Why do they hate us?

[OPTIONAL777]

Quote from Error 404:



It's "original context" being the Constitution of the United States. Written, I am pretty sure, before Tom Clancy had even gotten halfway finished with high school.

Here's the thing. If times require a change in the constitution, then change it. We can do that. If not, don't. But as things stand, we were not facing the "Clear and Present Danger" set forth by law as grounds to go to war. As much as a sham as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was, at least there was the CLAIM that an American war ship was fired on by hostile forces. What was the actual provocation for the war with Iraq? Saddam was a bad guy? Had that just become apparent?

KF, you are a brilliant guy. Anyone can see that. However is your mind so closed that you can't you see any validity to the other side of this issue? Is there not a tiny bit of doubt in your mind we may have made an error? I know I do not and at this point cannot know for sure. Do you and I have all the real facts?
(Do Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, and Ashcroft have them for that matter?)

Peace,
RS

What I find so surprising, is that given the history of the past 30 years of abuse of power for political agendas in this country, is that there isn't more distrust among those who claim intelligence and objectivity.

Distrust is not the same as an assumption of guilt....it is the acceptance of the possibility, if not the probability of guilt.

At the very least, I don't understand how a balanced, objective, and reasonable man would not have some degree of doubt when it comes to the presidency.

To defend blindly is a mistake when it comes to political leaders. They have to be held to standards that are high, not only for the sake of our internal policies, but when our word is given in the matter of foreign policy, if our word is distrusted from the get go, we will never make progress in world diplomacy toward cooperative effort again.

Is it fair to hold the president responsible for the abuse of power by his predecessors?

No, he was not responsible. Nor was he responsible for the security breech that lead to 911, nor the economic excesses that lead to our current economic troubles.

Not responsible for the past, yes.

However, is it his job to restore confidence in the presidency to the people of this country, in the same way it is his job to restore economic prosperity and national security to this country. If he doesn't want, or can't handle the job and all that goes with it....resign. Resoration of public trust is paramount to progress politically. In addition, restoration of trust by those who opposed us in the war is equally important in the long run.

I believe it is his job to restore confidence and trust in the presidency. In fact, it was one of his campaign promises.

I would think he would relish the opportunity to prove he is indeed trustworthy, and beyond the corruptive nature of absolute power that came with a high public approval rating following 911.

 

[Error 404]

Quote from OPTIONAL777:



What I find so surprising, is that given the history of the past 30 years of abuse of power for political agendas in this country, is that there isn't more distrust among those who claim intelligence and objectivity.

Distrust is not the same as an assumption of guilt....it is the acceptance of the possibility, if not the probability of guilt.

Excellent points. However, KF, as much as I admire his intelligence does not seem to "claim objectivity". At least not politically.

This black and white politics scares me. Always has. I sincerely thought that the end of this kind of "party line/right or wrong" mentality was going to end with Watergate.

How wrong I was.

Peace,
RS

 

[KymarFye]

Quote from Error 404:



It's "original context" being the Constitution of the United States. Written, I am pretty sure, before Tom Clancy had even gotten halfway finished with high school.

Here's the thing. If times require a change in the constitution, then change it. We can do that. If not, don't. But as things stand, we were not facing the "Clear and Present Danger" set forth by law as grounds to go to war. As much as a sham as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was, at least there was the CLAIM that an American war ship was fired on by hostile forces. What was the actual provocation for the war with Iraq? Saddam was a bad guy? Had that just become apparent?

KF, you are a brilliant guy. Anyone can see that. However is your mind so closed that you can't you see any validity to the other side of this issue? Is there not a tiny bit of doubt in your mind we may have made an error? I know I do not and at this point cannot know for sure. Do you and I have all the real facts?
(Do Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, and Ashcroft have them for that matter?)

Peace,
RS

No - the words "clear and present danger" do not appear in the Constitution. The words "imminent danger" do, but not in reference to war-making powers - they appear in reference to the states and their rights to form militias.

The phrase "clear and present danger" came into use after Justice Holmes' use of it in the 1919 Schenk decision on the legitimacy of anti-sedition laws used during World War I against the American Socialist Party. (Still, it was prior to Clancy's novel anyway, so you're at least partly right!) The "clear and present danger" test was proposed as a standard for allowing abridgment of unlimited 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech - it's a hoity-toity way of saying free speech does not mean freedom to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

As for the war issue, I've become an "elite" ETer mainly on the basis of expounding my views on the war, so I'm not sure that I have much new to add here, but to answer you question directly: Do I think there's a possibility we made an "error" overall in removing Saddam's regime? Well, in absolute terms, I can say that it's conceivable, in that I'm willing to entertain the possibility for sake of discussion, but, for my fundamental position to change, a whole bunch of things about which I feel fairly confident would have to turn out to be, amazingly to me, untrue. In addition, I expect that I would find the experience so troubling that I wouldn't be able to trust any of my beliefs or perceptions about political matters - so I would out of an excess of caution probably have to move to neutral on the matter.

