor is it 
within our reasonable reach. We simply couldn't fight North Korea and 
Iraq at the same time without fundamentally changing our country into a 
complete war machine - re-instituting the draft, raising taxes, further 
plunging our country into debt, not to mention the body bags - and you 
know what, voter here wouldn't stand for it any more than they stood 
for vietnam or Korea. And worse than that, the terrorists would have 
won. America would be dead. America is a dream of freedom, 
opportunity, peace and prosperity. If we don't start remembering 
quickly what those core values are and acting on them, America will be 
gone anyway.

5) Finally the fiscal point. After the idiot in chief got himself 
punditted into office by the supreme court (notably not the supreme 
court of Florida who -actually- had jurisdiction there) and some 
talking heads, we were plunged into a dreadful recession (perhaps you 
didn't notice), and the idiot in chief had no idea what to do about it, 
himself having been the ceo of a couple of failed companies. So what 
did he do? He started a war to give people something else to think 
about and spend money on. Oh and did I mention the money - 9 Trillion 
dollars of debt in 6 years. That's right, the LIBERALS had balanced 
the budget. Until, well, the belly-up ceo of our country decided to 
bankrupt it. This is the kind of thing that happens when you leave 
your 11-year-old kid to mind the store while you and the wife go on 
vacation for a month. This point -should- bother people like Lorrey, 
but of course that -kind- of libertarian has their head stuck so far up 
the unmentionable orifices of the establishment that it's not 
surprising their ocular nodes don't work being themselves soaked with 
odoriferous bile.

But of course, these points were well made a few years ago. That the 
right wing fascist pigs that run this country and the country-bumpkin 
citizens of dumbf*ckistan in the red states can't fathom why anyone is 
against the war is only a sign of either their malice or stupidity. 
Consequently, when what's left of the so-called liberal media only 
pokes fun at the evil and stupid, how can you blame them? What more is 
there to say? Was something overlooked?

Robbie Lindauer

PS - NOW that someone with an opposing view has spoken up, should you 
take this to extro-freedom or should we allow this f-ing liberal to 
continue to ridicule the stupid/evil people on the hawkish side of the 
fence?

On Aug 6, 2005, at 10:36 AM, spike wrote:

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
>> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert Lindauer
>> Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2005 12:44 PM
>> To: ExI chat list
>> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] can't war protesters do better?
>>
>> I wonder, does -this- thread belong on ex=freedom or whatever?
>
>
> Let's let it sputter on a while. Doesn't look like it is
> going anywhere in particular. spike
>
>>
>>
>> On Aug 6, 2005, at 9:14 AM, Al Brooks wrote:
>>
>>> Polemics are valuable, I'm accused of being a "pabulum spewer" and 
>>> for
>>>  "mistaking twaddle for objectivity" by leftwing stormtroopers in 
>>> this
>>> most politically polarized town I live in...
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

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