FOX Clinton Interview

[socalarm]

“They are evil, we are not”

I’m sure our noble allies saudi arabia and pakistan will testify to that

[bgates]

socalalarm, we allied with Stalin in WWII. Does that mean Hitler wasn’t evil? Does it mean FDR and Churchill were?

[bgates]

Socal, we have not ‘bombed an entire country’. If we had, there would be no more Iraq. Get a grip. I’m not trying to justify Bush here. I am not the one who started talking about Clinton’s record. Clinton is. And he lied about it.

[justme]

> Our enemy glorifies those who remove the heads of captives
> whether combatants or aid workers.

Yeah, and some of our soldiers raped a 14 year old girl,
killed her and her familiy, and then set them on fire.

But we are not evil, because we aplogize afterwards.

[bgates]

That’s right. Our nation is not evil, because we punish criminals in our society, and apologize to their victims.

Individual Americans committed war crimes during the invasion of Europe in 1944. Were FDR’s forces no different than Hitler’s? I say they were different, because the Americans punished those who committed crimes, while the Germans celebrated them.

Sometimes police officers murder people, but the police aren’t evil because they punish criminals in their midst. Do you think the police and the mafia are indistinguishable? Who would you call if you were robbed?

[bgates]

Deadzone, are you a pediatric oncologist? If not, why aren’t you opposed to children dying of cancer?

Does it take an expert to say that people who murder children and disembowl aid workers are evil?

It’s generally understood that your weak “why don’t you sign up” argument is a way to imply that the target of the attack is a coward. If that’s how you meant it, hey, we’re both in San Diego, why don’t you suggest a place we can meet so you can say it to my face?

[ybc]

That’s why individuals need to select carefully how to serve the country. The soldiers are putting their lives at danger to serve the country, only find their bravery squandered by the repeated mistakes and incompetencies of their civilian leaders.

Note that the army relaxed recruiting standards repeatitively (that’s why the likes of Green got in) because the army is so stretched. But the policy makers (or Mr. Decider) do not have the courage to acknowledge that indeed it takes a lot more to win the war (not to mention hearts and minds) — if they do, they’d re-state draft much earlier. Instead, the soldiers who volunteered got “drafted” into the war through their 2nd and 3rd tour – it’s ironic that those who talk about “freedom”, “liberty”, etc,etc, in their heart really do not care much about the troops. Isn’t there a stat saying that only one congressman has a nephew that served in Iraq? I wonder whether all the high officials / congressmen (woman)/senators have encouraged their own daughter(s) and sons, nieces and nephews to serve… Chances are — they have not.

Exam their actions, not just their words.

[bgates]

ybc, that’s not a stat, it’s something you made up. There are at least 3 congressmen with children who have served in Iraq: Sen Tim Johnson, Sen Chris Bond, and Rep Todd Akin. That’s 3 out of 535, or just over 0.5%. By comparison, there are about 200,000 who have served in Iraq, and ybc

Participant

[bgates]

Interesting, that’s good to know. What’s the source and I’m interested in reading about these congressmen’s positions on the war — I assume that their kids are on the ground and tell them real life stories. I only saw that the first Senator’s son served in Iraq. So sources about your information is appreciated. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to know whether any of the current adminsitrator’s civilian leaders have encouraged their children to enlist to fight in Iraq ’cause they believe so strongly in the war, especially if those children enlisted after the US invaded Iraq. I’d like to read such a story. Please send a link if there is one.

[bgates]

I first saw the names here. Note that that article is 2 years old and says one of the officers I mentioned is only slated to go to Iraq in the future; look him or his father up and you’ll see that he’s gone since.

I strongly oppose the notion that some kind of personal connection to the war grants legitimacy to discuss the war effort, though. The current President, the last one, FDR, and Lincoln were each named C-in-C, and of those four Lincoln had the most extensive service record with Bush a close second. None of them were ever in a firefight, and they all ran against and defeated people who were. Nonetheless, I think history will look favorably on the military campaigns overseen by three of them.

[Anonymous]

bgates, what have you done to support the war effort? Maybe you put a yellow ribbon on your car?

[ybc]

Here is a related article (also more recent)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2270473&page=1

To me, if the leadership truly believes that the war is worthy and just, and if they’re actually competent — they’d listen to the generals who warned about the need for more troops instead of fire them, and they’d seriously consider draft, and raise tax to pay for the war (instead of push it as debt to pass to the next generation).

