Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 30, 2012

Well said, mon general !

And yet, they’re ganging up on Susan Rice?

THIS FROM PREVIOUS STRIP LATE IN DAY

DylanThomas3.14159 said, about 2 hours ago@Neo Blakkrstal

• “… I was compelled to do my due … research thoroughly this issue.”

And yet you shared exactly none of it with us. There has to be a reason for that. And it’s probably the case that you have NO EVIDENCE to back up your statement.

• “… GW did not “LIE”"

Yeah, he did. And Condoleeza. And Powell (who long after “called the run-up to the Iraq invasion ‘a blot’ on his distinguished career”). http://theweek.com/article/index/232744/kofi-annans-memoir-did-colin-powell-doubt-his-own-wmd-claimsPowell: “[A] blot, a failure will always be attached to me.” http://blogs.rep-am.com/worth_reading/2012/11/16/super-dupes/

• “The statements from various sources that I read indicate that ….”

• Again, you chose to withhold them and their sources from us. Thus, again, you’re doing nothing more than just blah blah blah-ing.

• “Iraq was engaged in a rapid buildup of their military to pre first Gulf War status.”

Right, the FIRST Gulf war! Which has never been an issue here. The biological and chemical weapons that So-Damn-Insane used against his own people and against Iran, WE gave to him.

• “… no one in the in the intelligence community considered Iraq to be more than a second (at best) or third tier threat to US security.”

What, no “shock and awe” necessary after all?

• “… there was no lie as much as a rush to war ….”

There were both lies and rushing tactics, and both in abundance.

• “… Saddam Hussein was indeed a threat to stability in the region that needed to be removed.”

Iran was seeing to that puny, so-called “threat” was neutralized in the region. So was the UN, complete with monitors. The U.S. war machine doesn’t need to “do windows”.

• “The myth that GW had lied to the American people …”

The myth is that he didn’t lie (and bully patriotic Americans). So yet again, you’re doing nothing more than perpetuating that myth.

• “I hope this can end the entire debate on that issue ….”

UR also a comedian 2IC.

Good insight, Richard. But I think Powell’s current high cred has to do with the fact that Americans are forgiving of a person they see as truly repentant.

Have you noticed any improvement in Bush’s abysmal approval rating?

Rove, Bush, Chaney – it is impossible to rehabilitate images of men with no conscience.

The biggest foreign policy blunder in American history was allying ourselves with the Soviet Union in WWII. Hitler, Stalin, Hitler, Stalin…the only difference was that Stalin had the better mustache.

“Because of Powell’s enormous credibility…”Say what?

Here is an interesting point on the whole Iraq war and Bush’s intentions. That ultra-liberal media outlet, The Wall Street Journal, ran an article about the run-up to the Iraq war. They reported that Bush had his transition team inform the Defense Department to start putting together war plans for Iraq. Mind you, this was before he was ever sworn into office. The truth of the matter is that George W. Bush was going to war with Iraq with or without a valid reason. He just had to sell the American people some bill of goods to convince them to let it happen. But it was inevitable. I guess “W” had to one-up Daddy somehow or other. Too bad 4,000-plus Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis had to pay with their lives to salve his pride.

Iraq was all about “wimp factor”. After 9/11, GWB didn’t want to get called “wimp” like what happened to his daddy. His daddy never shook the “wimp factor” label.

Irony: GWB will always be the 9/11 President. Victim.

AMEN!!! Who can defend the statement, we don’t have a one party system?

well, actually, pschearer, “we” didn’t give the Soviets nuclear secrets, the Rosenbergs did, and I think they got in some small trouble for that…

@ pschearerYou’ve just been arrested by the grammar police.

The comment of losing WWII if Hitler wasn’t a fool and Stalin didn’t switch sides, just aint right. The USA had a war machine unmatched in human history… The atom bomb use properly or not on Nagasaki and Hiroshimai would also been used on Moscow and Berlin…

Obama won the vote because of white guilt and because of the black vote. Blacks got out in droves to vote for a black man, even conservative ones – of course Colin Powell voted for him, it was the great black hope.so called “progressive” whites (mostly liberal, but some conservative) also gave him their votes. Race was the only reason anyone would vote for an unknown.

