Crap Throwing Monkey

Your last post before you were banned was Nazi propaganda, your first post back is insulting me...and I'm antisocial and hateful. What color is the sky in your world?

I'd forgotten about that! Geez...banned for a whole year for promoting Nazi philosophy on PPP...and the first thing you do when you get back is dig up ALL your old stupidity. What, you've been stewing over this for the past year?

Oh, that's right...Die Partei doesn't allow such deviance, particularly at the Nuremburg rallies. You ARE still bitching about the judicial elite's racial agenda of marital genocide with material straight from Alfred Rosenberg and Voelkischer Beobachter , of course...

Kurt! Long time, no see! Stilll dressing in women's clothes, or did the support group help?

Did someone drop a safe on your head this morning or something?

Dear Mr. Dean: You're a doody-head. Sincerely, Holcomb's Arm.

I'm choking on the irony...

As I am aware, thus my conjecture that mid-term elections don't much matter (they DO...but pretty much only in how they're interpereted as a "no confidence" vote or mandate.) Actual plans are arguably part of (or, more accurately, a function of) policy, particularly in that they inherit the biases and assumptions of the policy that dictates them. Thus, we get questionably based plans for "westernizing"and "democratizing" Iraq, based on a policy of stabilizing the Middle East via democratic reform that itself is based on the assumption that "democratic reform" means "Western liberal democratic reform".

In honor of this draft pick, I'd like to offer Tom Donahoe a hunting trip with Dick Cheney...

I went by the assumption that their effect, if any, was indirect and minimized, as the executive isn't directly impacted. Particularly in THIS administration, who, when it comes to foreing policy, simply says to Congress "Shut up and have another !@#$ing martini, !@#$s."

What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape. Whew...

Combination of the last three with an idealistic American sense of thinking everyone has an American inside them waiting to get out. A consistent theme in American foreign policy from Vietnam (and presumably before) to now is treating everyone as though they're American. They're not. Ultimately, someone involved in policy needs to realize they're not. And I wouldn't necessarily call it "not having stomach to finish the job" as much as "not having time to finish the job". Tough to have a coherent long-term national foreign policy when your foreign policy direction changes every 4-8 years.

Yes, I am. Failure is generally attributable to a confluence of events, but precipitated by a single event. The War on Terrorism, again, is a good example: there were a great many events that built up to it, but the precipitating event - the "cause", if you will - was 9/11. "Failure" tends to be like that. Due to the influence of a complex interaction of innumerable variables, but not foreordained - not "caused" - by anything until a single event occurs. Rather like riing a bicycle off a cliff, actually. But by your definition, I could label the root cause of the Iraqi civil war as the Six Days War. The easy answer is "Bush's kind". Though honestly, Clinton's was as fragile as well. As Kerry's would have been, I have no doubt. Really, "the American kind" is probably the correct answer. American foreign policy has a long history of getting blindsided and derailed by unexpected events (e.g. Tet).

And just where, precisely, do you think a labor union's allegiances lie? (I'll give you a hint: It's spelled "money".)

Did you ever stop to consider that the Dean calling you an idiot had less to do with the Dean and more to do with you being an actual idiot?

And a collection of guards who collectively couldn't block sunlight. I'm don't get an entirely warm and fuzzy feeling with the idea of Peters as a long-term solution at LT, either...but I'd like to see him play football on a professional offensive line before I pass judgement.

No, we wouldn't. Failure of the policy was not preordained. Even if it were, it does not change the idea that this event has caused the failure of the policy. That also does not excuse whatever errors or defects there were in said policy. Indeed, had Middle Eastern policy been effectively formulated, it would theoretically take into account this sort of event.

I never said it was the only clash. I just said it was strategically brilliant and extremely cost-effective. As for it being cumulative...most seminal events are. Tet, Gottlieb's MMWR report on AIDS, the Challenger explosion, 9/11...all were punctuation on a series of previous events that heralded massive shifts in perception and/or action. Historical Shi'ia-Sunni conflict in no way weakens the idea that the Golden Mosque bombing has potentially ruined administration policy in the Middle East and touched off an Iraqi civil war.

Their statements are out. Again, there is a difference between statements and proper public relations. Clinton, for example, made very stupid-ass statements ("Don't ask, don't tell", anyone?), but had great PR. Although at this point, the administration and their image is so fundamentally !@#$ed when it comes to PR, the difference hardly matters anyway.

Thus illustrating, in part, the difference between a statement and public relations.

You've got to appreciate the genius of the strategy, though. With one well-placed bomb which damaged one building and as far as I've heard killed no one, the perpetrators of such have nearly started a civil war in Iraq and effectively blown US policy in the Middle East clean out of the water. An administration with smart PR would play this as "The terrorists destroy the holiest places of your religion. They aren't Muslim, they're just criminals." Too bad we don't have an administration with smart PR.

Point out where I ever implied anything other than the lack of soundness of that argument.

That would have been far more effective if you'd spelled "quiet" correctly...

This IS the program. The White House purposely alienates the media, on the principle that they don't represent the interests of the people as they weren't elected by the people. And, as is typical with this administration...while I agree with the principle, I'm amazed at the utter incompetence of the execution.