May 20, 2005

Durbin: The Very Model of a Modern Major Democrat

In which it is demonstrated the Dick Durbin is not an exception, but the rule.

OVER THE WEEKEND it was impossible to miss that, with Michael Jackson on extended leave in his own private Thailand, Dick Durbin had become the current media boy-toy in America. This because of a simple statement he made. To wit, or sans wit if you will, it was "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."

That simple statement has been parsed from here to eternity so I'll spare you the footnotes. Simply put, as an American today, you either jump into Durbin's rhetorical mosh pit and root about in the muck with him and his fans, or you stand on the heights above and wonder why you don't have some hefty boulders to heave into it. It's a love it or hate it kind of thing.

But whatever it may be on Durbin's part, it is not a mistake, an error, a foolish quip, or a prematurely senior moment. It is, in short, nothing less than a politician doing what politicians do best: following the lead of his masses.

There's been some huffing and puffing in Washington and elsewhere in what is left of the amazing shrinking Democratic Party. This blather usually takes the form of 'the Durbin statement really does not reflect the immense regard and esteem in which the Democrats hold the American troops.' But that's all rank nonsense.

The statement of the minority whip of the Democratic party is a true statement of the Democrats current beliefs and attitude.

The Durbin statement really does reflect, honestly and accurately, the level of esteem that American troops hold within the current Democratic Party -- little to none. Durbin, as minority whip of the Senate, knows this. Howard Dean, leader of the Democratic Party, knows this. Every single Democrat in Congress knows this. And, knowing it, they seek to parrot the sentiment of the Democratic Party in ways great and small in order to assure themselves that, no matter how small the Democratic Party becomes in the coming years, it will still have room for them.

Ever since the election of 2000, the previously controllable dementia of the Democratic Party has metastasized. That loss, coupled with the subsequent Republican victories in local, state, and now national elections in 2004, has driven the Democratic Party not so much as towards its left as towards its loonies.

The Democratic Party today is nothing so much as a living demonstration of a kind of Gresham's Law of Politics: "Bad ideology drives good ideology out of politics." The more hate drives any party, the less appealing that party is to decent people and the more appealing it becomes to people who hold degenerate political and social ideas. As those party members increase, the more moderate and moral members either shift parties or take themselves to the sidelines. This increases the power of the decadent Democrats which drives out more of the decent ones. And so it goes.

As that inexorable demographic shift continues, the sources of funding become more and more Sorosified and the small donor base more and more resembles MoveOn.org on steroids. What you are left with is a party that makes a lot of noise and huffs and puffs a lot, but takes on a real political struggle at its peril, lest it be seen to be, as it is, losing power to an alarming degree.

These changes are not lost on political creatures such as Durbin, who has been in the game since 1982. All these Washington lifers know is that staying in the game is the most important thing. Retaining power is far more important than decency, honesty, or the demonstration that you do indeed know something about history. That sort of thing is for, well, political suckers who don't know how to get re-elected and how to keep the reduced fountains of Democratic funding flowing their way.

Some might say that Durbin's statement, therefore, represents the cynical thoughts of a cynical manipulative politician. And they do, but that is not all they represent. In a very real and concrete way, Durbin's comments represent the current attitudes and beliefs of the party he represents. He is, after all, a "representative." As that party shrinks in ideals and beliefs into an increasingly insignificant role in American life, Durbin is there, as whip, to ensure that the surviving representatives of the Party toe the Party line.

And the Democratic Party line today is to hate George W. Bush, to hate Republicans, and, frankly, to hate America. That is indeed what an ever expanding faction of Democrats -- especially those highly engaged in politics -- have come to believe. That is, more and more, the bad ideology that drives the Democratic base. And what the politically engaged Democrats believe is something that the politicians elected by these Democrats are acutely sensitive to.

Durbin it would seem did not speak only for himself last week, but for all those who now make up an increasingly large, growing, and essential faction of the Democratic Party. Durbin's only mistake, if mistake it was, was to speak somewhat prematurely.

As the bad ideology of the Democrats continues to drive those Democrats with a decent ideology out of the Party we'll see more DurbinMoments played out in the halls of power. Politicians, especially those in a corrupted party, exist to keep and expand their power. They will, as we have seen in the regimes Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Khmer Rouge, say and do anything for it. That's the real lesson history teaches us here.

