Dear Mayor:
The seditious decision by Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission to introduce its anti-American declaration to the city council was wrong-headed and fundamentally dishonest. However, the reprehensible vote on this declaration by the council members, along with your support, is even more calculatedly malevolent.
You have accused your country (.pdf) thusly:
The United States has a history of launching illegal, immoral and unprovoked wars of aggression and the Bush Administration launched the most recent of those wars in Iraq and is threatening the possibility of war in Iran. These wars have produced catastrophic loss of human life, both civilian and military, as well as physically maiming and deforming and psychologically destroying countless numbers of civilians and military personnel.
The United States Marine Corps is being used as one of the means of perpetrating and prolonging illegal, unconstitutional and unnecessary wars of the United States. Military recruiters are sales people known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service with false promises regarding jobs, job training, education and other benefits. Many enlisted persons never see the benefits they are promised and find out they are not eligible for the educational benefits due to loopholes and they did not receive the training promised or it did not qualify them for jobs outside the military.
The United States military discriminates by refusing to hire gays, lesbians, or bisexuals. By ordinance (BMC § 13.28.030; Ord. 5106-NS § 1 (part), 1978), the City of Berkeley prohibits such discrimination; requires employers to post a notice that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is prohibited by law; and provides for a fine of up to $50 per offense for failure to do so.
Given that you are a former Army officer, and that you serve now as the leader of a city in the United States, your words and actions bring shame on all of us.
And your attack dogs from Code Pink are equally repulsive. One blogger noted:
- - - - - - - - -By an 8-1 margin, the Council voted to designate a parking spot for Code Pink protestors directly in front of the Marine recruitment office. What exactly does Code Pink do in front of the office? Code Pink regularly defaces the office, writes on the sidewalks and posts signs on the windows saying “Recruiters Lie Children Die”. This week, three protestors chained themselves to the door of the office, blocking the entrance for over 7 hours before police finally broke the chains and arrested them. Hmmm, I wonder how fast someone would be arrested for blocking the entrance to Berkeley City Hall?…
Code Pink is circulating petitions calling for a Berkeley ballot measure to make it more difficult to open and operate recruiting stations. The measure would be modeled after anti-pornography laws. To Code Pink the United States Military = Pornography.
Just because you and your council personally disagree with the policies of the President and Congress regarding the war in Iraq, and just because it is a popular stand in Berkeley to assume these anti-American attitudes, these sentiments are still not sufficient reason to dishonor the Marines in your midst.
If Berkeley wants to be independent, then by all means do so. But to expect that you will be permitted to slam our military with one hand while holding out the other hand demanding national monies for your projects is not only absurd, it is immensely tacky.
And despite your protestations, sir, the two hands are indeed connected. No free lunch, Mayor, not even for Beatific Berkeley.
It’s interesting that you have failed to return the phone call of a Gold Star mother who left a message for you after the vote. Are you too ashamed to speak to a woman whose son died in the service of your country, Mayor?
Here is the open letter Mrs. Lee wrote to you since you wouldn’t speak to her:
Mr. Tom Bates,I was appalled at the decisions that your City Council made at your last meeting, telling the Marines they were not welcome in your city and then granting Code Pink a parking place in front of the Recruiting office free for six months along with a free noise permit. I called and left a message last week for you to call me, a Gold Star Mother whose son gave the ultimate sacrifice. It doesn’t surprise me that you didn’t return that phone call. Trust me I won’t just go away!
My son Marc Alan Lee laid down his life 8-2-06 for Americans to have all of the freedoms that we enjoy. He voluntarily went to his recruiter to find out what opportunities would be provided to him and what would be required for him to be a Navy SEAL. He was treated professionally and never once regretted his decision to become a Navy SEAL. He was honored to serve his country. He was stationed in California along with half of the SEAL community. I’m sure you’ve heard of the elite of the elite, as President Bush calls them.
Marc was very pleased with his recruiter, and he was never lied to, tricked or deceived. His recruiter played the role of counselor or coach to Marc and helped him get the right schools, to be fit and prepared, and to understand what was ahead. Marc pursued his recruiter. Marc had a dream and a goal and he pursued the recruiter who showed him how to make his dream a reality!…
Perhaps Berkeley could secede? It would make so many of the rest of us happy and Berkeley could perform its usual circus as it left the fold and sailed into the Pacific. No need for police or a military on the Utopian island paradise of Berkeley.
Your town and its philosophy is so repugnant to most of us that we’d be glad to help you pack and move. We’d even take up a collection for you. Not government money, just lots of contributions from Americans who think more highly of our military than your socialist town does, and who think less of you than you do of our soldiers.
You think the Marines don’t belong in Beatific Berkeley? We don’t think that BB deserves a place in America. In fact, I doubt even the EU rulers would take you. But if we have to put up with you, you’ll just have to go along to get along, Mayor. Tough, but there you are. Life in reality.
Mentioning 9/11 is just so… so 2001, isn’t it? That’s a California frame of mind if ever there was one. After all, no one flew any jets into the buildings in Berkeley so what concern is it of yours, right?
Do you and your fellow city employees have so little meaningful work to do that you’re reduced to this shameful display of disrespect? And it is disrespectful to call the Marines names or label them “barbarous” in an effort to force them out of town. All that energy and hatred so focused on your own Berkeley navel that you’re surprised when the rest of the country rejects your purported “right” to both receive federal monies AND reject the presence of military offices in your pristine little socialist paradise. The other side of rights is responsibility, Mayor. Deal with it.
If your father were still alive, Mayor, what would he say about what you and your city council have done? Do you think this would be a moment of pride for him?
You and your city are an embarrassment to the rest of us. In fact, several of your citizens have written me in the past to say how intimidated and unfree they feel whenever they express any public affection for their country in the Socialist paradise of Berkeley, California. People call them names, interrupt, and talk over them if they dare to say anything positive.
