Iraq's as good as Florida in the Bush?

[bennie]

A little put there. Fun time. Pun time. thank you please.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0, ... 03,00.html

This is a good article I read in today's guardian online. It compares the successful Iraqi election to the successful election in South Vietnam after you bombed the shit out of that country.

Did we expect anything less that success? They were hardly going to say, "well, the liberal sceptics were right. It's too early for an election in that country. But meanwhile we'll still be bombing them into a fine paste and we'll let the survivors vote for a US approved democratic government leader in a few months time."

Unfortunately the article fails to answer a question I was asking when I was watching the news over the past few days: 60% of registered voters voted in Iraq elections. But, how many people is that?

The article does say that no official figures have been released. In an age of spin is it even worth our time reading the papers?

[jimboloco]

Every time the government has one of their "victories" I always have to wait for the opposition to emerge. This comment is a good starter. How do you say "thanks" in Scotland?

Or even if not in opposition, just something resembling objectivity.
Yes the Iraqi people lined up to vote. What else were they supposed to do?

We won the war with massive military might. Our pro-western friends are in power.

So does might make right? Evidently the prez has his field day, and just before the state of the union address, too, how convenient.

Thanks for the Guardian post.
PR spin is how democracy works.
I called your comment in to local community radio.

also our local vets for peace eblog gives a link to all jazz era
pollz http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ ... 50FE62.htm about the election.

[bennie]

thanks in scotland is "thanks". or "cheers" if you're feeling informal.

all Jazz era polls? Haha.

Which jazz era are we talking about here?

[jimboloco]

Bahgdad on the Bayou
was the nickname for old Houston, Texas.
There was a guy, a street musician, named Bongo Joe
who played at the Alamo, San Antonio.
He played kettle drums from oil drums, banged and tuned, and had an old style 45 rpm record player that he'd plug the records into, like the cd players now, and he'd sing, whistle, and play the drums to these old records from Baghdad on the Bayou.
He was written up in the papers while i was there that year, '69 to 70 while in pilot training for the air farce.
I had his album, he sang "It's a dog-eat-dog world!"
He had a large wheelbarrow for you to toss money into.
All the soldiers and airmen went to the alamo an saw this guy.
I used to hang out there with my peace corps air guard friend, who later, two years later, brought me acid for my perilous time fighting to get out, marching with the vvaw.

like your shots of street folk bums.
I mean there has got to be a blues and jazz club in the middle east.
oh yeah i think l rod read your post, see the poets eyes.
http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2077
geez i coulsd be at this all day from one to another!

[jimboloco]

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote (NYT 9/4/1967)
by patachon
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/31/2335/87390another take on the vietnam-iraq conniption.
deja vu?

[Lightning Rod]

this article is a killer comparrison, jimbo

[hester_prynne]

God Damn Jimbo!
I'm holy shitified!

This has to get out there for folks to see. I mean, it's only fair!


but it's a

Thanks for posting these article links youse guys....

[perezoso]

Yes the US involvement in Nam was horrible and should be condemned , but so was pol pot, the maoists, the stalinists, etc.
Those who would make sentimental 60ish accusations against the US should also count the skulls in the cambodian khymer jungles...or in the fields of siberia..

As Sartre once said, everyone is guilty.

[hester_prynne]

And Sartre was right!

I'm guilty of not knowing much. (Indulgence in temporary bliss I suppose.)

C'mon, you have to admit that this is a timely reminder, and very effectively makes a point.

I thought so anyway. All this bravado about the Iraqi election is so misleading, depressing.....If nothing else, it's a breath of fresh, sober air from all the toxic rah rah.
H

[perezoso]

I agree to some degree: simply saying," they're voting so they must be doing the right thing" is a BIG mistake. But who are we for? Shiite or Sunni Muslims who think the US is Satan incarnate? A few marxists? Bidness guys who are puppets of the US govt.?

Really, I have to admit I share some of Chris Hitchens "realpolitik" in regards to the US in iraqi. It sucks, but the muslim zealots are a danger; Bush, a true stooge, and Blair may have bobbled it, but some presence is needed. I think that the US Military went in with too much force and should have had UN support, but at this point pulling out might be real dangerous. But I do not enjoy the conservatives' glee and war spirit, nor their blind eye turned towards the deaths of iraqi civilians.

[jimboloco]

Well I wrote an angry retort to one of Hitchens articles last year...
one of the ones not printed in the st pete times...will search it out, but here is another one on so-called realpolitik....
Re: Jane Fonda and John Kerry: The Real Deal )
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 17:33:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Jim Willingham <opusmaximus2050@yahoo.com>
Subject: Robert Novak's inflammatory column and a response


“The past comes to an unfavorable light,”(Feb.19th) is Robert Novak’s
highly subjective and contentious fiction. He uses intensely
inflammatory words such as “most notorious leftist agitators” in describing
American citizens voicing opposition to the government’s Vietnam War
policies. He calls Jane Fonda a “symbol of extreme opposition” to the war. What
was extreme about opposing the Vietnam War in 1970? My sister marched
against the war in 1970 while I was in Vietnam. She was no radical. She
was a college graduate working for Planned Parenthood. I knew she was marching in Washington because my mother
told me so. Was my mother a radical, too? There was no moderate
opposition to the war. Either one was for it, against it, bewildered, or part of
the “silent majority.”

John Kerry’s leadership did involve the Vietnam Veterans against the
War for a period of time, yes, but we-the VVAW- were not “radical.” We
wanted constitutional democracy and were exercising our right to
disagree. Kerry and Fonda are two individuals with different histories. Both
ultimately disagreed with the war, but were not as Novak wrote, “most
extreme.” Again this negative subjectivity can not acknowledge that
opposition to the war had reached a critical mass. The war was ended by the
government. Were they extremists too?

Winter Soldier investigation was graphic testimony from combat veterans
who were witnessing warfare where the enemy was embedded in the general
populace. John Kerry’s words to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
were direct. He upheld our service to our country, saying “We could
come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence,
we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what
threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are
committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.…”

Novak calls Michael Moore a “leftist,” but Moore was an Oscar winner
plus mutually embraced with General Clark. Is the general a leftist?
Kerry does rightly state that the various ways to opt out of Vietnam
service included service in the Guard, a statement that has weight because
President Bush has committed the Guard to combat in a war based upon
debatable intelligence. In fact, Kerry and Fonda were part of a massive
populist opposition to the war. As far as investigating their comparative
pasts goes, bring it on,

and tie that sense of character and integrity to the current situation
and where the country should be heading. The past may come to a more
favorable light, after all.

James Willingham

Vietnam Veterans against the War regional contact

St. Petersburg, Florida

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modu ... le&sid=657

real politik is a misnomer for excusing abuse of power.

how you doing perezozo?