I avoid reading media coverage of September 11 memorial events. They depress me.
When I was asked by my mother about my 9/11 avoidance, I told her that beyond 9/11 being a terrible time for our country, I avoid the day because it’s way too political.
She was baffled that her hyper-political son felt that way.
I explained that I hate how the event was used as an excuse to invade Iraq and may well be used as an excuse to invade Iran, or maybe to attack Russia.
I do think that things changed on September 11, 2001. It was a terrible day that horrified every American and responsible citizen of the world. But I worry that 9/11 made us stupid.
Invade Afghanistan?
Makes sense. The Taliban harbored Al Qaida.
Invade Iraq?
Why not? Sadaam was a bad guy. We don’t care if he had anything to do with Al Qaida or not. He was bad.
Invade Iran?
Sure. Their head of state is an asshole.
Attack Russia?
We’re all Georgians now.
I worry that the real damage 9/11 did to our country was that it inhibited critical thinking.
So let’s wave the flag. And while we do that, let’s think about how stupid we have become since a bunch of assholes tried to make us more weak and silly.
I worry that they may have succeeded in their goals.
Where on earth did Putin get the idea that he could just manufacture a non-existent crisis, invade a sovereign nation and overthrow its government just because he personally detests that nation’s leader?
Great news! The surge has worked! As proof “Fox and Friends” cites the opening of a brand new Kentucky Fried Chicken in Fallujah:
The only problem?
It’s not an actual KFC, just some counterfeit KFC that some locals put together.
In a letter to TPM, YUM! Restaurants spokesman writes:
I understand you wanted some details about the store in Falluja that looks like a KFC. This store is not approved by KFC International and we have working with the US Military to warn the troops of this situation.
I wonder how much it would cost Fox to employ a fact-checker.
Nah, it’ll never happen, as Fox seems to take pride in providing fact-free news and opinion.
Obama cleared a crucial bar in today’s press conference. He looked and sounded presidential at a moment when the eyes of the world were on him.
Will it dramatically affect the race at home when Obama returns? It’s hard to tell. But, rest assured that if Obama today had come across as flip or not sufficiently versed on the issues in Iraq and the Middle East, it would have been a major problem for his candidacy. Obama cleared that hurdle with ease.
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Barack Obama’s 16 timeframe for a withdrawal from Iraq is the right one.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports US presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded “as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned.” He then continued: “US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”
Maliki was careful to back away from outright support for Obama. “Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business,” he said. But then, apparently referring to Republican candidate John McCain’s more open-ended Iraq policy, Maliki said: “Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems.”
It will be interesting to see how the Obama and McCain campaigns play this one. Though most Americans want the US out of Iraq as soon as possible, I think McCain’s strategy has been to plant doubts in the minds of Americans about the wisdom of an early withdrawal from Iraq. Maliki seems to have taken that issue off the table — can McCain really say that we should leave our troops in Iraq even if the Iraqi president doesn’t want them there? No, he’ll have to concede the point. Especially given the fact the fact now the Bush administration is talking about “time horizons” in Iraq and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, just as Obama has proposed.
If Obama has essentially won this argument, I suspect that foreign policy will become less of an issue in the campaign and the economy will become an even more pressing issue for the candidates. That’s not good news for Mr. I Don’t Understand Economics.
The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.
Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.
One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.
Is it just me, or might politics be at play here?
I thought that we had to stay in Iraq to get the job done, even if that meant spending 100 years there.
But it’s especially amusing that they are using one of Obama’s arguments for a speedier withdrawal – that we need to get out of Iraq, in part, so that we can increase our troop levels in Afghanistan, the real battlefield in the war on terror.
Might the Bush administration be thinking about changing strategies to help McCain?
When I heard the news of Tim Russert’s death on Friday, I was strangely unsettled in a way I didn’t think I would be. I’ve watched him over the years and enjoyed many of his interviews, but found myself irritated by him at times when he interviewed guys on our side with lines of questioning that I found to be absurd.
But there were other times when he interviewed Bush people that caused me to cheer that someone was finally asking them some tough questions.
I had forgotten about this interview with Dick Cheney in 2003:
MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators….
MR. RUSSERT: The army’s top general said that we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there for several years in order to maintain stability.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I disagree. We need, obviously, a large force and we’ve deployed a large force to prevail, from a military standpoint, to achieve our objectives, we will need a significant presence there until such time as we can turn things over to the Iraqis themselves. But to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don’t think is accurate. I think that’s an overstatement.
MR. RUSSERT: We’ve had 50,000 troops in Kosovo for several years, a country of just five million people. This is a country of 23 million people. It will take a lot in order to secure it.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, but we’ve significantly drawn down our forces in Kosovo and in the Balkans…..
MR. RUSSERT: Every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion, recovery of Baghdad, perhaps of Iraq, about $10 billion per year. We should expect as American citizens that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I can’t say that, Tim….
Remember, at the time, few in the media dared question the Bush administration on much of anything relating to the upcoming war. Iraq was going to be a war as easy as the invasion of Grenada. Democrats mostly supported the war, as they seemed to be political cowards. Kerry, Edwards, and Clinton all thought it was a good idea.
Those of us who asked questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq were ridiculed as crazy, Hussein-lovers, Bin Laden sympathizers, or worse.
If for no other reason, Russert deserves our respect for asking some questions that others in the media didn’t ask at the time. Things might have been different if they had.
Lynndie England was America’s sweetheart during the Abu Ghraib scandal for pointing at the penises of Iraqi prisoners and putting others on dog leashes. Oh, and wasn’t she also alleged to have had sex with her boyfriend in front of some prisoners?
“I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the Americans and the British and they attacked in return and they were just killing each other. I felt bad about it … no, I felt pissed off. If the media hadn’t exposed the pictures to that extent, then thousands of lives would have been saved,” she was quoted as saying.
Asked how she could blame the media for the controversy, she said it wasn’t her who leaked the photos.
“Yeah, I took the photos but I didn’t make it worldwide. Yes, I was in five or six pictures and I took some pictures, and those pictures were shameful and degrading to the Iraqis and to our government,” she said, according to the report.
So let’s make sure I got this right.
She abused the prisoners and took the photos of the abuse, but blames the media for printing the photos? If thousands of people died as a result of the photos, it’s the media’s fault? Lynndie must watch the O’Reilly Factor a lot.
I wonder if it ever occurred to her that maybe if she hadn’t taken part in such behavior, that the story wouldn’t have existed to further fan the flames of anti-Americanism.