Posted by Vanderleun at May 20, 2005 9:28 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Why is what DURBIN said more or less offensive than what the FBI agents at GITMO saw? He was basically quoting them and pointing out that what is happening at GITMO is NOT in the best traditions of this great nation? Are you against the great traditions of human rights America holds dear?

This is a total distraction from the reality that our troops are dying for NOTHING, and that we can't go forward against Islamic fundamentalists if we continue to allow them to use GITMO as a PROPAGANDA tool for increased recruitment.

If you want to talk about, meet me at Las Brisas, I'll buy you a margarita and some chips.

Posted by: TRUTHMISSILE at June 20, 2005 11:36 AM

Durbin and his ilk may or may not "hate America" but one thing is now crystal clear as a result of the silence from major Democratic figures in the wake of Durbin's remarks:

The modern Democratic Party has landed foursquare on the side of those that refuse to use all means at the disposal of this great country to defend it from its enemies, even if that refusal means further loss of American life. Unilaterally forswearing certain perhaps unsavory interrogation techniques designed to elicit information from out-of-uniform combatants that may save American lives is a logical extension of the unilateral disarmament fever that swept through the Left in the 1980's during the West's confrontation with the Warsaw Pact.

Truthmissile asks: Are you against the great traditions of human rights America holds dear?

If he had asked me that question, I would have asked him in return:

Would you rather these out-of-uniform combatants be shot upon capture as enemy spies, in full compliance with the Geneva Conventions, or captured alive, given rations that our soldiers in Iraq could only envy, medical treatment that certain rural and inner-city sections of America could only hope for, and put through watered-down SERE training in exchange for a few sraps of actionable intelligence?

Posted by: Tongueboy at June 20, 2005 1:34 PM

wickedly good...I noted your hat tip to Gilbert & Sullivan in the link, too! :-)

Posted by: the anchoress at June 20, 2005 1:42 PM

What I would WANT Toungeboy, is to have DETAINEES treated HUMANELY regardless of their crimes - for the simple reason that if an American were captured, the same abuse would not be inflicted upon him or her - and also, to NOT allow the "enemy" the satisfaction of a propaganda tool to recruit more fundamentalists to their cause.

Read the quote carefully, tell me what you find so disturbing?

"When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

Posted by: truthmissile at June 20, 2005 5:29 PM

I read it carefully. The scenario is not torture. Torture is being forced to drink a quart of corn oil and then being forced to sit on ice for hours and hours. Torture is people breaking your legs and pulling out your nails. Torture is somebody slowly sawing your head off with a dull blade. Torture is the kind of thing practiced on a massive scale by the National Socialists of Germany, the Soviet Communists, and the Khmer Rouge Communists (for whom Noam Chomsky is a long-time ardent apologist), monstrous regimes from whom today's leftists (aside from Chomsky) pretend to distance themselves by trying to portray the US as similar (Chomsky portrays the US as the biggest "human rights abuser" anyway). It is an especially audacious mendacity whereby the left seeks to tar the US with the left's own evil history -- not to mention current leftist activity in Castro's Cuba and in Zimbabwe, where marxoid Robert Mugabe is pushing for the urbanites to head to the countryside and has spoken of wanting to institute the mass-training of Zimbabwean teenagers in the art of torture. Not that leftists care about any of that. Mugabe is doubtlessly not thinking about things like playing Christina Aguilera at high volume.

Posted by: ForNow at June 20, 2005 6:05 PM

TRUTHMISSILE wrote:
for the simple reason that if an American were captured, the same abuse would not be inflicted upon him or her

I guess you forgot that they are already beheading our civilians.

Besides, real torture is not something that a warm shower can fix, unlike the treatment Durbin described.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at June 20, 2005 7:02 PM

Ok ForNow, so if being chained on the floor with no food and water, while you piss and shit yourself isn't a FORM of torture - what would you think if that was happening to an American soldier?

I imagine you wouldn't consider that torture either.

It's very simple - we can't let GITMO become a PROPAGANDA tool to recruit more TERRORISTS that want to KILL US. You're on the wrong side of this.

As for NOAM CHOMSKY, he's condemned the Khmer Rouge, what the hell are you talking about?