No wonder you don’t understand why you can’t chase a government office out of town and still collect federal benefits.
No wonder you can’t connect the dots -- man, you can't even see the page.
It’s not that you’re a moron, though I can see why people are saying that. Personally, I think your intellect is intact and functions well. The problem is that your ability to see reality has been impeded by your decision to wear the socialist rainbow glasses. Keep those spectacles on and you’ll never get it.
In fact, it may be too late for you. After reading your biography, I can find no history of your ever having held a position in the real world. All your experience is in state and local government. You’ve never had to exist in the real world. Just like Bill Clinton, you are a creature of the political classes. A whole career in “public service” is not much better than being on the dole. Our founding fathers would not have understood this kind of parasitical existence - and if they did it would not have been met with approbation. You are the creature they feared.
Why don’t you catch up on the actual history of the last two decades? Take your head out of the sand long enough to hear some reality. From Blackfive:
For any of you out there who are doubting the validity of this war and the evil that resides in our enemy I ask you to study your history again. Over the last 20+ years dating back to the bombing of the Marine Corps Barracks in Lebanon, various factions of radical Islamic Terrorists have been committing heinous acts of terrorism against the free world.
We are fighting the same enemy here. The brethren of an evil ideology that spawned the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001 claiming almost 3,000 innocent lives. Take time to reflect on the type of evil that would put explosive vests on innocent women with Downs Syndrome and use them to kill and maim other innocent people.
While the American media strives everyday to rewrite the history of the most generous nation in the free world and cast disparity over all that we do as a Nation men like Mike and Nate [two Navy Seals killed in Iraq] are giving their lives to make sure the real history doesn’t repeat itself.
While the American media strives daily to erase the memory of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and paint this war as an unjust occupation of a sovereign nation men like Mike and Nate are out here hunting down and destroying the enemies of the very freedom that allows our media to try and discredit us. Terrorism is real, evil is real, this war is real and real men and women are in this fight because righteousness and freedom are worth fighting for.
If you don’t support this war I’m calling you out.
I’ve had enough of people sitting in their living rooms watching the lying media and jumping on the bandwagon against this war. Don’t ever say to me, “I support the troops, but not the war.” You might as well be telling me that I’m committing a crime. You are in effect saying that my cause is unjust and everything I believe in is a lie. I have held my tongue in the past, but I will never allow you to have it both ways again.
You cannot support me if you do not support this war. I am this war. It embodies everything that I believe in. If you believe that what we are doing here is wrong then you are in effect supporting the evil we seek destroy. If you believe I’m wrong for trying to stop evil people from taking more innocent lives then I fear there is no hope for you.
If you choose to dishonor my service and the sacrifice of my fallen brothers by taking a position against this war you are free to make that choice thanks to guys like Mike and Nate, but don’t expect me to sit idly by and bite my tongue while you do it. Do it in my presence and be prepared to try and support your feeble position while I enlighten everyone else on the reality of this war and the nature of the enemy we face. I will ensure that you look like the fool that you are.
The stuff I’m seeing out here you won’t see on Oprah Winfrey. I’m seeing really evil people doing really evil things and I’m doing everything in my power to stop them. There’s nothing wrong or unjust about that.
Call off those Pink Code dogs, Mayor. They bring you no honor at all and you'll end up having to clean up after them.
Code Pink is not house-trained.
After finishing up this post, I sat down to read Bill Whittle’s collection of essays from his blog, Eject, Eject, Eject. The book, entitled Silent America, Essays from a Democracy at War, is still pertinent. Like all good polemicists, what he writes ages well.
I resumed my reading on page 88, and shortly came to this passage:
I believe that many of those who opposed the war because they simply could not - or in many cases would not imagine what life under real oppression is like. Remember these are the people who say, and seem to believe, that we in the US live in a police state, under a murdering dictator, where propaganda is spoon-fed to us like willing idiots and political opposition is crushed mercilessly.
I thought fleetingly of the useful idiots who inhabit Beatific Berkeley. Then this paragraph followed:
If you say such things long enough, and you spend all of your time in the company of similarly tin-foil hatted comrades, then you actually begin to believe that life in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein wasn’t that much worse than life in Berkeley under the racist, election-stealing, Wellstone-murdering, Earth-destroying Republikkkan administration.
Berkeley is (as New Orleans came to be) still stuck on stupid. It’s just their fate.
I had forgotten all about the “murder” of Paul Wellstone. That plane crash was one of KKKarl Rove’s machinations, wasn’t it? Whatever happened to that ol’ boy, anyways? You figure they buried him somewhere in an unmarked grave?
45 comments:
You go girl!!!
Tom
1o1.
Speaking of Code Pink, where can I tell them that the Cultural Marxist mantra "Make love not war" probably lead to Abu Ghraib?
Lyndie England = Sexual Liberation over vicious Islamofascist homophobes
Well, I'm sitting here watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and this Sunday they're building a new home for a Marine who lost his leg in Iraq. The contrasts couldn't be more stark.
Those going out of their way to build a home for free for a US Marine and his four kids vs those $#&*)()&$#@@$%^&*(&%$##@@%^&*(())^^%$#%^*+_(!@*$%&*()_ scumbags wanting to get rid of them.
My God.. how I HATE them.
Geez, this one's a real tear jerker..
The Marines who were there and provided first aid after the EID were there in dress uniform to show him his new house. Standing at attention, raising the flag.. full honors.
Berzerkeley = cowardly toe jam.
Ain't fit or allowed to lick their boots.
Here's part of my letter to the mayor:
Dear Sir:
From your recent actions it is clear that you do not know the following:
The American military is the best trained, disciplined and behaved in the world, bar none. They are a volunteer force and contrary to leftist belief, are made up disproportionately of the best and the brightest your country has to offer.
