Nov 17 2003
America’s #1 Cowboy Visits the Royal Court
Our very own ‘King’ George II is heading to the U.K. this week for an official state visit with the Queen which will be protested heavily by citizens of the U.K. who are unconvinced that going to Iraq was justified. They blame Bush, and their own spineless PM Tony Blair, for dragging their country into a bloody mess with no plan for Iraq after the shock-and-awe-show our militaries put on.
Thankfully, Britain has an independent media who don’t follow an administration approved script, and as a result, the citizens of the U.K. are a well informed and politically aware bunch of blokes.
The thing about this visit is our ‘fearless’ leaders total unwillingness, bordering on cowardness, to shun the media, the parliament, and the citizens of Britain because he can’t handle unscripted events that his handlers can’t control. There are plans for over 25,000 people to march the streets in protest while Bush is in town. The White House wants Scotland Yard, who is handling security, to shut down the streets of downtown London under the guise of ’security’ for the President, but with the real intention of keeping the protesters off the street and out of sight from the TV cameras.
Bush also canceled a planned speech to Parliament. The situation couldn’t be controlled by his handlers and they feared Bush might look as foolish as he did when he was heckled twice while addressing the Australian parliament last month. Instead, he’ll be addressing an ‘invited audience’ in Whitehall on Thursday, who without a doubt will be screened to make sure they’ll applaud when told, and nod furiously in agreement when Bush talks tough about terrorism and the justification for the war in Iraq.
The common theme here is that the leader of the free world is hiding from overwhelming world criticism of his policies behind the constant pretext of ’security’. Like an ostrich who sticks it’s head in the sand at the first sign of trouble, our president and his handlers think that if they can’t see or hear the hundreds of thousands of people who would be screaming at him if they could just get close enough to be seen and heard, they must not exist.
Sooner or later being able to shield the president from anyone who disagrees with him is going to come to an end. Here’s a toast to the Brit’s for doing their best to disrupt the ‘democracy by proxy’ which Bush seems to favor.
YaleGlobal - U.K. Police, Protestors Await Bush
The media is working the whole thing around a ‘the protesters are Anti-American’ angle, which is interesting because every interview I’ve seen with a protestor so far goes like this, “We’re not Anti-American, we love america! We’re Anti-Bush! And that’s why we’re marching!”.
When the ‘62 percent of Brits say they believe America is generally speaking, a force for good’ works it way into every story, it’s pretty obvious whoever is writing these stories is slanting it as “The protesters - who are Anti-American - are marching in the streets against America. They’re also in the minority as most Brits think America is generally ‘good’”.
Keep watching and you’ll start seeing how in negative situations it’s slanted as “America America America” but in positive situations it’s “W W W”.
According to BBC reports between 100,000 and 150,000 people participated in Anti-Bush protests today.
In a stunning display negativity, the Pastor of the New Church of Cynisism of Milwaukee attacked the President of the United States for stand up for the same values that America was founded on; freedom, justice, and peace. “How can you have any of these values while waging a war?” asks Mr. DJC. Well, any realist realizes that in this far-from-utopian world we live in, Freedom is gained by battle against an oppressor (Saddam). Justice is had by fighting to bring the oppressor (Saddam) to Justice, because the oppressor won’t offer himself up willingly to Justice. Peace is had when Freedom is granted from oppression, and Justice is brought to the oppressor.
For this far-from-utopian world we live in, your words about justice seem pretty black-and-white!
Funny you should mention realism: the reason we went into Iraq was to further strengthen our hegemonic role in the world. We needed a strategic arabic ally in the middle east, for one. Secondly, Iraq’s ownership (under Saddam, anyways) of their vast oil reserves gave Saddam power. In fact, it was arguably his only source of power (oh, except for those nukes that Secretary Powell said he had). And, as oil became scarcer with every day, Iraq’s power was increasing.
Is that justice? If we went into Iraq for justice, then do not the people of North Korea deserve justice? Equatorial Guinea? A million other examples?
It seems extremely odd that someone citing realism would also criticize cynisism.
Jason for what it’s worth I am a realist. Being a realist implies that you’re looking at a situation or event without the red-white-and-blue tinted glasses on though.
Realism doesn’t mean you say I’m against American ideals because I’m against this administrations policies. (“attacked the President of the United States for stand(ing) up for the same values that America was founded on; freedom, justice, and peace.”) In fact, the whole quasi-linking those who are anti-Bush as Anti-Founding Father(At thanksgiving no less!!) or Anti-American is soFox News last March.
If freedom is what Bush is after, as Matt said, where are the troops in Liberia? Or Uganda? Or East Timor? Or the half the world that doesn’t practice democracy? As for ‘Justice’.. Well, the foundations of justice are morality and the law. It’s hardly ‘Justice’ in that case if you lie about the case for ‘Justice’ and ignore the laws of the world community by launching a pre-emptice stirke to kill a foreign dictator(also illegal, no matter how bad the guy is). As for ‘peace’, we’ll I’m all down for that. The problem for some people is they equate peace with being anti-troop or anti-american, which is just about as far from the truth as you can get.
I have a brother on the DMZ in South Korea right now more than enough relatives in the military to form a few platoons on their own, and you think I am anti-troop or anti-american because I don’t support polices which put them and others in situations they shouldn’t be in? Please. Get realistic and stop trying to label the half of american’s who are anti-Bush as anti-American.
You say “We” went to war to do these things, but I think that most of the troops over in Iraq are there to bring Freedom to the Iraqi people…I don’t think that they risk not seeing their families again for oil. We can speculate as to why the politicians went over there, but we will never know for sure. I do know that the American people went there for the right reason though. And the true realist knows that hope trumps all in this life. The Iraqis now have hope, but with that hope comes uncertainty. They used to have certainty, but were only certain that the future held hopelessness.