FROM WIKIPEDIA:
"As regards support for or condemnation of terrorism, Chomsky opines that terrorism (and violence/authority in general) are generally bad and can only be justified in those cases where it is clear that greater terrorism (or violence, or abuse of authority) is thus avoided. Chomsky considers that alleged terrorism carried out by the U.S. government does not pass this test, and condemnation of it is one of the main thrusts of his writings. He is also skeptical that other acts of terrorism pass the test, and has thus condemned such things as Khmer Rouge terror in Cambodia, the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and similar acts."

FROM CHOMSKY HIMSELF:
"...In that period, perhaps the most compelling example of (III) is the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, terminating Pol Pot's atrocities, which were then peaking. Vietnam pleaded the right of self-defense against armed attack, one of the few post-Charter examples when the plea is plausible: the Khmer Rouge regime (Democratic Kampuchea, DK) was carrying out murderous attacks against Vietnam in border areas. The US reaction is instructive. The press condemned the "Prussians" of Asia for their outrageous violation of international law. They were harshly punished for the crime of having terminated Pol Pot's slaughters, first by a (US-backed) Chinese invasion, then by US imposition of extremely harsh sanctions. The US recognized the expelled DK as the official government of Cambodia, because of its "continuity" with the Pol Pot regime, the State Department explained. Not too subtly, the US supported the Khmer Rouge in its continuing attacks in Cambodia."
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/9903-current_bombings.htm

Posted by: truthmissile at June 20, 2005 7:10 PM

Did I say Mugabe has "spoken" of torture training? It already happened, I forgot.
"Zimbabwe's torture training camps" - BBC Last Updated: Friday, 27 February, 2004, 22:14 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3493958.stm

Then they were apparently shut down:
"Mugabe's torture camps shut down"
By Agencies Last updated: 06/23/2004 02:59:49
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/panorama5.11140.html

But then:
"Mugabe 'torture camps' churn-out 18000 youths"
By Staff Reporter 12/03/04
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/panorama3.1530.html

Wish I could find the article that I recall as saying that Mugabe or one of his officials spoke of the torture.

Posted by: ForNow at June 20, 2005 7:20 PM

Ah, yes, Noam Chomsy. Patriot. Humanitarian. Hustler.

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at June 20, 2005 7:25 PM

How nice it is when Chomsky admits that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were murderous.

For an account of Chomsky's history with the Khmer Rouge: "The hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky" by Keith Windschutt, The New Criterion, Vol. 21, No. 9, May 2003
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/may03/chomsky.htm

Noam Chomsky is a bug-eating Renfield in search of a new Dracula to serve.

Posted by: ForNow at June 20, 2005 7:26 PM

You know, I may have to write something for the title "In Search of a New Dracula." It calls out.

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at June 20, 2005 7:33 PM

What hole do these Chomskyite trolls crawl out of? Is there a Tora Bora in the US?

Posted by: StephenB at June 20, 2005 8:58 PM

Do you ever wonder which oil or war industry billionaire funds the propaganda that you quote so freely? Noam Chomsky is attacked by people like Keith Windschuttle because he is paid by the Bradley Foundation to write factless hit pieces, repeating slurs like "socialist" and "communist" as if he was channeling Joe McCarthy's soul from Hell.

It's all about MONEY - ours or theirs. I highly doubt any of you who frequent this site have the same financial interest as Richard Melon Scaife or the Bradley Foundation...and what exactly does the average right-wing voter in America get for their vote? Tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, an increasing gap between rich and poor, a housing bubble, inflation, an anemic job market, a 2% increase in wages over the past 6 years? The super-rich get richer and you and your family continue to struggle to pay your mortgages and private school tuitions.

"...The overall objective of the Bradley Foundation, however, is to return the U.S. - and the world- to the days before governments began to regulate Big Business, before corporations were forced to make concessions to an organized labor force. In other words, laissez-faire capitalism: capitalism with the gloves off.

To further this objective, Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privitization of government services. As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S.Right. Bradley money supports such major right-wing groups as the Heritage Foundation, source of policy papers on budget cuts, supply-side economics and the Star Wars military plan for the Reagan administration; the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, which provides funding for right-wing research and a network of conservative student newspapers; and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, literary home for such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D'Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William Bennett, and arch-conservative jurists Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia."

http://mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=1

"...The study also shines a spotlight on those family foundations that fund not only think tanks and small, industry-centric propaganda reports, but a slew of conservative magazines and publishing houses. In many instances, writers receive generous stipends directly from the foundations themselves to write ideological tracts. In the past, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation offered $38.8 million in grants to such writers. Bradley was particularly generous to National Affairs Inc., which publishes The National Interest and The Public Interest; the American Spectator Educational Foundation, which publishes The American Spectator—a former favorite of Richard Mellon Scaife's—and the Foundation for Cultural Review, which publishes The New Criterion.

