In the Middle East, hatred for the US is not new, but it has skyrocketed since 2003. There is now an entirely new generation of militants and guerillas (whom we call terrorists), driven to madness out of frustration with US policy. These people see the US itself as the terrorist power, bent on total destruction of the Muslim people and their faith.

Censuring Mr. Bush would be a good first step to assure these people and the rest of the world that the US retains a tiny drop of sanity, and will not simply excuse itself from crimes committed in its name. Even better would be to get out of Iraq immediately and send Mr. Bush and his pals to an international court. The damage cannot be undone, but at least the recruiting of new guerilla fighters would be lessened.

Robert: That is about as historically well-informed as saying that “Radical Christianity declared war on the rest of the world about 1800 years ago.” Spare us. The US war on Iraq — by the judgment of much of the rest of the world — is illegal and unjustifiable. Behind every Iraqi we have killed is a family and a neighborhood of other Iraqis screaming “Why?” These are people who until now had better priorities in life than seeking vengeance against the US.

John from NC: The self delusions of people like you on the left are astonishing to behold. You know John, just because you or other Leftists say Bush lied, conducted an illegal war, violated our rights or has caused increased hatred against us by Muslims does not only not make it true, it only serves to demonstrate a movement (Liberal-Socialism)and a political party (Democrats) bereft of any positive ideas, any real policies, any core values or any true love of America.

Islam has been attacking American interests around the world for decades, they got in their big punch against America and the West on 9/11, but long before that we were betrayed at a critical time in history by a President (Clinton) who hated and gutted our military and our intelligence services; and who wanted to treat Islamic Terrorism as a law mere enforcement problem; and because of these acts of betrayal against out country, President Bush had to counter attack these murderous religious zealots based on woefully defecient intelligence data and a skeleton of our old military. Fortunately, Bush had the guts to go after Bin Laden and while again Clinton’s betrayal of America in gutting our intelligence services gave Bush bad information on Saddam’s WMD’s, Bush was willing to go after that murderous beast in his sick lair where he and his bastard sons had allowed their beastialty to run wild for decades, killing innumerable Iraqi’s, Kurds and Iranians.

Since that time Clinton’s Party, your party, including people like you, have tried in every way possible to undermine our President, our military and our country; as the cowardly traitors you all are at heart, you have given clear and deliberate aid and comfort to our Islamic enemies in your lust for power, and so you are all acessories before, during and after the fact of every American and allied soldier’s death in Afghanistan and Iraq, and very large numbers of innocent Iraqi and Afghanistan civilians. Unlike your wild and reckless, wholly unsubstantiated charges against Bush, we can document every traitorous act of your party during the past 6+ years.

Lastly, my family has paid the ultimate price in defense of liberty in Iraq and more of our lives at risk as we speak, so before you attack our President, look in the mirror and staring back at you is a damnable traitor to America.

Bobso: Count the suicide bombers? People are often willing to die for a cause or even half a cause. Kamikaze pilots. Postal workers. ‘Islam’ is often invoked as a rationale for suicide bombers, but I’m quite sure the actual motives and influences that go into the making of a terrorist are more complex than “I read about it in the Koran.”

Batso: Constitutional basis? I claim none at all. But if you want people to stop attacking you, my advice is to go easy on the obnoxiousness factor, and be very aware of the reputation one projects. Iraq was never a center of angry Islamic radical fundamentalism until we made it so. And I don’t think it can be disputed that the number of angry radicals has gone way up since 2003. If there is a Constitutional basis for impeaching Mr. Bush, it is that his falsification of intelligence to justify the war was injurious to US national interests. Not an open-shut case, mind you, but more easily demonstrable than had he been diddling his intern.

And as for your “Abdul hit me first” history of the Crusades, doesn’t that offer some pretty strong evidence that attacks by Muslims have not been without context, and have not been one-sided, at least for the last thousand years or so?

