|
I'll add a few cents here. I'm surprised at what appears to be a larger contingent of FReepdom here than I would have thought for a site such as this, but then I suppose I have to put my own preconceptions aside. Edible, I admire that you stand up for your convictions, but I'm going to respectfully disagree. I'll admit, firstly that I am unflinchingly progressive or liberal (not to give the impression that I'm hiding behind the progressive label to avoid the dreaded "L" word--I'm proud to be considered either).
You mentioned you want the troops out because no more should die for the Iraqi's cause. To echo Colin Powell: you break it you buy it. We've broken it, and so we own it. The PNACers have been planning this for years. They tried to get Clinton to do it. (before you call me a lock-step Democrat, I state for the record that I'm no huge fan of Clinton as he, like many of "The People's Party" are actually Republican-lite--Clinton was simply a corporatist that I could stomach. My personal view is that we actually have one party here in America: the party of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation, and that it has a right wing, the Dems, and a far right wing, the Reps., but that's a whole other story.) Now that they have their puppet in power, they used the tragedy of 9/11 to further the foreign policy they wrote about in the 90s and dreamed about even before that.
Now that we're in Iraq, it is hard to see what course of action is correct. I think it depends on what the reality of the Iraq situation is. I think there is an insurgency because the Sunnis, who were western in terms of way of life, are seeing the rights they had as a secular society under Sadaam being threatened by a constitution that would turn Iraq into a Theocracy. They, as well as insurgents from outside the country are seeing what is going on and they are fighting against it. They see the corporate take over of Iraqi oil, oil that was supposed to belong to its people, oil that was supposed to, according to the Bush administration, pay for reconstruction. I will advocate to bring the troops home as soon as possible just as you do, but for the reason that our presence there is the reason there is an insurgency in the first place. The administration has no desire to pull out now, because the chaos, both in terms of politics with the infighting over the terms of the constitution and the ground situation with the insurgency, allows for the corporatists to do what they always dreamed of: essentially stealing oil for their own benefit.
As Bill Mahar has said, maybe down the road, we'll see the PNACers as visionary. Right now they are a (in my view) gang of un-American radicals dragging our country down a dangerous road who have hijacked our country to drive their own corporatist agenda.
I'm an American, but I guess I have a different view of what it means to be one.
Fallen Angel, I agree with your position. F911 was only a popular documentary that put into an easy to swallow capsule form a vast body of well documented facts and research that many of us who were following alternative news sources were familiar with. It was attacked by the right wingers in our mainstream media because of some artistic liberties Moore took with the film to make presentation funny or interesting, but what the film says is true.
As far as dogs as bait go, considering the source, it is highly questionable. The Sun is apparently as useful as a news source as our very own New York Post. Even if the story is true in any way, it is insane to condemn an entire people for it, but I do hope they put an end to the practice and find a way to bring those responsible to justice.
|