Bradley has also funded the founding conservative imprint Encounter Books, edited by Peter Collier, as well as providing money to discredited "experts" on racism like Dinesh D'Souza and Charles Murray. As I [Eric] discussed at length in my book, What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News, the authors find that "Charles Murray was a Bradley Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at the Manhattan Institute and that the Bradley Foundation...provided more than $1 million to him, thereby largely funding his publication of The Bell Curve and Losing Ground. In fact, following publication of Losing Ground...the foundation increased its grant to Murray from $90,000 each year (which he received between 1986 and 1989) to $163,000 per year." In addition to this, the Bradley Foundation has also begun awarding "Bradley Prizes" of $250,000 to individuals who advance ideas congruent with the Foundation's conservative Christian and free market principles. Recipients so far include Thomas Sowell, an economist, journalist and author affiliated with the conservative Hoover Institution, and Washington Post and Weekly Standard neoconservative Charles Krauthammer."

Posted by: truthmissile at June 20, 2005 11:51 PM

ACK!!! ACK!!! I was simply going to say that I ain't heard nary a disparaging word from them thar varmints in the way of repudiation and that in itself should be complete validation of what you say Kemosabe.

Posted by: Steel Turman at June 21, 2005 12:23 AM

Truthmissile recoils in horror at being labeled a socialist or a communist, but then writes a screed that treats the words "capitalism," "Christian," and "free market" as profanity.

Like I said before, if a warm shower with soap and shampoo can fix it, it's not torture.

Our soldiers and Marines have had to endure sitting in their own waste while avoiding sniper fire and incoming mortar rounds. Their bosses forbid them to have their "holy books," unlike the Gitmo prisoners. They've had to eat the barely edible MREs instead of lemon chicken and rice pilaf. They've had no airconditioning during the scorching day and freezing night. During the Iraq invasion they had to wear chemical-proof suits, which are nearly unbearable even in 80F weather, much less 110F.

You and your "reality based community" doesn't know much about reality at all. Maybe if you put down the bong and got a real job you'd be able to think for yourself instead of having Chomsky do it for you.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at June 21, 2005 6:59 AM

doesn't = don't

Editing error, apologies.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at June 21, 2005 7:01 AM

Sue, I've met a few of our troops, I've tried to understand what they've gone through. Forget the horror in the midst of war, what about what happens to soldiers after they return? The anxiety, flashbacks, problems with their marriages, drinking, depression - do you think they were like this BEFORE they went to the WAR you supported?

If you were given a choice between sending your son or daughter to war, or having the nation pursue a serious policy of oil and gas conservation (that would cut into the profits of Exxon, but save us from going to war) - what would you pick? What would 90% of the nation choose?

This WAR is the end result of corrupt policies pursued by both political parties. It's going to lead to continued hardship for the entire nation.

As for Chomsky, he's just telling the public what our leaders know to be true in private. If you choose to continue to be lied to and decieved for the rest of your life, that's your choice.

(BTW - I recently met two amazing vets, both 25, who had lost their legs in a war that we didn't need to fight. How do you defend that? How does losing their legs in Iraq make us any safer from fundamentalists like Bin Laden? This war is wrong, 60% of the country has come around to that.)

Posted by: truthmissile at June 21, 2005 8:55 AM

Gerard,

I think what surprises me most is that no leading Democrat had the political savvy or guts to take full advantage of Durbin's gaffe.

Without parsing his nonsense for the umpteenth time, no serious adult supports Durbin's asinine comparison. Lots of left center, moderate, and serious adults would like to have a civil discussion about the Gitmo allegations and now think that Durbin has made that nearly impossible. What if a moderate blue state governor said something like:

"I deeply regret Senator Durbin's remarks and fear that they will be seen as a blanket condemnation of our troops by Democrats everywhere. Nothing could be further from the truth. There can be no comparison between our brave men and women and the thugs and murderers of the Stalin's Gulag, Hitler's extermination camps, or the killing fields of Pol Pot. The comparison is not only deeply offensive, but it serves to distract us from the serious and important questions surrounding our detention of illegal enemy combatants...(a reasonable explication of the issues follows).