The kind of media you read likes to concentrate on the 0.01% of soldiers who misbehaved at Abu Ghraib in Iraq rather than the 99.9% who are a credit to their country under the most stressful circumstances any military has had to face, where trying to minimize collateral damage to civilians results in more American deaths.
Your fellow politicians for example, have a much higher rate of corruption, sexual impropriety and other shameful behavior. You are hardly in any position to pass moral judgment on soldiers or their recruiters.
And yet you and your council presume to do so.
As someone with family members who have suffered real, not imaginary repression and death I am indescribably offended by the distorted language you and your fellow fantasists on the left use to describe their own country, the most desired in the world as borne out by the never-ending deluge of immigrants battering your doors down. People who call themselves liberal typically do not acknowledge, even excused real evil post World War II and now have the nerve to heap inappropriate coals of condemnation on the heads of your own innocent citizens with whom you have mere political disagreement! We must be grateful that you do not have the power to send secret police in the middle of the night and make your opponents disappear.
It's really too bad that your council members cannot be transported for a year into a Soviet gulag or Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein so that you would understand what true evil is instead of the fevered imaginings of pampered poodles like Code Pink You have been spoiled by your unappreciated freedom, lost all sense of perspective and do not deserve to live in the same nation served so creditably by your military. They understand that freedom, peace and all good things require constant vigilance.
Berkley is a disgrace and when the fall of Western civilization is traced, will deserve prominent mention as an example of mass hysteria with politicians shooting their own military in the back, figuratively while blind to the dark forces approaching and infiltrating.
And if one of these Code Pink people were being assaulted, would they refuse help because the rescuer might have to hurt the rapist?
Zeroes for brains, pinkos.
Quite a rant, Dymphna.
And in any long rant, there are some good points and bad ones. Being a negative kind of guy, I'll focus on the bad ones. :)
1. How about you not emulate the Lizard King and start labeling anyone who disagrees vocally with the policies of the current administration as "seditious?" Sedition is a crime - are you advocating that anyone who voted for this resolution be thrown into jail? Is the U.S. such a frail flower that those vocally disagreeing with our current government must be criminally prosecuted?
2. Are you denying that there are quite a few current and recent military personnel who have stated that they were duped or conned into enlisting? The stories are too numerous to be completely false. Yet the "Gold Star" mother you quote seems to say that all such stories are false.
3. What does being "socialist" have to do with this whole controversy? Socialism and pacifism are not political hand-maidens - it's quite easy to be one without the other. Watch your smear terms, Dymphna.
4. There's only one problem with your quote from Blackfive - there remains NO evidence that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda, despite the desperate attempts of this administration and the right-wing political machine to find such evidence. The whole premise of this war was a FRAUD. That doesn't mean that, now that we're there, we should just cut and run like the Berkeleyites would have us do. But Blackfive's complete wedding of support for our troops with support for this war is, frankly, outrageous.
5. Your final quotes from Bill Whittle are intellectually dishonest. Whittle has essentially abandoned any strategic reason for our invasion of Iraq by bringing up the "Saddam was a thug running a police state" argument. It's true. But it's also true of many, many other nations in the world, not just fellow Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc., but also non-Muslim nations such as Burma, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Zimbabwe, North Korea (the list goes depressingly on). Do you and Whittle advocating sending American troops to depose all of these regimes, guilty of the same crimes against their people as Saddam.
Your rage is heartfelt, Dymphna, but it's got a few gaping holes in it.
The only thing pink about 'Code Pink' is that stripe down their backs.
Former Gordon said:
Quite a rant, Dymphna.
Why thank you, FG.
And in any long rant, there are some good points and bad ones.
So true. And one man's good points are another's annoyances. 'Twas ever thus.
Being a negative kind of guy, I'll focus on the bad ones.
And being a positive kind of woman, I'll simply ignore it while you pee in the Cheerios. Obviously you weren't Raised Right, so we don't hold the untaught to the same standards...
:)
Same backatcha, FG. Don't let the door hit you on the gluteus maximus on your way out, sweetie cakes.
California state assemblyman Guy Houston is working on legislation that would strip Berkeley of its state funding (about $3 million). I hope he'll manage to get it past his Democratic colleagues.
It doesn't take much of an intellect to recognize that Code Pink and the Marines are on opposite sides of the fence, nor to recognize which group has our country's interests at heart.
When the intelectually-challenged Berkeley City Council writes
"The United States has a history of launching illegal, immoral and unprovoked wars of aggression ..."
... it loudly (and obviously proudly) proclaims its utter and complete dissociation with reality, and its utter and complete contempt for the country that gives it the right (or more properly, does not take away the right) to bay at the moon.
I would dearly love to see the "Poster formerly known as Gordon" write to Bill Whittle to see if he (Gordon) is on solid ground here.
Gordon,
Are you suggesting Bush committed fraud when invading Iraq? That he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and used it anyway as a justification for war? I've known quite a few whackos, but how anyone can honestly look at this claim of nefarious intent and square it away with reality is beyond me.
On the one hand, you have former President Bill Clinton stating precisely the same thing during his term. You have former V.P. Al Gore stating the same thing during his term. You have leaders of all major world powers stating the exact same thing, that Iraq had a WMD program.
Now, you turn around and claim that Bush, a man many who share your concept of "frad" think has the intellect of a houseplant, was magically omniscient. Or at the very least wiser than Bill Clinton or Al Gore, as they also claimed Saddam was working on these WMD's. As for al-Qaeda, failed Islamic societies are always breeding grounds for terrorist groups.
If your doomsday scenario is a nuclear-armed terrorist group going after American civilians, Saddam Hussein's regime had to be prevented from attaining that capability.