Smellyshoes: I’m not here to defend fundamentalist Islam or any other breed of fundamentalism — in fact I have yet to be convinced that mass religions are anything less than caustic to the human condition. But that doesn’t mean we should seek genocide as a solution (which is the conclusion to which Bobso’s logic inevitably leads). Or war. Especially stupid war with profoundly counterproductive results. The very numbers that drive our economy are called “arabic” (not islam, and thankfully not ‘roman’) for a good reason, and offer a tad of evidence that the people of the Middle East (the ‘Cradle of Civilization’) have more potential than we allow them. Thanks to this war, it gets more difficult by the day to elicit that potential. Fight, fight, fight. Kill, kill, kill.

Robert and Windmills: What part of “Kill all infidels” do I not understand? Probably the same part by which the Old Testament commands people to be stoned to death for various offenses (adultery, Newt?). But not every Christian is an OT fundamentalist, and very few fundamentalists actually advocate stoning. Likewise, it is a rather small portion of the Muslim population that really is willing to go out of its way to kill infidels (nay, Americans!). Just think how many Muslims there are who are well over forty and fifty years old! What are they, lazy? Believe me, I’m no fan of that man of Iraq whose hand Donald Rumsfeld shook back in 1983 (an anti-fundamentalist, mind you), but there are better ways to deal with a hornets’ nest than stick your arm in it, as Mr. Bush has done in Iraq.

Now, Windbags, you claim that “Islam has been attacking American interests around the globe for decades.” To take you at your word, this is no more true than saying that Iraq has been attacked by Bibles. Indeed, some Muslims have attacked US interests, but it hasn’t been all one-sided. US support of the Saudis has been very problematic (and was a major sore point for Bin Laden); US support for Israel even moreso. But Western attacks on Muslim interests go back more than just decades. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was no help. French invasions of Egypt and Algeria were somewhat counterproductive. And those persnickety Crusades…

The US war on Iraq–by the judgment of much of the rest of the world–is illegal and unjustifiable.

John,

What constitutional basis do you have to offer in support of the ridiculous notion that US national security policy should be with the advise and consent and ultimate affirmation of the rest of the world?

“They’re showing it in Iraq!” ??? So it’s the Arabs who are the good guys, and the Muslims that are the bad guys in Iraq? Of course we wouldn’t want to sell anyone short, so we need to make a distinction between the good guys and the bad guys, so that we can genocide the latter — is that what you are saying? The thing is — although you are apparently too dense to see it — our very presence is what is turning the good guys into bad guys. That’s what happens to people when foreigners invade their land and start breaking into houses and killing their neighbors — they get really pissed. The idea that their Islamic backgrounds somehow ineluctably predestine them to suicide-bombing is ludicrous. And the idea that the US can persevere and somehow do a replay of V-E or V-J day is similarly ludicrous.

And as for your “Abdul hit me first” history of the Crusades, doesn’t that offer some pretty strong evidence that attacks by Muslims have not been without context, and have not been one-sided, at least for the last thousand years or so?

The murderous invasion and takeover of the ME, Asia Minor and Eastern Europe by the Muslim hordes began about 1300 years ago. The only “fault” of the people who were invaded and murdered was that they were not Muslim. Your argument is pure crap, and if you knew any history, you wouldn’t even try that line of BS.

Shoes & Hotel: Give me a victory plan, and we’ll see. Haven’t seen anything close yet. In fact, all I’ve seen from Bushco is a plan for escalation with no lasting advances and no end in sight. Much like LBJ in Vietnam. We were wise to get out, and the ultimate slaughter in Cambodia etc. would not have been lessened by our continued presence.

Robert: How exactly does the European genocide of Native Americans fit into that ethic? It seems you are asking us to believe that because some Muslims did some pretty awful stuff a millennium ago (and that because they did it ‘first,’ anything that occurred in the other direction was moot), therefore whatever they do today must be seen as part of a continuous history, and therefore all of them must be killed. Since the US victory over Germany has been mentioned above as a model, you should know that the Nuremberg Trials concluded genocide to be a war crime. Until Bush fils came along, the US has viewed those trials (and the Tokyo and Manila trials) quite favorably.

John from NC – Shoes & Hotel: Give me a victory plan, and we’ll see.

Attitudes are shifting, the people want want peace, the bad guys keep dying, victory is in sight.

