Exhibit #765,234,098 in Why A Second Civil War In The US Is Necessary.

There's no debating with these people. Any civility on my part (or yours, CY) is mistaken for weakness. And their beliefs and values are 100% opposed to the values that make America work. So let's just cut to the chase.

The odd thing is that they find it A) outrageous and contemptible when America takes out the dictator and B) outrageous and contemptible when America tries to work with him against a common enemy (Iran).

It seems that the only logically consistent aspect of their opinions are that they always find America outrageous and contemptible.

Of course, there is much otherwise to criticise as well. Saddam was, in no possible way, one of the Reagan adminstration's "most valuable" allies. He was dirt that we had to deal with because of the rapid ascension of the Iranian extremists. Of course, the rest of the post (about who is better "hung") just reflects the juvenalia and sheer inability to think beyond trite slogans of the Huffington / Daily Kos crowd.

Like SDN said.......

Actually Wildmonk, It seems that the only logically consistent aspect of their opinions are that they always find Republican administrations outrageous and contemptible, it all has to do with power, not morality.

The only way you can sell that kinda crazy is to chocolate coat it. I'll get Yosarian on this right away and we'll all get rich.

Maybe it was Milo? Yea, it was Milo.

You know what? It's as crude and klassy with a kay as any rightwing nuthouse site I've ever seen. I do dislike the broad brush strokes going on here in the comments. So.

But just skip right on past any thought that this same barbarity might have been a decent reason to--you know--get rid of him.

Look, the guy was a monster. There are plenty of monsters in this world. I don't want to pull off these pat little "regime changes" wherever monsters lurk because we can't afford to. Some will never be stupid or rash enough to attack our shores, and Saddam Hussein, in my estimation, was one of those. Why couldn't we finish the job in Afghanistan before we started screwing around elsewhere? This pisses me off.

In any case, when you go before the American public and make the case for war, that'd be the time to drive home this point you're making. It couldn't just be humanitarian reasons, though, so Mr. Bush lobbed in the understood imminent threat of WMD and shaky al-Qaeda connections and so on. It helped that he had a whole grab-bag of wrongdoings to pick from. Except now we're down to "democratizing," when all else falls through, and it just reeks of one lame excuse after another. In short, it looks bad, and it's embarrassing as hell.

The fact is this White House seems to have thought and perhaps persists in thinking it can win a war on PR alone, when they lost an international PR war to Saddam friggin' Hussein in the runup to the actual war. Pathetic. And their bungling ever since has absolutely hamstrung the military, made the US out to be some pitiful paper tiger, and squandered an incredible outpouring of goodwill after 9/11 that could've been used to our benefit. Am I a crazy leftist? Whatever. Cockups like these are what I can't forgive. Maybe history will be kinder, but I doubt it.

As for your final rejoinder: I hope nobody denies that the US government cuts some pretty unsavory deals. Extremism in Iran I can’t imagine being any worse than gassing people to death in Iraq (school me, here; do they gas people in Iran?), yet there we were cutting deals with the bastard. It doesn't look good, it doesn't look moral, because it isn't. Was it necessary? Necessary will never equal moral, at least not for me.

yet there we were cutting deals with the bastard.

Can you provide some details? Dollar amounts, particular years involved, etc?

Let me clue you in gentle moonbat -- TOTAL US SUPPORT for Saddam, since the time he seized control, over ALL YEARS he was in power, totaled LESS than the cost of SIX(6) F/A-18 Super Hornets.

Brazil sold Saddam more weaponry than the USA ever did. Yea, Brazil.

I don't give a care about Brazil. Why should I? I hold the United States to a higher stander because I love it and I live here. Why is this so hard to accept? If I'm a moonbat, sorry! I'm certainly what you'd call one, aren't I? I've voted for Democrats in several elections now, because I feel a certain party I shall not name (nor tag it or its members with a cutesy little epithet) has gone off the deepend.

And, no, I don't have dollar amounts and whatnot, so I suppose you can get smug about it. I'm not hunting for citations to corroborate that. It's notional, an extension of the fact that I'm not 100% naive about the way the world works. How much money do you suppose a meeting with a well-connected fellow like Rumsfeld is worth? I'd guess all the reassurance in the world.

And, no, I don't have dollar amounts and whatnot, so I suppose you can get smug about it.

Smug? No. I just want you to educate yourself and make informed comments.

How much money do you suppose a meeting with a well-connected fellow like Rumsfeld is worth? I'd guess all the reassurance in the world.