I want to assure the American people that Senator Durbin does not speak for this Democrat, nor for the many many Democrats who love our country, support our troops, and seek nothing but victory in the war on terror, but victory with honor. Let's come together as Americans and resolve what ever problems there may be at Guantanomo, and look forward to the day when our brave troops can come home and receive our gratitude for a job well done."

Posted by: Old Dad at June 21, 2005 9:05 AM

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out." - Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881–June 21, 1940), nicknamed "the fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye," was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and at the time of his death the most decorated marine in U.S. history.

http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Posted by: truthmissile at June 21, 2005 9:18 AM

War may well be a racket,among other things. War may well be a game, among other things. War may well be for profits, among other things. War may be for just causes, among other things. War may be for freedom, among other things. War may be for enslavement, among other things.

War is, in short, one of the photographs of everything, EVERYTHING, we are writ large. To shrink it down to one thing is to cheapen it. And war, no matter what else it may be, is never cheap. The real question is not the cost but the worth.

In this, people may disagree.

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at June 21, 2005 9:39 AM

And while it may be surprising that no Democrat has disavowed what Durbin said, it is not too surprising. As I pointed out, what he said is what the Party believes. For a Democrat to denounce Durbin is to denounce the Party.

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at June 21, 2005 9:40 AM

Old Dad,
What do you mean no comparison? All countries involved in your argument believed they were the way the truth and the light-Number One. Number Two: they all killed people. Now, as for our good 'ole USA, if you overlook Chile, Latin America, Viet Nam(and there I helped!), Iraq, as in "Iraq vs. Iran", and Grenada(rally to Reagan, guys) to name the obvious, well, the case reduces to degree. And so as not to let our great Nation be disparaged-let's work on our efficiency.
And, Sue, try to refrain from portraying military life. It is sssssoooooooo obvious you know nothing about it. Next time Lifetime has a "coming home" special, warn us. We'll be ready with all the sympatico your estrogen requires.

Posted by: Frightened guys? at June 21, 2005 9:50 AM

Gerard,

The Democrat's need to be hijacked. Sure, most of the old money is affiliated with the lefty base, but even the lefties must be getting tired of getting their fannies whacked at the polls (well maybe not).

What if a charismatic moderate Democrat made a populist end run to the middle? Could he or she cobble together a coalition without spouting a bunch of lefty drivel. I don't know, but it needs to be tried because the lefty base has permanently left the moderate middle. I think the lefties might hold their noses and vote for anyone who could win.

Posted by: Old Dad at June 21, 2005 9:52 AM

Geri,
In WHAT people may disagree? War's worth or the whole nonsensical post? Or something else?
Today I took a shower, among other things. Yesterday I did a little work, among other things. Last month I was constipated, among other things. If I keep reading this blog I'll have to start wearing Depends, like the rest of you(you know, the fear factor and all-in case you really are as dense as it seems).

Posted by: Frightened guys? at June 21, 2005 10:06 AM

"Frightened guys," a fine upstanding example of misogyny. I suppose the big bad government taught you how to think of women as inferior beings. Considering that attitude, you're probably a racist, too. Do you feel any sort of guilt whatsoever about all of those villages you torched and little brown Asian babies you killed? And were they North or South Vietnamese?

truthmissile wrote:

If you were given a choice between sending your son or daughter to war, or having the nation pursue a serious policy of oil and gas conservation (that would cut into the profits of Exxon, but save us from going to war) - what would you pick? What would 90% of the nation choose?

No such choice, false dichotomy. You're not very good with logic.

We did not go to war for oil. If we simply wanted oil, we could have avoided war and paid off Saddam like the French, Germans, and Russians did. We sure as hell wouldn't be friends with Israel if we wanted the maximum oil profits.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at June 21, 2005 10:25 AM

Frightened guy,

Most of us judge the effectiveness of a comparison by the relative similarity of what's being compared.

To make your argument work, you must expand the potential scope of what's being compared so much that the comparison loses all value to explain. All governments have killed people, but what good does it do in this context to compare Poland to the Vatican? A sawbuck is not a million dollars--no comparison right, or if you want to argue that both are money, Ill give you the sawbuck.

The point of Durbin's comparison is clear. American soldiers in Guantanomo are like hideous murderers. Guess what? There have been no murders in Guantanomo. Like I said--no comparison.

