Interesting People mailing list archives
more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 01:57:16 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie () frontiernet net> Date: December 23, 2005 11:52:20 PM EST To: dave () farber net Cc: 4whp () insightbb com, dewayne () warpspeed com, dave () oldcolo comSubject: Re: [IP] more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment
(Sorry to speak for you, Dave, but...) I think Dave was asking about what our "public" objectives in Afghanistan and Iraq are. After all, the current administration has been changing its tune from before the fighting began. First, it was WMD, then it was WMD + Saddam, then it was Saddam, then Saddam + democracy, then democracy, and now the bare-minimum-to-get-us-out-in- some-significant-way-before-the-2006-elections + democracy (time permitting). Of course, it's all about the "Great Game" as mentioned below. We (the West) have been playing this game with the East since the mid-1800's and yet the average American has practically no idea about what's going on, since a person needs to major in History at the college level to even be exposed to it. What's worse is that this has nothing to do with Left vs. Right as many Americans--especially those on the Left--seem to think. This is simply about the pitting of one side against another in order to profit from the synthesis (Cf. Hegel). In other words, it's more a battle of the "haves" vs. the "have-nots". The West spent most of the 20th century demonizing socialists as godless filth while we quietly built the vast majority of their empire and supplied them with most of their technology. The same M.O. happened with Hitler, when captains of industry like Henry Ford publicly gave the Nazis money, while the liberal New England establishment types like Prescott Bush gave it more secretly. It's laughable to see how the Bush administration stumbles through their script while the mainstream media offers no context whatsoever about what's really going on. Ask any seasoned veteran of the oil industry what's going on and they'll tell you the answer in less than 2 seconds. Better yet, go see Syriana and you'll hear the same answer in 120 minutes, but with more production values and a better soundtrack. What troubles me far more than the shenanigans in Iraq and the thousands of troops and families who are paying dearly for them, is the impending implosion of the American middle class. Our greatest conceit as Americans, especially with the abysmal education we get in world history, is that we're smarter than the rest of the world. Sadly, there is no monopoly on intelligence and the Asian tigers all know that any time they unpeg their currencies from our dollar (and stop buying our treasury notes) that our housing market--and therefore the lion's share of our consumer spending--will collapse in less than 2 years. I used to think this was an unplayable card, especially given that China's economy is so heavily dependent on ours. The reality of geopolitics though is that we've spent the past 5 years making enemies instead of friends, and Bush's phony cowboy swagger won't continue swaying real men like Putin. There are several ways that the Russians and Chinese can punish us without even breaking a sweat. Having players like Syria, Iran, Japan, and Malaysia--all of whom have some upside to seeing us fret--in the mix doesn't help. The endgame may not be disastrous, but we'll still feel like we've been "tuned up". I'd love to be able to joke about this, but right now it seems that the only possible escape clause is to pray for a boring 2006 and elect some new blood (albeit not necessarily better blood) that will impeach this mess back to the Gilded Age and send a message to the world that we can be a force for good again. Tom Fairlie YMMV ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net> To: <ip () v2 listbox com> Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 8:14 PMSubject: [IP] more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy
impeachment Begin forwarded message: From: Randall <4whp () insightbb com> Date: December 23, 2005 7:07:09 PM EST To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 18:15 -0500, David Farber wrote:
Frankly they don't give a damn whether we succeed in our objectives in either Afghanistan or IraqI may give a damn if someone would explain to me what the real objectives of our involment in Iraq?
The answer is fractal - the closer you look, the more facets you see. For GWB it is likely as simple as he said it was: "God told me to take out Saddam, so I took out Saddam", plus of course "He tried to kill my Dad". For the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Perle Axis of Evil it's laid out in the plan they and the rest of the neocons explained at http://www.newamericancentury.org - put the fear of god in the rest of the planet, so they don't even attempt to dream about maybe some day posing a military challenge to the American Death machine. For the Dark Lord (Cheney) it's about all that and also Halliburton. For the American public it's about providing our sons, our daughters and our great-grandchildren's taxes as pawns on the chessboard, where the above fine folks are playing their Great Game. .. http://htdaw.blogsource.com ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as tfairlie () frontiernet net To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- people/
------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
Current thread:
- more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment David Farber (Dec 23)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment David Farber (Dec 23)
- more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment David Farber (Dec 23)
- more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment David Farber (Dec 24)
- more on Congressman Conyers calls for select committee tostudy impeachment David Farber (Dec 24)