Otherwise, it's certainly possible to imagine an infinite number of better ways to have handled the situation, and to acknowledge numerous errors along the way, but I don't believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good, and I believe that changing my mind about the policy overall would take a lot more even than a massive scandal that brought Bush down like Nixon. I see no reason now to consider such a turn of events remotely likely.

Now... back to the game...

 

[Error 404]

Quote from KymarFye:

Now... back to the game...

KF,

I stand corrected on my misplacement of the source of "Clear and Present Danger". I guess I was still over-excited about MondoTrader's clamoring to have anyone who expressed doubt about the then upcoming war in Iraq jailed for sediton. In all the excitement, I got the Constitutional basis for actions confused. Now I feel like Dirty Harry. Did I fire 5 shots or 6?

I am, however, encouraged to hear that you are at least open to the possibility that things may not be as "black and white" for you (in theory at least) as they appear to be in your political arguments.

And that is good enough for me!

Peace, and Good Trading!
RS

 

[KymarFye]

Quote from Error 404:




KF,

I stand corrected on my misplacement of the source of "Clear and Present Danger". I guess I was still over-excited about MondoTrader's clamoring to have anyone who expressed doubt about the then upcoming war in Iraq jailed for sediton. In all the excitement, I got the Constitutional basis for actions confused. Now I feel like Dirty Harry. Did I fire 5 shots or 6?

I am, however, encouraged to hear that you are at least open to the possibility that things may not be as "black and white" for you (in theory at least) as they appear to be in your political arguments.

And that is good enough for me!

Peace, and Good Trading!
RS

If it's any comfort to you, the idea seems to have spread out there that there's some law or even a precedent, Constitutional or otherwise, requiring establishment of a "clear and present danger" prior to the exercise of war powers. When I was googling up some background for my reply - yes, I confess, I'm not so learned that things like the 1919 Schenk decision roll immediately off the tips of my fingers - I ran across some reference to Sen. Byrd uttering the phrase during one of his recent anti-Bush bloviations. Some editorial writers have used the phrase with the same implication, some anti-war speakers and web sites have also fed the misperception, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that pro-war types have then taken up the gauntlet, and responded with impassioned demonstrations of the pretty-clear-to-them and present-enough-for-government-work danger they perceive.

I suspect one culprit is wishful thinking on the part of peace activists: It would be so much easier for them on issues like Iraq policy if the Constitution put it forth in black and white that we're not supposed to go to war unless fighter-bombers are hitting our fleet at harbor, tanks are crossing the Rio Grande, or remote control aircraft are spraying anthrax spores in Optional's backyard.

 

[OPTIONAL777]

So much time spent by KF on verbiology (my created word, we all know what I mean, I could easily have used equivocation, but you all know the point).

Clear and present, real and present? Who cares what words we use, we all know the meaning of a credible threat sufficient to justify preemptive military action. To this point it is not clear to me why Saddam was a greater danger than South Korea with nukes capable of reaching where I live in Southern California. Red China has nukes pointed at us, so does the Soviet Union. Take the fear of use of WMD by Saddam and his friends out of the equation, and the picture changes dramatically concerning our need to stop weapons inspections and employ militiary actions as quickly as we did.

Was Saddam and his regime a threat to our national security sufficient to justify the actions we took?

If Saddam was motivated to attack and destroy Americans before the war, imagine how he feels now, if he is alive, and is in possession of WMD. Are we better off now?

How much of Bush's thrust of necessity was all about the WMD, and how much was about the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi citizens in need of liberation and democratization before the war?

Try taking WMD out of the equation, and see how far he would have gotten with the American people, to convince them of the immediate need to topple a regime of a sovereign nation.

People who spend their time analyzing words, are escaping, and avoiding the real issues.

Did Bush, on the basis of the fear of the American people following 911, gild the lily of that fear with the focus on the MD?

Did Bush knowingly, exaggerate the threat (real, present, clear, immediate, etc.) in order to gain the support of the public opinion polls so as to push forth his agenda?

If so, is it right to now justify such actions because of the good that came as a result?

How much of the intelligence we gained came from sources in the middle east who were eager to see Hussein toppled, thus had a motivation to exaggerate or lie in order to accomplish their own agendas?

Lots of questions, KF doesn't need the answers as they don't seem relevant to his conclusions....or perhaps the answers would shake his conclusions.

I differ in the need for answers, I think these questions demand an answer, I think they demand the truth.