I understand the decision, I did at the time, and I think it's terribly dishonest to perform hindsight analysis and claim criminal intentions.
My $.02.
- Sodra
Gordon you said:Are you denying that there are quite a few current and recent military personnel who have stated that they were duped or conned into enlisting? The stories are too numerous to be completely false. Yet the "Gold Star" mother you quote seems to say that all such stories are false.
There are a more than a few who joined the military in order to obtain a free education. They never once thought they might have to go to a real war...And as for Saddam..HE, HIMSELF...His sons..all weapons of mass destruction. And in spite of being so unhappy with GWB about several things. He is looking better to me every day.
Sodra, perhaps you haven't been following the stories about altered CIA estimates and analyses performed by the Bush administration prior to the invasion of Iraq. So yes, there is a definite possibility that fraud was committed. Of course, a more diplomatic way of putting it might be that the Bush administration saw what it wanted to see, and the CIA analysts saw what was expected of them.
Well Dymphna, you can focus your outrage on the far left in this country, represented by the Berserkeley City Council.
And I'll focus my outrage on those who cheerlead for the Bush administration as it destroys our liberties in order to save them, decides that torture of those we don't like (including American citizens such as Jose Padilla) is OK, and gets a compliant Congress to authorize virtually unlimited surveillance of anyone in the U.S. the Bush administration chooses to surveill.
None of which, by the way, the prospective Republican Presidential candidate and possible next President of the United States would tolerate if we are lucky and prescient enough to elect him to the office.
The poster as gordon is a communist shill spewing twisted propaganda. Sorry, the proper code word for Communists nowadays is "progressives" (they don't like to be associated with genocide openly).
Do you know who is this Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin? Yes or no?
She is an Anti American rotten Commie, strait from Fidel's Cuban paradise. You uninformed idiotic comment belong to the Dailykos or Democraticunderground trash heap.
She tried to wreck havoc in Miami too -and everywhere where she and her aging lesbian cohorts protest but the Cubans kicked her sorry bottom out.
The net is full of Code Pink scndals so don't try to mislead us with your pious Bolshevik BS.
Gordon, you Stalinist incarnation, please TELL one instance when and where your liberties were violated. Say LOUD Comrade. Don't be shy. Do you worship the Ayatollah too? Hugo Chavez? Jose Padilla got what he deserved a primitive and idiot street thug.
You are swallowing too much from Marx Das Kapital.
Nodrog:
Hope the kool-aid was good 'cause it sure reduced your IQ.
OTOH, you're sooo cute when you're stupid. Watch out, they'll leave off ogling Bama and come running after you.
Don't slam the door on the way out, sweets...you've obviously wandered into the wrong room...again.
Say, does that happen often? Maybe you could sign up for some kind of disability when Hill gets into the Oval Office.
Bela--
You've hit the nail on the head!
He's *not* The Poster Formerly Known as Gordon, he's...
(whisper)
...the reincarnation of Stalin. At last we know Stalin is in Hell. He's living in Nodrog's skull. OMG...poor Stalin.
Stomp those Russian boots, Stalin...umm, Nodrog, er, Poster Boy.
Well, he's here: let's dance! (apologies to Al Stewart)
I say let's keep the Nodrog as a pet. He's fun to debate.
And as for the assertion regarding CIA analysis, I can only say this: the report people point to as "proof" Bush had of counter-intelligence was published approximately one week before Bush's speech, by a low level analyst.
One week. That means it needs to get reviewed by his superiors, his superior's superior, then spend some time between that superior and the agency head's posterior.. And then and only then does it get to the Secretary of State.
No, Nodrog, you fail in the understanding of how these intelligence analyses proliferate.
- Sodra
Nice to see you again J.C. Super--
It's not contradictory to support the troops but not the war. The troops may be doing a good job and fighting for a good cause, but the war is still useless.
It sure is contradictory to the soldiers who serve, and their families that wait for them.
And your opinion that the war is useless is just that: *your* opinion. It's not likely to change anyone's mind, but feel free to spout off all you want. After all, that's what the soldiers are fighting for. Your liberty to spout, not your support.
On personal note, I spent 35 years under Communist rule in E. Europe so I am extremely well acquitted with their mentality, practices and ideologies from Gramsci all the way to Stalin and Bronstein (a.k.a Trocky). But the worst of the worst is the American branch which controls the press, education, mass media...why is so you may ask? Because the Eastern Bolsheviks were exterminated by Stalin's and those who survived were chased away when the USSR died. The American Branch led by the Frankfurt school, Herbert Marcuse, Adorno... took over the universities and spawned the pernicious Marxism unhindered in the States even today...not so in the East.
Soon America will harvest the first mature crop of the Bolshevik revolutionaries that was sowed by the European Commies seeking refuge in America.
The "Poster as Gordon" will be declared as bourgeois infiltrator who is corrupted by enemy agents and will be sent to the dundgeon where he can embrace Jose Padilla as cellmate.
Bela--
If you'er interested, you could do a guest post on the experience of living under Communism in Eastern Europe.
With all the horror that entails, it is ironic that Eastern Europe is now stronger and has a clearer version of reality than western Europe and America, which have been living soft lives for those generations when people were dying for what they believed.
Anyway, if you want to post, let us know in an email. Choice of topic is yours...
D.
Dymphna, not an easy task to tackle the history of Bolshevik terror in such a way as to make Westerners conscious of it's very essence. Solzhenitsyn presented the most horrific description of the Russian version.
But we have passed already that stage and the current version is more relevant to our life. I try to gather all pertaining information under the title: "While the Western capitalists morph into self loathing Bolsheviks, the second generation Bolsheviks reinvent the capitalist dictatorship. Shoot at their eyes and beat them into pulp!" This is the new zeitgeist.
I need time and polishing my English composition skill....