The dweebs the Reps ran didn’t help, either.

Good conservatives always defend themselves with a good round of name calling, and almost never with a plan or position.

In 2008, Obama won because our economy was about to go over the edge. We were losing about 700,000 jobs a month. We were in 2 wars and we still had not found Osama Bin Laden. We were about to lose our entire auto industry. As to why Obama won in 2012, see my above post.

I was digesting your points until you expressed a desire to free Manning. He betrayed his oath and his country while in uniform; how many friends of the United States died because of his treason? The only thing that traitorous SOB should be freed from is his life, by execution.

In my shop this dicussion wasn’t mentioned, because most were AD troops. I guess they were afraid to speak out. I was just itching for an opportunity that never came.

“… ill-informed, idiot, kool-aid drinking ditto head sheep ….”

If they’re that bad, then I don’t have to be very good at fighting them, right?

It’s mind-boggling to me that some people are still litigating the Iraq War . . . I was having (and winning) these arguments, almost word-for-word, with Cheney-Bush defenders . . . seven years ago !

Even Clinton thought they had WMD’s. No one thought the “film clip” had anything to do with the murder and abuse of our ambassador. Obama is getting by with covering up a murder and disgraceful foreign policy to save his election since the media is on his team. Nixon had to resign for covering up a 2 bit political heist with assistance from the media serving as the national “watchdog.”

The Obamaphone, and Uncle Joe

I probably should not kick this dung heap again but I do owe Uncle Joe and perhaps others an apology for my snarky personal comments a few days ago.This apology does not apply to the boner that suggested my posts were racist. Your race cards expired on January 20th 2009 and anyone that throws the race card in the room as a excuse for a something they do not agree with or for something they didn’t get and slinks away is pathetic. Will be back with a convincing facts the Obamaphone is funded with a mandated tax by the federal government.

“we have no business in other countries’ affairs”I would say, rather, that the US has limits on what it can and cannot do in other countries. I think there’s a belief that the US government has far more control over the behavior of sovereign nations than is actually possible. Working to influence our allies – much less our enemies – is a difficult and frustrating process. Has been for every great power, for centuries.

pi (don’t know why my reply button isn’t working), one of the things I heard about the Nazi nuclear program is that it was killed because they didn’t want to rely on “Jew physics” to win the war.Also, I had heard that we really didn’t need to bomb Nagasaki, we did it so the Soviets would know we had more than one and would mind their own business.

“… we really didn’t need to bomb Nagasaki, we did it so the Soviets would know we had more than one and would mind their own business.”

If that were true, then Truman should have been impeached and removed from office. It is clear from Potsdam (and elsewhere), that the Japanese weren’t going to stop with just one nuke. If we had to invade the home island, we would have lost a million men. THAT’S the reason. We certainly didn’t want to “waste” another A-bomb on Japan. We were too fearful of the spread of Communism. “The domino theory” — which turned out to be mistaken — was uppermost in our minds.

More info from Wikipedia to spike the evil myth that Nazism’s use of the term “socialism” means the same thing that our use of it means today.……………………………………………………………………………………

Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler had objected to the party’s previous leader’s decision to use the word “Socialist” in its name as Hitler at the time instead preferred to use “Social Revolutionary”.14 Upon taking over the leadership, Hitler kept the term but defined socialism as meaning a commitment of an individual to a community.14 Hitler claimed that true socialism does not repudiate private property unlike the claims of Marxism, and claimed that the “Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning” and said that “Communism is not socialism. Marxism is not socialism.”15 Nazism favoured private property, freedom of contract, and promoted the creation of national solidarity that would transcend class differences.1617 The Nazis outlawed strikes by employees and lockouts by employers, because these were regarded a threat to national unity.18 Instead, the state controlled and approved wage and salary levels.18……………………………………………………………………………………

