Strange ideas

Bubblehead: You're right, we don't speak the same language. I never learned to speak "Republican spin." I take it you must have a direct line to the Republican spin machine. The U.N. did not approve of the Bush/Cheney attack on Iraq. When they couldn't get the U.N. to do their bidding they, along with their toady, Blair, went ahead and did what they wanted anyway. Virtually the entire world recognizes that this attack on Iraq was a blatant violation of the U.N. Charter, as well as a violation of our own Constitution. Kofi Annan himself, at the time, said it was illegal. There is no way you can spin it as legal, technically or otherwise. The U.N Charter and the Nuremberg trials make it quite clear: pre-emptive wars are the number one war crime. I have no doubt the Iraqis fired on some of our planes. Bush/Cheney were doing everything they could to provoke Sadam into doing something that would give them an excuse. They even considered falsely identifying a plane as belonging to the U.N., hoping it would be fired on. When Sadam didn't bite they just made up their own excuses: WMD's, toppling a dictator, spreading democracy, he wouldn't let the inspectors in, and blah, blah, a web of lies so transparent they never should have been believed, let along promoted by the MSM. Furthermore, when the U.S. and Britain went ahead in spite of the disagreement by the other three voting members, it simply made a mockery of the U.N. You don't notice the U.N. or anyone else eager to jump in and pull us out of the fire. Your suggestion that the occupation (an occupation that is itself violating the rules for such things) might be also considered an "assistance mission" is so absurd as to leave me speechless with disbelief.

After six plus years of "war" and two days of reports, we seem to be exactly where we have been all along, nowhere, kicking the can again, as Eugene Robinson suggested, another six months down the road. Petraeus said we're bring some troops home now. These troops were scheduled to come home anyway and their return has nothing to do with the success of the "surge." We'll be bringing another 30,000 home sometime early next year. These troops are coming home anyway because there are no others to replace them and, again, this has nothing to do with the succeess of the surge. Petraeus also reported that he doesn't know if all this is making the U.S. safer or not, "because he hasn't thought about it." Imagine that, fighting a "war" to make us safer from terrorists but he hasn't thought about it. Ambassador what's-his-name (I don't know why I block on his name every time) says he can't give any dates or ideas about when all of this might end (because, of course, under Bush's non-plan it can obviously go on forever). It has now become common knowledge that Bush's only plan is to keep this travesty going until he can pass it on to the next President (who they believe is going to be a Democrat). The Republicans only hope, I guess, is for another 9/11 type attack sometime before the election. I wonder if even that would make any difference now. Oh, yeah, Crocker, it just came to me. Such is the state of our world right now: probable recession, global warming, never-ending war, endless debt, no health insurance for so many millions, environmental degradation, and whatever. What we need, I guess, are more tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy.

LKBIQ:

"Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder.... the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish their corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace....They are continually talking about their patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches."
Eugene V. Debs