Less than that is the hallmark of moving toward a fascist state and away from a democracy where government is transparent to the people.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Kymar,

You have done a masterful job of explaining the justifications for the war. It is unfortunate that the Democrats and their media allies are so desperate to score political points that they have completely disregarded the President's own statements and have instead constructed the convenient straw man of WMD. Clearly there were multiple justifications. No doubt the WMD argument was overly hyped by Powell and others, but there is still no question that Iraq had stockpiles of chem/bio weapons and a record of using them.

Unlike North Korea, they had enormous financial resources which, coupled with the ready assistance of the French and German chemical industries, made them a truly dangerous threat. Couple that with their support for terrorism and you have all the justification reasonable people would need.

The Democrats and the media are afraid to attack the emerging Bush doctrine directly. That doctrine has as its core that we will not allow the development of WMD that threaten our country, either directly or via terrorist intermediaries. We will also not accept indefinitely state sponsorship of terrorist organizations. Moreover, if a state supports or gives refuge to a terrorist organization which then attacks us, we will hold that state responsible for the terrorists' actions.

This doctrine is broadly accepted by the American public. To attack it directly is political suicide, so the opposition attempts to undermine the legitimacy of our leaders, using tactics like the "no WMD" ploy.

 

[OPTIONAL777]

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Kymar,

You have done a masterful job of explaining the justifications for the war. It is unfortunate that the Democrats and their media allies are so desperate to score political points that they have completely disregarded the President's own statements and have instead constructed the convenient straw man of WMD. Clearly there were multiple justifications. No doubt the WMD argument was overly hyped by Powell and others, but there is still no question that Iraq had stockpiles of chem/bio weapons and a record of using them.

Unlike North Korea, they had enormous financial resources which, coupled with the ready assistance of the French and German chemical industries, made them a truly dangerous threat. Couple that with their support for terrorism and you have all the justification reasonable people would need.

The Democrats and the media are afraid to attack the emerging Bush doctrine directly. That doctrine has as its core that we will not allow the development of WMD that threaten our country, either directly or via terrorist intermediaries. We will also not accept indefinitely state sponsorship of terrorist organizations. Moreover, if a state supports or gives refuge to a terrorist organization which then attacks us, we will hold that state responsible for the terrorists' actions.

This doctrine is broadly accepted by the American public. To attack it directly is political suicide, so the opposition attempts to undermine the legitimacy of our leaders, using tactics like the "no WMD" ploy.

In the beginning of fascist regimes, political opponents and the media were "afraid" to attack the leadership of the day because the leadership's pitch was broadly accepted by the masses.

The death of a bi-party system, and a strong media presence who are unwilling to seek out the truth are certainly the beginning of the end.

 

[Error 404]

Quote from OPTIONAL777:



In the beginning of fascist regimes, political opponents and the media were "afraid" to attack the leadership of the day because the leadership's pitch was broadly accepted by the masses.

The death of a bi-party system, and a strong media presence who are unwilling to seek out the truth are certainly the beginning of the end.

These are very valid points. And go, in America today, far beyond the simplistic us/them Dem/Rep, Lib/Cons version of AAA's world.

KF, while defending the actions of the Bush administration seems to do it out of belief. And that's what makes horse races. If his (or his party's) argument's hold water for the electorate, the policies will continue.

AAA seems not to really care what the policies are. Just as long as they are those of HIS party.

It has been said before that it is "hard to underestimate the intelligence of the American people". But I have more faith.

If, there is not dramatic improvement in our muddled foreign policy (policies) in little more than a year (Not to mention our economy), there is no doubt in my mind we will see another one term Bush presidency.

Who do the Democrats have that can beat him? With the ammunition that is being handed to the Dems for the next election (and especially those crucial TV debates that seem to determine modern elections), the answer is "almost anyone".

Peace,
RS

 

[hapaboy]

Quote from OPTIONAL777:



In the beginning of fascist regimes, political opponents and the media were "afraid" to attack the leadership of the day because the leadership's pitch was broadly accepted by the masses.

The death of a bi-party system, and a strong media presence who are unwilling to seek out the truth are certainly the beginning of the end.

These statements may be true in and of themselves, but they hardly apply to the situation in our country today.

Opponents of the Bush administration and the media are obviously NOT "afraid to attack" and are questioning en masse the entire Iraqi affair. The bi-party system is hardly about to collapse, and as far as a "strong media presence ...willing to seek out the truth," well, the truth-seeking part is questionable and in the cases of many networks is in fact "sensationalism-seeking." The point is the American media is as aggressive and UNafraid of the government as it has ever been.

In light of all this, announcing the "beginning of the end" and the death-knell of our governmental system is a tad premature, don't you think?