Too bad about Bela - spending all those years under a totalitarian dictatorship and all he wants to do once freed is go back to the slightly less authoritarian nonsense that infested Eastern Europe prior to World War II.
My mother and grandparents are Estonian refugees. I have relatives who dispappeared into both the Nazi concentration camps and the Gulag. I'm lucky to have escaped it. And I don't react lightly when someone like Dymphna would so blithely throw away those freedoms from government oppression in the name of a false sense of security. Or when someone like Bela who should know better does so.
Dear Dymphna,
Pardon my stupidity, but
1. Who are "they"
2. What is "Bama," and
3. Why are "they" ogling it?
One last thought, Dymphna.
I'm not aware of any Al Stewart song entitled "Let's Dance." Are you thinking of David Bowie?
Maybe you should ask Lord Grenville. Or tell him.
"Poster known as Gordon" You are asked, please bring up ONE instance when YOUR civil right was violated.
You can post any stupid statement on leftist hate sites like Alex Jones's or 9/11 Truth, or my fellow Hungarian Soros financed moveon.org but please, every statement on this site must be supported by unquestionable facts or links lest you are a troll or a vapid shill.
So HOW was your freedom violated?
Say please LOUD we are listening.
If you have problem to present a sample violation please ask Mr. Chomsky or Medea Benjamin's advices.
I assure you Code Pink would not last 1 hour in her Bolshevik Paradise...Che Guevara would have cut her to pieces so would do Putin. You can have big mouth ONLY here (where your rights are violated)...would you dare to criticize the Soviet (Red) Army?
Ha ha ha, you would find yourself mining for gold along the Kolyma river in Siberia.
So how was your freedom opressed by Bush? Tell us your horror stories...been to Gitmo? In camps?
So please, speak up!
"Poster known as Gordon" I am offering you $10.000 plus expenses if you go to Moscow, and dare to accost a Russian soldier in uniform, start a commotion...my offer is valid for N. Korea, Cuba, Venezuela -for all of your Dreamlands where your freedom is more respected than over here in the Great Satan.
Try it in Hungary where the rule is: "aim and shoot at their eyes and beat them to pulp"
So willing to accept? I am not joking.
Imposter Gordon...
The Al Stewart song was "Joe the Georgian" -- I believe it was on his CD, "Between the Wars"...great little compact history lesson on Stalin's betrayal of all his allies. In the song they are in "the anteroom to Hell" and "when Joe the Georgian gets here we will dance, dance, dance.
My son sang it at a concert for Al Stewart in PA. Stewart had forgotten all about it so the song was sung a cappella until finally some vague chord memory in Al's guitar rose to the occasion... and the audience stamped their Russian dance, waiting for Joe to show up.
And thanks to you, he has.
I find it funny that anyone who doesn't agree with Dymphna or her goons are called communists or associated with them. It is kind of like leftists calling people sceptical to immigration for racists.
I also find it funny that Dymphna who always talks about being civil is not being civil at all, and not discussing but calling people communists etc.
I find this war in Iraq to be useless. USA should never have attacked it in the first place, it had no reason to what so ever. There hasn't been any proof at all
for WMDs. If they would have had them it would be the ones' America
sold to Iraq. Instead of fighting terrorism, America has spawned and created more terrorism exactly the opposite of what they proclaimed they were doing. And wtf is the b***s about "fighting evil" America
has done many evil stuff in the past... It is good to be patriotic, but people like you are suppressing freedom of speech when you talk about people being un-american. He is critisizing american politics ergo he is un-american ergo don't listen to him.
Anyway I'm norwegian(waiting to be called communist) so I may be biased, but maybe not as biased as Dymphna is.
Saladin89,
That's a very interesting choice of names. How long has your family been in Norway? And on what historical basis do you claim to be "Norwegian?" I fall all over myself everytime I run into someone who is clearly of Moroccan ancestry claiming to be "Dutch." Are you one of these types?
Now, I'll drop that argument and accept at face value that you are in fact "Norwegian" and just thought it would be fun to use a Crusades-era Muslim general as a nickname. How many troops does Norway have in Iraq? By all means, if you think the war in Iraq is useless, tell your politicians to remove them from the effort. It wouldn't have been Norway that nuclear weapons would be headed toward had terrorists been able to acquire them from a rogue state.
Please refer to my post above. ALL WORLD LEADERS thought Saddam had a WMD program. Why? Because he refused to allow inspections as required by agreements at the end of his first war. I'm glad Saddam is dead. There may be sectarian strife in Iraq, but ultimately it needed to be worked out, just as France, England, and the U.S. has gone through periods of outright war to work out our own.
- Sodra
Well I am in fact norwegian full blooded, My ancestors have lived here all of them. My ancestors were fishermen and farmers, I can even give you some pictures for proof. I can trace my ancestors back many generations. I am using this nickname because well I used it when I was 13 years old for message boards and online games, so it is just a practical thing, so I don't have to remember multiple usernames.
Here is me last summer
her
And me three years ago
her
her
In this article Saddam Hussein it is said why Saddam didn't allow the weapon inspectors to check in. It was because he wanted to threaten Iran, to project power.
Do you have any sources on this regarding policial leaders saying this about WMDs?
Norway has withdrawn their troops from Iraq a long time ago to maximize their efforts in Afghanistan. Also Saddam Hussein despised Terrorists, it is wish thinking that he was in any way communicating or cooperating with these groups. Even condi said this
before 9/11. The administrations oppinion changed after 9/11 obviously because they wanted revenge and slaughter some hundred
thousands of people in return for 9 /11.
Even though I agree with you about that it's good that a merciless dictator is gone. This has come at a price, terrorism has grown because of this war and many other implications have arised. For example Iran has become very strong.