Posted by: Old Dad at June 21, 2005 11:18 AM

Instead of arguing only that we should reject any questionable treatment of detainees, Durbin overrreached and used an invalid analogy. His detractors used this as proof of his perfidy. His defenders amplified his tin-earred statements by shouting them louder (They ARE like Nazi'!!) When I read about master Democratic machine politicians of the past (Tammany Hall et al) I am amazed at the piles of Sh** that try to pass themselves off as their modern successors. Criminy!

Posted by: California at June 21, 2005 2:54 PM

Dear Old Dad,
Here I warn you about degree and you breeze right by. Refer to Sue's post in which she accuses me of torching villages and killing babies in SE Asia back in another shining example of this country's march to freedom and democracy. It's all a continuum propagated by the greed within. Perhaps, and only maybe, American soldiers in Gitmo killed no one. How about the American soldiers IN THE PRISONS in Iraqistan? Does the word Guantanomo have a more precious meaning than the names of like facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I'll take the sawbuck. If I accepted the million I would be too worried you made it backing the world's richest nation invading one of the world's poorest. No comparison, right?

Posted by: Frightened guys? at June 21, 2005 3:07 PM

Frightened guy,

Sure you tipped your hat to "degree" but then ignored the principle in your argument. It's an old trick.

Gitmo simply is not comparable to the Holocaust. We have very different world views, but surely we can agree on that.

Posted by: Old Dad at June 21, 2005 3:20 PM

Sue,
C'mon. Estrogen and testosterone-there is a difference. We are prone to be aggressive and you all are prone to be beautiful. I, for one, enjoy the rush. I wasn't going to include the remark until I reread your "bong" allusion. See, I can be as much of a wise guy as you can be catty. There I go again. And I won't respect you in the morning. I'd ask your forgiveness, but as a man, how could I possibly live with myself? Will this never end?

Posted by: Frightened guys? at June 21, 2005 3:48 PM

Old Dad,
Which would you rather have killed in your name: A young Jewish woman in Auschwitz or a young Arab in an Iraqi prison?
To which I would reply: I see no reason for killing either.
How 'bout you?
And how is that for principle?
Oh, and both instances are recorded history.
And science can't bring either back. Dead is dead. You had better be beyond right when you start killing humans.
You, sir, are from the world's most powerful nation and it appears to me you have bought into this imperialistic charade and all I'm trying to do is point out that you have equipped yourself in blinders and deafened yourself to anything but manipulated patriotic sloganeering through pride and fear. Or maybe it is something else. I'm willing to listen if you'll lower that gun.

Posted by: Frightened guys? at June 21, 2005 4:14 PM

No *ranking* Democrat would disagree, let's include that cynical point. The smaller, hungrier up-and-comers *could* to differentiate themselves, if for no other reason.

Its doubtful that a no-name would get much press, however. For a lot of reasons, including the rubbernecking going on for responses from the Administration, MSM bias, etc.

There was at least one response though:
On Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley - a fellow Democrat - added his voice to the chorus of criticism, saying, "I think it's a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that."

Bully for Daley. More should follow his lead.

Posted by: urthshu at June 21, 2005 6:21 PM

Sue,

It's not about oil? It's not about defense contracts and the perpetuation of the military-industrial complex? It's not about money? So you have more information than the State Department of the United States of America?

Read the documents...
http://www.gregpalast.com/opeconthemarch.html

Watch the interviews...
http://www.gregpalast.com/video/palastmarch%2705.mp4

or read the stories...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm

"...In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.

An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.

Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.

"...However, by February 2003, a hundred-page blue-print for the occupied nation, favored by neo-cons, had been enshrined as official policy. "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth" generally embodied the principles for postwar Iraq favored by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the Iran-Contra figure, now Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams. The blue-print mapped out a radical makeover of Iraq as a free-market Xanadu including, on page 73, the sell-off of the nation's crown jewels: "privatization… [of] the oil and supporting industries."

It was reasoned that if Iraq's fields were broken up and sold off, competing operators would crank up production. This extra crude would flood world petroleum markets, OPEC would devolve into mass cheating and overproduction, oil prices would fall over a cliff, and Saudi Arabia, both economically and politically, would fall to its knees.

