…

Kurtz isn’t a fool. He’s in on it.

“Mr. Kurtz, a real journalist would identify himself as married to Sheri Annis, a Republican media strategist who runs a company called “Fourth Estate Strategies” selling her right wing media expertise. A real journalist would say that before every column, kind of like “I approved this message”, so we’d all know where you’re coming from. In baseball terms, the Kurtz/Annis family bats right and throws right. Right, not left, not center, right. Just so we’re clear. I know I’m just a lowly pajama-wearing blogger, but we like to know these things up front.”

This complete lack of faith in western liberalism shows exactly how little they value it. In their hearts, they are authoritarian and they assume every one else is as well. They know damned well the appeal of religious fundamentalism and theocracy.

My favorite bit so far…

This stuff is increasing every year. It is a threat to enlightenment values. It has nothing to do with Iraq.

Wait, this global war of civilisations has nothing to do with Iraq? You wanna explain what the hell we’re doing there, then?

By your logic, the root cause of terrorism is fighting it.

She’s finally starting to understand, I think.

http://lgfwatch.blogspot.com/2007/02/charles-johnson-style-guide.html

so true

Why is Islam becoming more popular in all those nations she mentions? Why is there a growth in muslim populations and influence? Are they getting this power in the UK and Italy and Egypt and Palestine and Thailand at the point of a gun? Are people adopting and accepting their religion and worldview because of suicide bombers and subway bombs? Or is it, just maybe, just perhaps, a response to a perceived powerlessness that results from powerful western nations exploiting and brutalizing third world nations, scattering their populations as refugees throughout the world? Maybe if we actually helped them, with programs and education, we could find a way to live with them. Claire talks about sliding back into darkness. And then offers as a solution killing on a mass scale. This kind of mindless bloodlust, this tendency to fall back on military solutions to social problems is an ugly, growing trend. If I was a brown person in a third world country, I would hate Claire too….

mikey

do you have any evidence of this? I doubt it

the problem with the Iraq war, is that it really doesn’t make sense even from the LGF “All mooselimbs are going to kill us” perspective. Saddam was an arab-socialist, not allied with AQ or Iran or any hardcore “Islamists”. Sure he used some religion to legitimize himself, but really no more than Bush does. He was a secularist

If we were really interested in fighting “Islamism” there are about a half dozen better governments worth toppling in 2003. If we were interested in fighting state-sponsored terrorism, then there are also better candidates in 2003. By invading Iraq the US made a gamble, it chose to commit resources to one theater and to limit its future options. It chose to divert troops from Afghanistan to do this. From any strategic mindset (unilateralist, multilaterist) the invasion makes zero sense.

If fighting Islamism really is a generational struggle, how come there’s no draft? how come there isn’t even a tax hike? actions speak louder than words

Now the US can’t bring the pressure it wants on Iran because of what we’ve committed to Iraq. Invading that country was just strategic foolishness. Not to mention the 100s of thousands that have died, but you’ve already jumped through plenty of hoops justifying that

The idea that we can fight the brand of Islam she is so terrified of with guns is laughable: it grows from the barrels of our guns. We are spreading it with our armies. It wasn’t in Iraq before our invasion. Saddam was an asshole, and was an asshole while Reagan and Rummy sold him tanks and chemical weapons. It had nothing to do with the ideology she fears and a lot to do with our pretty consistent support of dictatorships for much of 20th century history. Claire admits she has no knowledge of this history so we should pay little attention to her ill-informed justifications for our current foreign policy.

She is simply incapable of admitting that the Bush administration has spread the very ideology that terrifies her so. We understand how to stop it far better than she does.

I don’t see the constitution being eroded.

I believe we should stop giving money to repressive governments like Egypt. As far as influencing dictators to change, how have those sanctions been working out in North Korea and Cuba, etc.? We are condoning repressive governments by not fighting the repression? Maybe. But you gotta start somewhere, like I said.

Brad, Saddam was killing his political opponents like clockwork, right up to the time we invaded. It wasn’t just Halabja.

Saddam violated his UN borders with the Kurdish constantly- that’s why we had to keep no-fly going for so long.

Iraq was a kite-flying paradise where women drove- wow- Saddam gave $25,000 to every suicide bomber in Palestine. He wrote a copy of the Koran in his own blood. He hardbored Nidal, Sheik Mohammed and others. His weapons and components were taken back by Russia before we got there. Yeah, secular, benign, kindly old man. No bloody prisons, not torture chambers, no disappearing, no tongues cut out, no hangings, no killing of entire families due to the actions of one member. Just an all around great guy. The Iraqi’s loved him.

By ifthethunderdontgetya | Feb 17, 2007 12:04:47 PM | Request Removal

I tried to post that here, but word-depress ate my post. *Sniff*

Dibgy.

“Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands
of the Arabs.” — Henry Kissinger

9/11 and the war on terror, wmd, bringing democracy to the iraqis…all just excuses for the PNAC.

It’s always nice to see the wingnuttiens bring up the U.N. resolutions as an excuse for CheneyCo.’s war….before they go back to dismissing the U.N.as a den of terrorist loving appeasers. It’s like complaining teh Left doesn’t want to bother bringing the gift of Democracy to the Iraqis…just before saying the real solution to the Iraqi problem is to turn them to into glass.

And Claire, getting back to those U.N. resolutions…In November of 2002, UNMOVIC returned to Iraq. They found no wmd. The only violation then remaining of those resolutions was proof that the wmd had been destroyed, which simply wasn’t available, as they had all been destroyed so long ago (after the first gulf war). Saddam’s regime, whatever it’s faults were, was not a theocracy. A theocracy in Iraq is more likely now, thanks to the bungling of CheneyCo.

Righteous Bubba, here’s a nice summary.

Saddam was not an “islamofascist,” he was a tin Hitler, a dime-store dictator no better, but also no worse, than most of the 40+ current world dictators about whom we do next to nothing.

I disagree with this. There is a marginally higher risk for Claire as a result of the boneheadedness of the War on Terror.

Umm, but Claire, the UN’s “wishes” were for us not to invade Iraq. They made those wishes very clear and those wishes were declared irrelevant and ignored.

I don’t want to call you names, but you need to wake up to some real facts. The religious hatred you so fear has been around for centuries and you are in no more danger from it now than you ever were. Real freedom is the ability to assess and accept your own level of risk. You have been played.