I am still very pessimistic regarding how it is going to turn out in Iraq in the end. Guess I will have to wait and see
saladin89 said:
I also find it funny that Dymphna who always talks about being civil is not being civil at all, and not discussing but calling people communists etc.
I don't believe you got the point, S89. Teasing Nodrog, or Gordon, or the Poster Formerly Known as Gordon (these are all the same person) requires a context you might not be aware of. It has a history in Gordon's life as a commenter on LGF...And I didn't call anyone a communist -- I called Gordon the reincarnation of Stalin. That's a distinct difference.
Stalin's vocation seems to have been to kill as many communists as possible. Or rather, killing them after he forced their conversion to Communism.
I don't think you can tell the irony from the serious parts,S89. That's an impediment here.
And if you find *me* uncivil, why are you using acronyms and asterisks which you think pass muster as refraining from the use foul language against your opponent?..which you obviously consider me to be, since you refer to those who agree with me as "goons." Now how civil is that, Saladin89?
In fact, you're so adept at incivility, you perform mind-reading on my reaction to your being Norwegian. Why would that make anyone a Communist?
I know two Norwegians -- one of them Fjordman -- and I don't consider them Communists. Why would you anticipate that particular epithet for yourself? To me, the definition of Communism is "failed utopian schemerwho is ignorant of history and human nature." You don't seem like that at all. In fact, you'd have made a darn good Jesuit.
I haven't suppressed anyone's free speech. Read more carefully: I have disagreed with people -- e.g., Jesus Christ Supercop, a Finn who thinks as you do, that the wars in the Middle East are "useless". I don't agree with you or him, but I haven't prevented anyone for holding forth on their view of the war. Have at it...but disagreeing is not suppressing and your saying so doesn't make it so.
Sorry, but I can't understand your first sentence. After reading it three times, it still doesn't make sense to me. Since communication is the act of the receiver, we'll have to consider that my flaw,not yours.
Wow, I sure could get used to having my own goons, though. Will any of y'all Dymphna goons step forward and identify yourselves? We could go make mischief somewhere...
...maybe Norway when it warms up? We could take Saladin89 out for a beer. Being as he's Norwegian, though, we'd be paying for his.
/irony
ehm... well I must say you won the discussion there Dymphna. You owned me(hope you understand leet language)
And well this is my second post, so I am not as good as you seasoned veterans in discussing topics. But well goon is a cool word... dunno how wise it was to use it...
I get it now I guess :(
That was harsh, in reality the prices here are so expensive on alcohol that I would be paying for yours :)
and by the way it amazes me how you get the time to do all this stuff on the site. Takes a good chunk of my day reading only this and document.no
Keep it up.
saladin89--
Yes, I do know the word. We use the typo version, which is
"pwned". I always thought it meant "pounded" so I'm wasn't too far off.
As for blogging, commenting, etc., it's just as time-wasting as gaming, really. I mean, no one is learning any really fast eye-hand coordination around here.
But the thing I enjoy is that it's like a big front porch on a country store. People come and go, engage in conversation and pass on. Being the owner of the store, so to speak, I get to hear everyone.
You have an excellent grasp of English. Hope you're reading Fjordman...I think he's amazing.
A really worthwhile place to park and read is The Belmont Club. Wretchard, the blogger, is originally from the Philippines, but lives in Australia. He got a scholarship to Harvard for graduate school...applied mathematics, I think. He's also very well-read in literature and a modest, decent man. A good scholar. A good mentor, most humane.
You'd learn a lot hanging out there. He has very smart and knowledgeable commenters, too. Especially about military strategy and history.
[Look for his link on our sidebar. It's The Belmont Club. Think it's under "B" rather than "T"]
It was from commenting at Belmont Club that we started a blog.
By the way, the other Norwegian I know is a confirmed capitalist. Likes to found new companies, get them going, sell them and start others. He's funny and he's a most realistic person. No socialist, he. Very generous to causes he believes in, too. Most capitalists are...generous, I mean.
__________
BTW, you really do punch above your weight. I'd have flamed you less had I known how young you were. You were courageous to put up your picture(s).
That's *not* irony; it's a compliment.
saladin89--
one thing more: I *really* would like some goons. Kewl...
I did volunteer work in a woman's prison and there are some real goons in that environment. One doesn't turn her back on them...
Saladin,
After doing a Google search, the only site I could pull up was the following:
Democrat Weapons of Mass Destruction Quotes
Granted, this is only American politicians and it's skewed in tone (to put it mildly) on the Republican side.
However, I have seen a page that codified statements from European leaders, prime ministers and senior European government officials as well. If I had the time I'd find them, but rest assured Bush and the American politicians before him were not the only ones to hold this view.
Personally, I doubt Saddam had nuclear weapons. He may have been working on them, just as Iran may be working on them now. But undoubtedly Saddam did have nerve agents, and chemical/biological WMDs. And we actually found those.
Nuclear weapons are not easy to build. To build the atomic weapons that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a generation below that of nuclear weaponry, took the American construction of a city of thousands working around the clock. And that was without attempting to hide this from the watchful eye of a superpower and with near-limitless funds. However, if the opportunity had ever arisen for Saddam to get his hands on them, and more critically, use them, I think his example with the Kurds speaks more clearly to his aptitude to do so than I could.
- Sodra
Saladin, This is my habit to call leftists as communists. The entire Leftist/Socialist agenda rest on Marxist-Leninist-Engelsian utopian philosophy of which avowed goal is to destroy prevailing civilization and replace it with the NEW SOCIALIST MAN. Capisci? How I know? I was rotting in Eastern European High Security prison, young Germans were shot at the Berlin wall when YOU bastard Western Europeans protested against the Americans, cheered on the barbarian Russian occupation of Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Poznan. Bader-Meinhof, Paris '68, Con-Bendit,...remember?