But you, “John from NC”, want to lose this war. You’re selling defeat. You want to hurry up and lose.

In fact, all I’ve seen from Bushco…

What?

I don’t recognize this “Bushco”. John, why don’t you talk like a normal person?

…a plan for escalation with no lasting advances and no end in sight.

I’ve heard this song and dance before. You guys never change your rhetoric! We’ve been hearing the same thing for 60 years now. Every war, there are always a bunch of defeatists saying the same exact thing. Why is that John?

Much like LBJ in Vietnam. We were wise to get out, and the ultimate slaughter in Cambodia etc. would not have been lessened by our continued presence.

What are you talking about? The “ultimate slaughter” only happened after we left. The communists were too busy fighting and dying to be killing millions of people. They only got the time to do that after we left.

Learn the history John.

John from NC: Abu-John!

1. Your constant defeatist talk is nothing less than a conscious, deliberate effort to give aid and comfort to our enemies (Islam), and because of your defeatism military members of my family have suffered, one died and two more are in harms way and it is not Bush’s fault – it is first and foremost the fault of the Islamic Terrorists and almost equally of their allies (Democrats, Liberals and you!).

2. Who the hell are you to set the rules of debate by trying to deflect any honest attempts to offer facts and figures on the many attacks on America, American interests and our allies by ISLAM. Islam started this – not just extremists, it started with that child raping Mohammed; and it involves the violent, forced conversion of all non-believers and a miltary take over of the world, which torture, rape and murder is at the very heart of Islam. This violence is supported by the Qur’an, Haditha and virtually all Islamic religious leaders, and any Muslim not supporting terrorism are bad Muslims and are under a penalty of death. Oh, and another thing Abu-Johnny-boy, it is most of your moderate Muslim pals that are giving their money, emotional and spiritual support to these terrorists. So, enough of the small number of extremists crap!

3. Bush cannot be charged with selling false intelligence data on Iraq, because virtually every Democrat leader had access to the same intelligence data, none of them at the time protested that Bush had misread the data and many of your Leftist leaders made even more extreme statements about Saddam’s possession of WMD’s and his danger to America, the region and thus the world. If Bush is guilty, so is Hillary, Vietcong Johhny Kerry and every intelligence agency in the world.

Oh, and it was that slimball Billy Jeff, the Hillbilly Whore Hopper, that gutted our intelligence agencies and their abilities and so if the intelligence data were wrong, blame that lying cracker from Arkansas, not Bush. I don’t want to forget that pile of pig shit Clinton also gutted our military.

Parenthetically, by pure serendipity when we deposed your pal Saddam, Al Queda decided to go after the Great Satan (America) in Iraq, and I thank God and you should thank you Allah that they did, so we don’t have them killing our families here at home.

4. Lastly, Abu-John, I fought in Vietnam as did my brother, my brother-in-law, my father-in-law and a host of friends. So, we don’t appreciate your revisionist history of the Vietnam conflict; unless that is, you want to detail how the same defeatist Democrats, who were back then giving the same aid and comfort to our enemies and preaching cut-and-run, cowardly withdrawal, just like you creeping liberal crud are doing today. Your damnable crowd caused the first major defeat for America in Vietnam, just like you are trying to do in Iraq today. They were guilty of every America death by their cooperation with their commie pals in Hanoi, and they and you are guilty of every American death in Iraq because of your support for peaceful Islam and your defeat for American policies.

Anything else Abu-John, now just kneel down, get on your pretty little rug, bow towards Mecca and praise your pagan god Allah that he is helping your Muslim comrades kill more Americans and innocent Iraqi’s, so your party can gain power and turn America into a secular-socialist, pro-Islamic state.

Yes, victory is just around the corner! Things are turning… Mission almost accomplished! Jesus, not even Petraeus believes that one.