However, in plotting the destruction of OPEC, the neocons failed to predict the virulent resistance of insurgent forces: the U.S. oil industry itself. Rob McKee, a former executive vice-president of ConocoPhillips, designated by the Bush Administration to advise the Iraqi oil ministry, had little tolerance for the neocons' threat to privatize the oil fields nor their obsession on ways to undermine OPEC. (In 2004, with oil approaching the $50 a barrel mark all year, the major U.S. oil companies posted record or near-record profits. ConocoPhillips this February reported a doubling of its quarterly profits.)"
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=418&row=1


Posted by: truthmissile at June 21, 2005 6:35 PM

Sue,

It's not about oil? It's not about defense contracts and the perpetuation of the military-industrial complex? It's not about money? So you have more information than the State Department of the United States of America?

Read the documents...
http://www.gregpalast.com/opeconthemarch.html

Watch the interviews...
http://www.gregpalast.com/video/palastmarch%2705.mp4

or read the stories...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm

"...In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.

An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.

Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.

"...However, by February 2003, a hundred-page blue-print for the occupied nation, favored by neo-cons, had been enshrined as official policy.
"Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth" generally embodied the principles for postwar Iraq favored by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the Iran-Contra figure, now Deputy National Security
Advisor, Elliott Abrams. The blue-print mapped out a radical makeover of Iraq as a free-market Xanadu including, on page 73, the sell-off of the nation's crown jewels: "privatization… [of] the oil and supporting industries."

It was reasoned that if Iraq's fields were broken up and sold off, competing operators would crank up production. This extra crude would flood world petroleum markets, OPEC would devolve into mass cheating and overproduction,
oil prices would fall over a cliff, and Saudi Arabia, both economically and politically, would fall to its knees.

However, in plotting the destruction of OPEC, the neocons failed to predict the virulent resistance of insurgent forces: the U.S. oil industry itself.

Rob McKee, a former executive vice-president of ConocoPhillips, designated by the Bush Administration to advise the Iraqi oil ministry, had little tolerance for the neocons' threat to privatize the oil fields nor their obsession on ways to undermine OPEC. (In 2004, with oil approaching the $50 a barrel mark all year, the major U.S. oil companies posted record or
near-record profits. ConocoPhillips this February reported a doubling of its
quarterly profits.)"

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=418&row=1

Posted by: truthmissile at June 21, 2005 7:13 PM

Frightened guy,

Whom would I rather have killed in my name, an illegal enemy combatant or Ann Frank. Guess?

Appearances are deceiving. I might speculate that you are a poseur and a pompous self righteous ass, but I don't have enough evidence and neither do you.

Posted by: Old Dad at June 21, 2005 7:14 PM

Old Dad,
Let's go over your choice of verbiage: Guess, deceiving, speculate, poseur, I don't have.
But I bet you DO have a grasp of "illegal enemy combatant".
Now, temporarily granting your "understanding" of that terminology, if you have one of them in captivity, do you have the right to kill them like our military representing us did?

Posted by: Frightened guys? at June 21, 2005 8:02 PM

Committed moonbats who write large checks demand attention. A senator or representative has to win in his or her district to stay in the trough.

After thirty years of receding national influence the remaining federal Democrats are too focused on just staying in the game to give any serious thought beyond 2006, much less 2008. Or the war. Or Social Security. Or Energy policy.


Anything remotely connected with their duties, actually. They've been paying a price for that for decades. It's getting ready to go up, too.

Soros, Oprah, Spielberg, Amnesty, the remaining unions...they can write checks and get coverage, yes, but when the level of moonbattery overwhelms the PR budget(like when a clash of civilizations puts an exclamation point on the victory of capitalist/democrat republic forms of government over all comers)they cannot buy enough votes to do the job.

Predictions:

Bolton's nomination may be the straw that does bring on the constitutional option where advise and consent is concerned. The Dems screwed up big time here - they should have waited for a Supreme Court nominee to have reflexively abbrogated the letter and spirit of the Gang of Fourteen's PR stunt. Bush called Frist in today and forced him to do a 180 on a public statement he'd made only hours earlier. This morning it was "we'll just have to tuck our tails". This afternoon it was "we're going ahead for an up or down vote."

The democrats look at poll numbers that say Bush is losing traction. They fail to understand that he's losing traction for not being tough enough - not because any demographic shift to the Democrats.

Look for a bill to require photo I.D. at polling places before 2006. It's time for the dead in Chicago to rest in peace and the shuttle drivers in Ohio, Minnesota, and elsewhere to have a Tuesday off.

We live in interesting times.

Posted by: TmjUtah at June 21, 2005 8:44 PM