We don't forget. The EU is a socialist (Marxist-Leninist) dictatorship stands against America and the non-leftist Jews and the argument that a Socialist who beats up his adversaries is different than a Communist that beats up his adversaries is moot....For the victims there is no difference between the two just like the SS not much different than the SA. Leftists hate to be called as Communist because the mass murder what they committed worldwide is not an attractive picture to be associated with. So they invent Orwellian double speak, newspeak to cover their track.
Norway is synonymous with Quisling but todat they are sucking up to the Muslim hordes and bashing the Americans with due respect to Fjordman who is a true hero.
I support my statement:
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article392837.ece
News analysis:
America's star keeps fading in Norway
Anti-Americanism: The Common Ideology of Old Europe
Two Norwegian journalists, Dag Herbjørnsrud and Stian Bromark, have written a critically acclaimed book about European Anti-Americanism: The Fear of America: A European History (Frykten for Amerika. En europeisk historie).
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Norwegian Government Surrenders to Muslims
by Baron Bodissey
Unfortunately, I've come to the point where I tire of explaining the dangers of the isms they champion, especially when such information is constantly and flagrantly disregarded. Apparently, Ignorance is Bliss these days.
Then there are those who believe that they'll either get a seat at the Socialist/Communist table or at least get a few scraps thrown their way, failing to see that the people who are to come into power during the final phases of the Marxist push are going to be the most capricious and cutthroat and are most likely to put their supporters in prison or in front of a firing squad for the sole purpose of eliminating competition and insuring that everyone else stay in their place. They have theirs, and what they have, no one else shall have.
Perhaps it is the fact that contemplation of an impending war with the most ruthless of enemies is a frightening proposition for those who've never had to do much of anything to protect their soft lifestyles. So idle hands go about creating artificial crises and exacerbating small issues, placing them on the forefront in order to generate any sort of riveting drama to break up the boredom. Then along comes the Gramsci propaganda created to break apart societies and soften them up enough for the acceptance of hard Communist rule once the excrement hits the fan and/or the populace is soft-headed enough to eat their untruths hook, line and sinker. I believe the two have combined together to form a colossal smokescreen that distracts the average being from the larger problems of the world (seeing as those problems are "over there" and not directly affecting them) and causes them to instead focus on the various particles of smoke that drift their way (global warming, the Code Pink fiasco, etc).
As far as the City of Beakniks is concerned, they should be thankful that the USMC or, for that matter, the US Government do not possess the same attitudes toward disrespect from pissant subjects that the USSR possessed. The city would then be under new management, and the city's former leaders, as well as the vast majority of the protesters involved, would be executed and unceremoniously buried like refuse. There are numerous countries that brook no dissent from the teeming masses. The people in this country who term themselves as "Progressive" and "Liberal" should be thankful that the US is not such a country.
Hello, Saladin. The "history" of which Dymphna talks about is being revealed little by little in its full glory at this site: www.nodrogsgreatesthits.blogspot.com.
I don't believe I had any writing jousts with Dymphna on LGF (unless she was using a pseudonym like Leah or Zulubaby or Ploome ???), but she is apparently very familiar with me from my epic work on that site in being contrary to the sheep-like logic that infected (and is even more virulent now that I was banned) LGF (which stands for Little Green Footballs, at www.littlegreenfootballs.com).
I will give Nanny and the Professor, er... I mean Dymphna and the Baron credit - they don't ban people who disagree with them.
But, as the Nodrog, it's always fun to punch holes in right-wing high dudgeons like the one Dymphna started this thread off with her rant against the stupid but harmless denizens of Berkeley, California, U.S.A.
Former Gordon--
No I only had my usual nic at lgf.
I never "jousted" with you. Since I didn't go there often, I didn't have any context for the various cliques and divisions. I only found out about you later by reading Gulf Coast Pundits. That 'twas after me banishment.
BTW, CJ was clever with that. He banned us, delinked us, and then later, without saying anything, put us back as registered so that his minions could call me a liar for ssying I couldn't get on. That boy may have a few social problems, but he's one smart guy.
I'll have to check out your blog, just so I get the history straight. I do remember when you started appearing at GOV they --lizzies -- gave all sorts of dire warnings (people would send emails or drop info in the comments).
Was it you who did the weather reports? I liked those.
Thanks for my new name: Nanny. I like that better than Dymphnomaniac, the Mad Queen (though I'm fond of that one, too)and the various lame names the lizzies would come up with.
As for punching holes in my high dudgeon, that perception is in the mind of the person saying it.
To me your efforts are but sad, futile attempts to leave my perfect arguments in disarray.
Better luck next time.
People on the Left continue to repeat a litany of stupid assertions about the US invasion of Iraq. Basically, they don't give a crap about the facts, they simply keep reciting the Party Line, thinking that repeating the LIE over and OVER will browbeat people into accepting it as the truth. (Why not? It's a strategy that works a lot!)
Let's recall a few things.
• The original "Gulf War" in 1991 was SUSPENDED by an ARMISTICE, an agreement to cease hostilities so long as Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athist government complied with a number of conditions. If it was legitimate to oppose the invasion of Kuwait, then it was legitimate to use military force later to get Saddam to abide by the armistice terms he'd accepted to save his ass.
• There was supposed to be a full accounting of all Kuwaiti citizens who went missing (that is, they were "kidnapped" or "disappeared") as a result of the Iraqi invasion. At this writing there are still some 600 Kuwaitis unaccounted for, as reported by the New York Times.
• Saddam's forces were supposed to refrain from any further hostilities either against their own people, or against Coalition forces. In stead, Saddam made numerous murderous campaigns against the Kurdish populations, and made hundreds of missile attacks against Coalition aircraft patrolling the "no fly zones" created as buffers to Saddam's military provocations.