I don’t think that I’m that knowledgeable about history and politics, but I generally very good at logic and can follow common sense very well, and I keep my mind open. I read an article very early on about Richard Clarke being pushed out by the current adminsitration (that was before his book, etc), and I had a very bad feeling about our decision makers’ competency level as well as how honest they’re with the public. Unfortunately, the events that unfold since confirmed that bad feeling over and over again. If a top leader only listens to people who agree with him/her, and start to push competent people out because they have a different opinion, watch out! When it happens in business, it’s almost always bad news (and I’m very familiar with that). It seems that in politics it’s not that different.

Anyway, don’t think that anyone’s mind will change after this. Although I consider myself slightly more educated about our national leaders’ personal involvement in the war.

[justme]

>”They are evil, we are not”
>I’m sure our noble allies saudi arabia and pakistan will testify to that

>>socalalarm, we allied with Stalin in WWII. Does that mean
>>Hitler wasn’t evil? Does it mean FDR and Churchill were?

Yet another false analogy, and a strawman argument from
bgates. In fact the analogy is false twice over. Heee-lllo.

If Iraq attacked Saudi Arabia and Pakistan *and* the US, and
we allied with them to beat back the attack, THEN you would
have an analogy. Just not a good one.Talk about disengenious
arguments!

By the way, you should know by now that Iraq had nothing to
do with 911, and was an enemy of Al Quaeda.

So we attacked Iraq just because Bush *wanted* to, and
because he thought Iraq was “evil”. You practically said so
yourself. Thanks for clarifying that. And Bush lied about
it, too.

The questions is: Does it make sense to attack countries
that Bush deems “evil”? Who are we to say we are better? And
how does Bush pick *which* evil country to attack? It seems
to be a plethora of them, and the republicans do not apply a
uniform standard as to which countries need to be
“democratized”.

The selection criteria seem to revolve around whether the
specific “evil” country has nukes (don’t attack), has oil
(definitely attack), is islamic (“evil”, good excuse to
attack), or has a right wing military regime (don’t attack,
they are our friends).

By the way, it is not lost on the world that we only go
after non-nuclear nations. As a result, a number of them are
scrambling to develop and/or enhance their nuclear
capability. North Korea and Iran come to mind. Good work,
Bushie.

[greekfire]

Why did we attack Hitler's Germany during WWII? Afterall, it was the Japanese, not the Germans, who attacked us at Pearl Harbor. Would you care to extend your same analogy to that time and place? Do you think it would have worked? I think "Wir würden alle Deutsches jetzt sprechen." = We would all be speaking German now.

 It is truly ironic that those who don't want the US to go to war exclaim that we should focus more on Afghanistan and North Korea.  And I will bet you all a dollar that when we do confront nations like North Korea, these same kool-aid imbibers will cry out that it was premature, and will criticize us every step of the way.  Dambed if you do, dambed if you don't.

[bgates]

ybc, there are a whole bunch of problems with that article.
First, they try to pull a fast one and give the impression that only 3 members of Congress have children in the military by mentioning only enlisted personnel.

Second, the military is smaller than 10 or 20 years ago, while the population is larger, so the proportion of everyone in the military is shrinking. Third, one of the major ways to get a fresh college graduate into the service is to have an ROTC program, but all but 2 Ivy League schools have kicked that program off campus.

And the biggest problem – ‘leadership class’? Are you (ABC) f’n kidding me? Would anybody be impressed – would anybody care – if Donald Trump’s kid, or ‘Pinch’ Sulzberger’s, or Jenna Bush, Chelsea Clinton, or Paris Hilton signed up? Or some Hahvahd guy?

ybc, if the admin didn’t believe in the war, there’s no way they’d put themselves through this. They get villified the world over. If they had listened to the generals they ignored, they would’ve ignored the generals they listened to. No way to do what everybody wants. The draft isn’t a hot idea either – imagine the political fallout from that. Independent of which it wouldn’t improve the military. You say you’re familiar with business – ever been in a company and thought, “If only we were staffed with random people off the street, instead of people who applied, were accepted, and got trained”? That’s the difference between a conscript force and volunteers. Also, the war’s not costing that much relative to the federal government. The admin can be faulted for spending too much, and I do fault them for that, but the war’s not a big ticket item. Nor have the tax cuts hurt revenue, which is at record heights.

[Author]

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