I guess that's why our "support" dropped to exactly $0.00 immediately after the end of the Iran/Iraq war and stayed there until Saddam's regime fell right? France OTOH, continued to supply military aid to Saddam right up until the 2003 invasion.

See what I mean? If you were actually informed, you might not make such fatuous obviously ignorant remarks.

PA

Ahhh, but you apparently miss the point of it all.

Facts, evidence, ...truth, ....are superfluous little dainties, to be tossed out with yesterday's trash.

You simply don't comprehend (and can't apparently...since you are NOT a member of the club...simply not gifted with that particular strain of DNA that allows leftists to "know" without knowing, to absorb truth out of lies, facts out of distortion, right out of wrong)

My dear man, you simply are by your very nature, unworthy of further discourse, because you choose to debate rather than debase. You choose to look in vain for details in the research books, rather
for refrains from the hymnal and directions from the playbook.

The less militant lemmings look upon you with an eye of pity, you poor unwashed outsider. The more militant of the mincing membership will screw up their faces in rage and disgust, unable to speak without hurtling flecks of spittle on all within a furlong's range and with eyes bulging out of their sockets, describe you as one or all of the playbook's favorite epithets: homophobic, warmongering, stupid, vile, greedy, corporate lackey, Southern, white, male, gun-toting, meat eating, etc.etc.etc.

And the Bulge and Spittle Corps will forever lump you in as beyond redemption, lashing out at you because you are "jingoistic" and have a "blind faith" in your country.

Your futile attempts to engage on facts, evidence and research fall on deaf ears, because...after all...you simply don't have what it takes to "understand the message".

Here's the message. "We don't give DAMN about America, although we SAY we do".

"We don't give a DAMN about facts, evidence, research"

"We are invested in trashing America...because to do so envelopes us in protective coating of immediate faux erudition. We APPEAR to be smart, and ALL the Ministry of Media backs us up. The newspapers say we are smarter and are quite arrogant about it, so it must be true. All the Hollywood movies, all the college professors...dontcha know ALL the academic elite...we are the new aristocracy. We don't have to EARN respect, we simply have to dress to act the part."

Now, Purple Avenger...please get your nose out of the research books, quit fiddling around with all those facts and evidence...and get yourself a playbook. All the best lemmings, parrots and dullards have them...and even they can rote recite from it. It damn well beats learning...

And it's so much easier to have cubit zirconium intellect than to have to suffer through actually knowing something.

Buy the hymnal, memorize the playbook, earn your aristocratic stripes through the back of a matchbook cover. Heaven knows, we don't need more men and women who actually love this country and have enough fortitude to want to think for themselves.

To PA: Oh, you bring up France, like I've got some liberal kinship with it. Are you kidding me? How many times need I say I don't care about these other countries, and I don't look to them---as often they're the lowest common denominator---to be the arbiter or somehow the inverse of what's moral in the US? I simply don't!

It does appear you really think I'm a wild-eyed leftist or maybe just a dummy liberal. Funny to me because I and my husband used to vote Republican quite reliably throughout the eighties and early nineties. Think what you will; accuse me of being a mushy-middle independent; there's always a good chance I don't acquit myself all that well. I confessed to you I hadn't done any looking into that particular subject, and you're right that it doesn't cut the mustard to make sweeping statements and assumptions. You quote a supposed fact and, seemingly, by lack of citation, expect me to take your word for it. In practice, that's no better than what I've done. I'm quite sure you have a source. But this is all dancing around the thrust of what I said.

I'm a pissed voter, and by now I think it's safe to say I'm not the only one. You can whittle away at what I've said but you've yet to get at the underpinnings. Iraq and the unfinished job in Afghanistan---two rapidly deteriorating situations and such a colossal cockup on almost all levels. What on earth are we going to do about it, what lessons will we take from it, and can we do something besides talk about having a second civil war in our own country in response to it? I'm worried, truly and genuinely, and angry, too, that my government---our government---has and keeps screwing up in so dire a time!

To cfbleachers: I won't be lumped in with your idea of what a liberal is; it's the same reason I'm not liking the fact that quoting some moronic site is to be conflated with a huge and diverse group. I do mean any group. I wouldn't sit here and quote Free Republic, for instance, and ask people like you to defend some of the ridiculous hot air that gets spewed there. I'm no "aristocrat," either. Enjoy extrapolating all kinds of interesting things about me from what I said, though! Just as my little venting session was oh-so telling about me, I assure you the same could be said about yours.