As for ‘proving’ that people who would not have risked confronting US forces end up turning against them, of course one cannot ‘prove’ that, because fatalists can always claim that those people were ‘always evil’ to begin with (yes, born a Muslim, always a Muslim, until death by suicide-bombing!). But just look at the surge of US military enlistments in the US after 9/11. That’s what people do when their territory and neighbors are attacked — they fight back. And look at the dearth of enlistments recently as it becomes clear what a meaningless fiasco Iraq has become — they stop fighting when they don’t have a cause to fight (and elective genocide just doesn’t make it these days — too bad you weren’t born a millennium ago). Soon enough it will also become clear what a fiasco Afghanistan has become. And as for ‘giving aid and comfort’ to terrorists, yes, I’m sure all those terrorists are hanging on every word of this blog (they wanna practice their English, you know). Methinks your head is too swollen to remove it from your arse.

Neil B:
1. Every President, even one of your demi-gods FDR screwed up big time during WW-II, costing many lives. People are not perfect, even Presidents, not even another Democrat demi-god JFK, as he was far from perfect, he was a do nothing President. So, admitting Bush was not perfect was hardly to condemn him, as despite his mistakes he still stands head and shoulders above any of the Lillipution, anti-American Democrat leadership.

2. If you give aid and comfort to our enemies, you must share the responsibility for their continued murderous acts, as you enabled them; thus you are an accessory before, during and after the fact to murder by terror. While Abu-John is only one person, defeatism is like an anti-American cancer and Abu-John facilitates its metastasizing in this country by spreading his defeatist, anti-American lies. Your side keeps screaming we are losing, over and over, day after day, calling for our defeat in Iraq; and it so poisons the public relations well that the lies of our defeat, just as they did in Vietnam, become a self-fulfilling prophesy that is not based on the reality of the facts in the field.

3. Your side cannot play Pontius Pilate and pretend that washing your hands can remove your guilt for the deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens. You stand with the enemy and encourage them by saying, ‘soon we’ll cut-and-run, just like we did in Vietnam, just as Bin Laden has predicted. Hold on, keep running up the death totals of American troops and we’ll hand you Iraq and the entire Middle East on a silver platter,’ and then you pretend you are not guilty of murdreing American soldiers, well it is a lie, everyone on your side, the ones promoting defeat, are guilty.

4. You cannot negotiate with Islam, it has never worked in their entire history. Just look at Israel, the West forced Israel to concede almost totally to Arafat under Billy Jeff’s pressure, and yet the Islamic Palestinians have never kept even one promise they made, they simply said yes to peace and kept killing Jews. If you believe we can appease Islam, absent giving them Israel and the entire Middle East you are a fool; and even after we sell out the Jews and contribute to their annihilation, Islam will still commit acts of terror against America because at it’s heart Islam is a religion of murder. That is exactly what Mohammed did, he made peace agreements, built up his forces and went to war.

If you know a murderer is in your town and you encourage that person that to get him to stop murdering you will give him what he wants, then any subsequent murders he commits are on your account, you are to blame. Same thing in Iraq!

“We hold his feet to the fire…” ??? As in, “Here’s another hundred billion — go buy yourself a genocide, kid.” ??? The party that is so cheap it would prefer to call ketchup a ‘vegetable’ than to spend another penny on public education (ooh, yeah, let’s test all the kids, then cut the salaries of teachers where they are needed most, heh, heh, heh) — now pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a pointless military operation? Bwahahahaha. The Republicans are the party of lock-step discipline. It works great to keep them in power (aided by a little jiggling with the presidential election), but unfortunately they’ll still need the Democrats to bail them out of the miserable consequences of their misjudgments. And believe me, the only reason I would ever support a Democrat is because it is the only way to oppose those morons — Neo-cons, Neo-fundamentalists, and Neo-fascists all.

BTW: Thank you Neil for a breather. But don’t waste your time with this crowd (says me, ugh).

Had your anti-American Party (Demoncrats) acted like Americans first and denied aid and comfort to our enemies, we would have won the peace by now and most of our troops would be out of Iraq.

Absolutely nuts. Bush got everything he wanted up to now, and in fact he didn’t ask for enough protection and armor until there was an outcry. Bush’s messing up going on four years later, is no comparison to ups and downs of WWII etc. That’s why we are still there, because he didn’t listen to Shinseki, because he put political cronies into the Green Zone, because he fired gay Arabic translators etc., and you also keep evading his dropping the ball in Afghanistan. Most Americans realize now who is really responsible for what happened.