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

Travis, racism certainly did not end the day we elected a black president. In fact, I see perhaps even more evidence of racism since he got into office, due to the fact that those who are indeed racist are extremely angry about the fact that we do have a black president. If only it were true that the election of a black president would cure the issue of racism… Sorry, but no, that simply is not true. We see evidence of racism every day, some overt and some covert. The teapartiers have held signs of a most disgusting nature, offering some of the worst examples. We heard about Klan rally with cross burning recently in Mississippi after the election, there has now been another incident of “stand your ground” in Florida where an unarmed black teen was killed, the lack of respect on the part of some in Congress to even be civil and show respect to a sitting President while he was addressing Congress, and it goes on and on… We will not be silent about the scourge of racism because it does indeed still exist.

@ montessoriteacher – Thank you.

I thought Hitler opened that front. Operation Barbarossa.

@montessoriteacher

“…racism certainly did not end the day we elected a black president. In fact, I see perhaps even more evidence of racism since he got into office, due to the fact that those who are indeed racist are extremely angry about the fact that we do have a black president.”

Strongly agree. The intensity of the anti-Obama rhetoric has to come from something more visceral than disagreement with his views and policies. Recently, a new acquaintance was sharing her political views with me, and I was gradually realizing it was Tea-Party palaver I was hearing, when she smoothly segued into “And did you hear about the statue of Obama made to stand next to the statue of Christ?” Then she quickly moved on to another subject. A Google search turned up some woodcarvers in Naples (Italy) who craft nativity scenes for sale in their shops, and some of them customarily make figurines of persons in the news. They had made figurines of Romney, too, some of which showed tears running down his face. And yes, these were shown right along with the usual creche figures. My friend clearly wanted this to be yet another proof of the evil nature of Barack Obama, as if he were somehow responsible for this outrage. This is beyond party politics.

@montessoriteacher

There were several videos from news programs, and I do believe Fox was one of them.

“What color is the sky in your world?”

When you begin to make rational sense, then I begin to answer.

We have discussed Benghazi. I don’t accept the premise of it being a scandal on the part of the Obama administration. I do accept that it was a terrible tragedy and it is being investigated. Not much else to discuss really, other than the fact that the GOP is shamelessly politicizing the tragedy.

I really don’t believe Obama is covering up a murder, nor do I believe he has a disgraceful foreign policy. The Benghazi tragedy is being investigated. Obama has kept us out of many possible hotbed conflicts. He has also taken us out of 2 wars. SOS Clinton has been very helpful in holding up diplomacy as the main means of protecting us. This strategy is much more desirable than the shoot em up cowboy approach of the previous administration. Obama used a surgical strike approach in getting rid of bad guys which is a far superior way to deal with the bad guys rather than blanketing some foreign country with our troops, we should always avoid putting them in harm’s way whenever and wherever possible…

Apropos of almost nothing, I was acquainted with “Mac” Magnus von Braun, brother of the famous Wernher, one of the great pioneers in the American Space Program. Both brothers were engineers and worked for the Nazis developing the German rocket programs.What is extremely interesting is the story of their escape to the West, hidden in a Red Cross ambulance, literally minutes ahead of the Russians. This is a true story, actually verified in my presence by the then head of the International Red Cross.The story of how the U.S. “rescued” German scientists, immediately after the war, makes interesting political reading and some of it sounds like a Ken Follett thriller.These stories reveal the ambivalence of scientists to political influences .

“A silly meaningless statement.”

(Notice that Davepostmp doesn’t say whether his assessment applies to my remark, or to FL’s, or to the U.S. general-turned-prof who’s in today’s Doonesbury strip, or even to someone else’s.) Anybody else wanna weigh in?

(Incidentally, I wonder if Paula Broadwell is sitting in this class with BD, Ray and the others.)

Hey, Davepostmp (David Post, Member of Parliament?)! Time to come outta da woodwork. U got some splainin’ 2 do.