Wow, that all sounds great, Scott McClellan himself would be jealous of a soundbyte like that.As for the ‘why’, if you can point out the U.N. resolution that authorized war to ‘bring freedom to the Iraqi people’, I’d be more than interested in seeing that. Or even a resolution that authorized war specifically for that matter. Because the only reasons I ever hear for going to war (before the war and all the Freedom/Justice/Liberation talk) from our president were because they had weapons of mass destruction and they were an immediate threat to the security of America.I know people like me (ya know! Anti-Christian, anti-american, anti-morals, and soon I’m sure, I’ll get the anti-semetic label here too if you don’t agree with me!) burn people like you up, which is why you’re here doing the GWB Rah-Rah routine so loudly. Remember, by casting me as the bad guy (anti-good), you’re re-enforcing the opposite side of the argument (pro-good) which you are representing here. That might work on the Fox news message boards, but it’s pretty easy to see through here.
First, I thank you for the pseudo-compliment.
As for getting the U.N. to pass a U.S. sponsored resolution calling for Freedom for the Iraqi people……you know as well as I do that even if Hitler reincarnate ran Iraq, the U.N. wouldn’t pass something with that language in it! As for you, I didn’t call you anti-American. Some of the greatest Americans stood up for things that were wrong (standing up for your beliefs is precisely what MAKES us American). Robert E. Lee is one of them. Now before you get bent out of shape, I’m not calling you a supporter of slavery. Robert E. Lee didn’t support slavery either, but he fought for a side that did. You may not agree with the Anti-American camp, but the point is that you are both fighting for the same end, namely a pullout of American troops. And therein lies the problem. Whether or not you agree with the circumstances that started this war, it is upon us now and it has a chance to bring freedom to the Iraqi people. Now as far as Anti-Christian, maybe you have never met a true Christian, so maybe your perception of them is skewed. I think that most people know that there is not one Christian out there (including me) that is not a hippocrite. Since we are human, we always make mistakes. Not everything we do is Christ-like. However, if you have someone so full of hate that he seems to take joy in the prospect of someone going to hell….well I think he should read his Bible again. Now on to anti-morals….I don’t think your that either. I have been a part of the f2o community for about a year now and have seen evidence of your morality at work within f2o. That does not mean that I condone EVERYTHING you do, and if I actually thought you were anti-semetic, I wouldn’t be part of f2o. I believe your wrong on the issue at hand, but I won’t go so far as to guarantee that I’m right….that would be foolish. But I know that I see a free Iraq at the end of this dark chapter, and that’s right enough for me.
By that logic, we should all go out and shoot every rapist, murder, etc. Inspecting a decision like this does not allow us to ignore the means and focus only on the ends.
I think if you reread my post Mr. Warden, you will see that nowhere is it suggested that we shoot rapists and murderers. I think it is a far reach to extrapolate that from my logic.
First off, Saddam is not a Hitler. Not by a long shot, so lets not confuse the issue about what the UN did or didn’t do. Let’s also not forget that Bush himself in his SOTU address made it very clear why we were going to war with Iraq(WMD, we’re in danger, etc that i said above). Again, only after the administrations original excuses for war turned out to be false did people start saying the exact same thing you are Jason, “Well shucks, we didn’t find any WMD! But liberation sure is a nice side affect, huh?” If liberation were the reason then we should be liberating every country under a dictatorship, but we don’t, so it’s illogical to say liberation is the reason we launched an un-lawful war with literally zero support from the rest of the world.
Just to be clear, I do know ‘real’ Christians, and my perceptions are decidedly not skewed.
“..but I think that most of the troops over in Iraq are there to bring Freedom to the Iraqi people…I don’t think that they risk not seeing their families again for oil.”
May I remind you that the troops don’t have a choice. The worlds foremost democracy can only fight its wars like every other country in the world: with people who don’t have rights, people who can’t even criticize the processes hat brought them there without fear of retribution.
All military commanders(All the way up to GWB) have to do is get the soldiers under their command out into the field into threatening situations. Then the hard work is done. Then the soldiers are fighting for themselves, fighting to see their spouse, child, and/or parents again. Ideals drop away like tattered bits of uniform and there is only the drive to fight to be one of the remaining at the end.
It works the same in any army.
Let’s be clear on the “Saddam is no Hitler” statement …
The only, and I mean ONLY, difference between Saddam and Adolf is that Adolf had much more military might. Saddam’s army, although large for the Middle East, is tiny compared to other world armies. Saddam is exactly like Hitler in all other ways … torture, secret police, invading neighboring countries, gassing his own people!
To say that he is “not like Hitler .. not by a long shot” is pretty inaccurate. If he had the military might Hitler did, he would be Adolf Hitler II.
Last I checked Saddam didn’t commit genocide or order the death of over 7 million people. Saddam didn’t start WWII. Again, yes Saddam is a bad guy, he killed many of his own people, but to compare the person who’s committed more murders than arguably anyone else in history to a regional thug like Saddam only dilutes the real horror that Hilter embodied. BTW, where did he get the chemical weapons he used to gas his own people in the late 80’s and early 90’s? Does that make the US responsible at least in part for the deaths of those people?
I think a better comparison would be that of Pol Pot or Augusto Pinochet, both of whom were familiar with killing their own people, secret police, and torture.
I am at school, and as I was searching for epistemologies against morals, this came up. Damn you. Damn you to Hells