BTW, you still didn’t say whose side was better in the Iraqi civil war, Sunni or Shia. With all your dumping on Islam, I guess you didn’t notice that the new government in Iraq, our ostensible ally, is religious, contrasted to Saddam’s Stalinist style secular dictatorship. That sort of irony just goes over your head. How can I respect people who can’t accept that one of their own (not that Bush is honestly conservative anyway) just screwed up royally – I thought conservatives believed in “personal responsibility.” And, it isn’t just liberals, look at all the libertarians, the Lew Rockwell crowd etc, the Ron Paul strict constructionists, thoughtful Republicans and commentators like George Will etc., who agree this was not done right.

So, you aren’t blaming the Admin. for ruinous neglect of the wounded veterans? etc. You have surrendered to pitiful, bitter recrimination and evasion of the main decider who decided so poorly.

Re “nobody said ‘just around the corner’ ??? From Lickyshoes above:
“They’re getting fed up with the violence, realizing that the Americans are NOT their enemies and they are increasingly coming to U.S. soldiers with information. The Iraqis have tasted political freedom with three hugely successful votes and they’re sick and tired of the violence.”
…Now, while I’m sure one could find an Iraqi to parrot the remark (especially with your gun pointing at him), I have a strong impression that it represents only wishful thinking. Sort of like John McCain’s little fake stroll in Iraq back in April.

Re “US doesn’t have dearth of enlistments:
from: http://www.bloggernews.net/18600
Writing in Harper’s magazine, Edward Luttwak notes that senior military officials are concerned that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from a “death spiral” in which “readiness ratings are starting to unravel” with recruiting efforts “encountering serious quality and number problems.”

Re Carpet Bombing.
No comment. I think you’ve said enough, Mister LeMay.

John from NC – Yes, victory is just around the corner! Things are turning… Mission almost accomplished! Jesus, not even Petraeus believes that one.

Nobody said “just around the corner”. Only you said that. Now you’re arguing against your own straw man.

As for ‘proving’ that people who would not have risked confronting US forces end up turning against them, of course one cannot ‘prove’ that, because fatalists can always claim that those people were ‘always evil’ to begin with (yes, born a Muslim, always a Muslim, until death by suicide-bombing!).

I have no idea what you’re talking about here. It looks like another one of your straw men.

And look at the dearth of enlistments recently as it becomes clear what a meaningless fiasco Iraq has become…

You can’t be talking about America because America doesn’t have a “dearth of enlistments”.

Al Qaeda has a dearth of enlistments. They’re having trouble recruiting.

…they stop fighting when they don’t have a cause to fight (and elective genocide just doesn’t make it these days–too bad you weren’t born a millennium ago).

Who are you talking to? There are no jihadists here. Why are you describing, and then addressing their situation?

Soon enough it will also become clear what a fiasco Afghanistan has become.

Which is why I suggested carpet bombing. It would work to permanently solve the problem. You would rather defend this Islam by calling it “genocide” to fight it. That shows us where you stand John.

And as for ‘giving aid and comfort’ to terrorists, yes, I’m sure all those terrorists are hanging on every word of this blog (they wanna practice their English, you know). Methinks your head is too swollen to remove it from your arse.

Nobody said that they read this blog. We’re talking about you giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Stay on topic John.

The Republicans are the party of lock-step discipline.

Really? Can you give examples?

It works great to keep them in power (aided by a little jiggling with the presidential election)…

“Jiggling” = people like me voting. John, it’s not very nice to call my voting “jiggling”.

…but unfortunately they’ll still need the Democrats to bail them out of the miserable consequences of their misjudgments. And believe me, the only reason I would ever support a Democrat is because it is the only way to oppose those morons–Neo-cons, Neo-fundamentalists, and Neo-fascists all.

So much for seriousness with “John from NC”.

Continue arguing with your straw men “John from NC”. Let us know when you’re ready to debate with real people.