• Between 1993 and 1999 the number and defiance of Saddam's violations of the armistice prompted William Jefferson Clinton to send U.S. and Coalition naval task forces and aircraft on SIX different missions to attack deep in Iraqi territory, to discourage, punish, and otherwise halt Saddam's military operations. The Left never made a peep about these military actions, for which President "I-can't-control-my-own-Pecker" did not at any time bother to get Congressional OR U.N. permission. He didn't NEED to, because the terms of the Armistice to which Saddam had agreed provided all the legal grounds necessary for Coalition / US military response to Saddam's manifold violations of the terms.
• Saddam was supposed to (1) destroy the entire inventory of weapons of mass destruction that had already been openly developed and used during the Iran-Iraq war, including chemical and biological and nuclear weapons research projects, and (2) provide verifiable documentation of that destruction.
Saddam resisted all attempts at enforcing these conditions, repeatedly blocking, delaying, and obstructing U.N. inspectors, sending them to the wrong locations, making them wait for days while the targeted facilities were sterilized of evidence. This dance went on for years, while the impotent United Nations Security Council passed scores of resolutions, accomplishing precisely nothing.
• By 2002 the British intelligence services estimated that Saddam was restarting his WMD research & development, as did the French, Russians, Germans, and the U.S. There are hundreds of well-documented speeches and statements by Democratic politicians --- including Ted kennedy, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and many others --- describing Saddam and his weapons programs and policies as so dangerous they justified forcibly disarming him.
• The opponents to the 2003 invasion of Iraq have claimed there were no WMD's discovered. That's not entirely true, because some artillery shells were found with traces of Sarin and other chemical toxins, along with facilities that were likely mobile bio-hazard labs, and some other fairly minor things. But the WMD issue was merely one item in a long list of justifications. It is the LEFT that has attempted to make this the primary issue of the invasion, and it is a big fat lie. Anyhow, satellite imagery shows massive Russian truck convoys and Air Cargo craft loading up and carrying unknown cargo from facilities all over Iraq to destinations across the Syrian Border in the six months before the invasion. What the hell do you turd-for-brained people think they were carrying, dish soap? Cartons of Victoria's Secret Crotchless Panties? Grammar textbooks for the needy Syrian schoolchildren? Oh, yeah... and it sure is an interesting coincidence that two planeloads of Syrian technicians flew to Khartoum to assist the Sudanese government set up chemical weapons attacks on Black African NON-muslims in Darfur just a year later.
• Finally, there are thousands of pages of captured Ba'athist documents slowly being translated from Arabic to other languages. For a long time they have been available to the public on the internet. These documents confirm details of medical aid provided by Saddam to international terrorists, of meetings with various other international terrorists, payments of bribes all around the world in the Oil-for-Bribes scandal conducted by the robbing lying rascal Koffi Annan, and general crimes and misdemeanors. It was NEVER the claim of Bush that we were invading because of some connection to Al-Qaeda, but the Left are insane to pretend that Saddam was not directly connected to international terror. For years he famously offered and paid out fat cash rewards to the families of Palestinian Suicide Bombers.
I suppose it would be a waste of ascii text and pixels to specify precisely how much contempt I have for the idiots on the Left who spout such lies.
Hey Dymphna, thanks for the compliments on my english, I try to be as eloquent as you guys. I will check out that site, and I have read all of fjordmans articles except for a few. I am thinking about buying a book about this IslamvsTheWest theme. Dunno which one though, any recommendations?
Dymphna, the weatherman is Ed Mahmoud (known earlier by other nicknames on LGF). He is a GCP regular and was banned after me. He's made a few comments on GOV recently as well.
I won't admit defeat on this thread, but I will admit that defending the Berserkelyites is a difficult task ...
Bela: I defer to your experiences under Communism. But I think that in this country, "progressive" is the codeword for socialism. Granted, the differences are subtle. They changed it from "Socialist" to "progressive" some years back, when they discovered (to their surprise) that "socialism" didn't have the deep warm resonance with the people it once did.
I don't think it's necessary to point out that both Hillary and Obama are staunch "progressives". Almost everything she says (like, "... and we'll have to take it away from you for the common good") tells us that.
But as you say, to the people subjugated, the difference is probably only academic.
Like many liberals, Gordon complains of the many freedoms we've lost. How then, do they explain the likes of Michael Moore, still waddling free and making silly propaganda films; how explain the despicable Jimmy Carter, still travelling the world disparaging the country he was [one of the worst] President[s] of; loons like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ward Churchill, Cindy Sheehan - all free as birds.
For saladin89 and his comments on Saddam, I only point to what Saddam did to his own people, to the Kurds, to the Marsh Arabs, ... Draining the swamps was perhaps the greatest environmental disaster in modern times.
Given the above, it's quite clear to me that Saddam was himself a WMD. And the less said about his psychopathic sons, the better.
You say "terrorism has grown" - then how explain the recent news that al-Qaeda's influence (and population) is in steady decline?
How do you explain "Saddam despised terrorists" when he regularly gave grants of $25,000 to families of successful suicide bombers?
You may be pessimistic, but you're in a minority. (A minority which includes Nancy Pelosi.)
Kudos to MadFiddler for collecting that litany of "a few things". I would only add one other: for some years, the UN hurled mighty resolutions at him (which he cheerfully tossed down the toilet), finally ending with one that read "... or face serious consequences". In the guarded language of diplomacy, everyone knew what that meant. War. And when President Bush had organized a coalition of some 60 countries, that's exactly what he got. To no-one's surprise except his own.
As an aside, that bit about Air Cargo leaving Iraq has been documented in a book by a former Iraqi Air Force General.
Sometimes it seems that trying to explain things to a liberal (of the Berkeley variety) is like (as a comedian from long ago put it) trying to explain parallel parking to a cucumber.
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