Video of Iraqi Insurgent being interogatted

Long as we're throwing around mea culpas, I feel moved to share:I am sorry that our current administration's only standard for employment in high government office is that one refrain from being convicted of a crime.I am sorry that this administration lied to us about WMD in order to gain support for a war they had no business starting, no clue how to conduct and no plan for winning.I am sorry that this administration lied to us by saying that this war would last "weeks rather than months".I am sorry that this administration sends other people's sons and daughters off to fight this war without proper armour.I am sorry that this administration chooses to use the tragic deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11 in a shameless attempt to divert attention from its own massive failures.I am sorry that this administration will stop at nothing to silence opposition to its war-making policies; not even smearing the name of a fallen soldier's grieving mother is too low for them.I am sorry that this administration has sufficient hubris to believe it can win this war, but not quite so much that it is willing to send its own sons and daughters to fight in it.EDITED to delete redundant sentence.This message has been edited by berberry, 08-23-2005 08:38 AM

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Tal writes me:

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Everyone lied. Including the UN and the Clinton Administration.

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True enough, and you and I might find some degree of agreement if we were to review the Clinton administration and the history of the UN. But that isn't the subject at hand, and as far as Clinton was concerned I believe he did suffer a blot on his escutcheon, if nothing else. No such fate seems to await Bush, but there is a crucial difference in the lies of the one and the lies of the other. The lies of only one of them were used to start a war.Hell, even Martha Stewart lied. But wait, oh yeah, she had to pay for those lies, didn't she? She even went to prison. And how many deaths have resulted from her lies?

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It did. We won against Saddam's forces. We are now in an insurgency.

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And who says this war is nothing like Vietnam? By your reckoning, we won that, too.

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You can't even get into theater without body armor, so this is false.

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No need for armoured vehicles, then? We're supposed to be shocked by this? She's probably right. I'm not sure that would be our best policy, but the fact that she said it certainly doesn't justify the smear campaign that's been launched against her.I realize that a number of left-wing groups are supporting her. You people should feel free to attack those groups with all you've got. But Cindy Sheehan is a grieving mother, and where I come from you don't ridicule a grieving mother. You wouldn't do it to Beth Holloway Twitty and you wouldn't do it to Cindy Sheehan. You don't understand one goddamned thing that woman is going through and you have absolutely no right to judge her.Attack moveon.org all you want. Leave Cindy the hell alone. I see you're from Kentucky, but you sir are no Southern gentleman!

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Tal writes me:

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No she isn't.

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And how exactly would you know this? Anyone who doesn't agree with the administration's conduct of this war cannot grieve, is that it? What does a mother have to do to grieve legitimately? Wear a long black dress and a veil? Must she remain at home all day? Must she abandon her friends as well as her politics? Only by donning a facade of sycophancy to the wingnuts whose policies killed her son can she be considered a genuine grieving mother?Does your god let you pass judgement on just anyone, or only on those who don't share your narrow-minded lunacy?

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Chiroptera writes me:

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Yeah, I know it goes against your southern gentlemanly sense of chivalry...

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Thank you for the kind words, but I should hope that no one but Tal and other neocons would do such a thing as you suggest. It's okay to talk about it in the abstract - especially since we aren't the ones who brought such things up to begin with - but let's not try to out-Tal Tal in this situation. Let him wallow in the gutter by himself.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Monk writes me:

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Here are just a few more of Sheehan’s comments:

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How does any of this prove that Cindy is not a grieving mother? Why not attack what she says and the groups she aligns herself with rather than attacking her personally by calling her grief into question.I'm no great fan of Cindy Sheehan, Monk, and if you were to start a thread dealing with certain of the issues she talks about, you might find that we have some agreement. But I'll be damned if I'm going to jump down in the gutter with you to attack her character. You simply have no right to do that. You have every right to take whatever issue with her you will, but you have no right to dictate the terms of her grief or question her love for anyone or anything, son and country included.There can be no debate about this. It's not a debating point; it's a point of human decency!

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

When exactly did she piss on his grave, Tal? Did you get pictures?What about the grieving mother who's politically active with such groups as Focus on the Family, The John Birch society and the Sons of Confederate Veterans Ladies' Auxilliary? What if such a woman held a vigil every night across the street from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port? Would her grief be legitimate?Does a grieving mother's politics have to match yours in order for her grief to be real?

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Tal writes:

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She's not a grieving mother, she's a media whore.

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I see there's no point to continuing this.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Monk writes me:

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I think we agree here...

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Yes, for the most part apparently we do.

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It should be the same in the real world as it is on this forum. No Ad Hominems, attack the argument only.

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If not in ordinary practice then at least to those who've suffered the loss of a loved one. I'm not saying Sheehan should be free to make wild and reckless charges against anyone she wants without anyone saying a contrary word, but surely you can respond vigorously to what she says without attacking her character or questioning her grief.

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...I do have a right to judge her in regards to the comments she makes...

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Almost. You have the right to judge the comments themselves.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

It would be nice if she weren't such a loose cannon. She'd be far more effective if she were more skilled in what she says and does. But that's all the more reason to suspect that she is seriously grieving.And even as she is, she's pretty damned effective, mostly because of the far right's reaction to her.On the lying issue, I'm not so sure. When I first heard that charge it turned out to be a mined quote. There may be something else that's come up since; if so I have no problem with calling her on it, but only in context of challenging her, not judging her.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

This ain't Cindy Sheehan.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Monk writes me:

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I just hope the effect doesn't result in a premature withdrawal from Iraq.

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I've enjoyed the brief moment of agreement with you. I must say that you are one of the most capable and intelligent conservatives on this board. I hope you never get too frustrated at the lack of able allies and leave us.But I may have to change my position on the issue you raise here. I've been giving it a lot of thought the past 24 hours. Until now I've been convinced that we shouldn't abandon Iraq; we created the mess so now we should fix things as best we can.It was on the issue of WMD that I, at first, favored this war. My first misgivings came late in the run-up, when Hans Blix suddenly started saying that the Iraqis were beginning to cooperate with the inspectors. I thought we should have given them more time to complete their job. We didn't, they didn't, there were no WMD and now here we are, trying to keep the peace in a country on the verge of civil war.Even in this current state, with insurgent attacks become more and more common and more and more deadly, I have felt that we should remain in Iraq until the mess we created is cleaned up. But as I was listening to the president bravely speak to that angry crowd of hostile liberals like Bill Moyers, I wanted to hear him say something new, something on which to hang our hopes for Iraq's future. But all we got was the same old tired "stay the course" bullshit.I don't feel like we're honoring the dead soldiers of this war by "staying the course". Perhaps if it still seemed possible that we might see a stable, modern government with respect for civil liberties established I might be more opposed to pulling out, but did you hear Rumsfeld's comments about the Iraqi constitution? I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but it runs something like "let's not worry what the constitution says or doesn't say, let's just get something passed that can be amended later". That's a helluva far cry from the strong commitment to women's rights and secular government we were hearing about just a couple weeks ago.If all we're gonna do is continue what we've been doing and if we're now willing to accept the replacement of a secular (albeit cruelly repressive and genocidal) regime with an Islamic one, then we've so drastically lowered the bar that I can't see what peace there is left to keep. Iraq is a civil war waiting to happen. The only question is when, and I'm not sure it's wise for us to continue to lose our good men and women if all they're dying for is to delay the inevitable.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005