Something there is among certain elements of the left that gets weak kneed at the notion of Bu$hitler’s legions of myrmidons finally coming to their senses and Flipping On The Man. It serves to explain how the New Republic fell for the Scott Thomas Beauchamp diaries, and perhaps explains the tone of breathless, schoolyard tattletaling in this dKos diary entry. Whoever the diarist’s correspondent is, s/he clearly knows a bit of the inside lingo but still manages to get details glaringly wrong in a way that coincidentally serves to reinforce the Kossacks’ prejudices, garnering over a thousand comments when I first looked in this morning.
It’s not that there’s any one thing wrong in the post, which purports to tell the inside story of an upcoming US naval attack on Iran, but rather the accumulation of many, many little things that aren’t quite right:
She started in the Marines and after 8 years her term was up. She had served on a smaller Marine carrier, and found out through a friend knew there was an opening for a junior grade LSO in a training position on a supercarrier. She used the reference and the information and applied for a transfer to the United States Navy. Since she had experience landing F-18Cs and Cobra Gunships, and an unblemished combat record, she was ratcheted into the job, successfully changing from the Marines to the Navy. Her role is still aligned with the Marines since she generally is assigned to liason with the Marine units deploying off her carrier group.
A smaller “Marine” carrier would be a Navy LHA or LHD, embarking a Marine Air Combat Element, or ACE. They carry attack helicopters, transport helicopters and a small number of Harrier jump jets. They don’t (can’t) land F-18s.
It’s not impossible for an aviator to have an unblemished combat record flying Marine helicopters from amphibs and then have flown the FA-18 - a test pilot might do so - but it’s very, very rare. You bloom where you’re planted, and these days, with the Navy getting smaller and the Marine Corps under burden, transferring from the Corps to carrier aviation is well nigh unheard of.
As for hearing from a friend that a “junior grade” LSO position was available, that’s hooey. That’s not how it’s done, we don’t advertise for LSO’s, we grow them up from within the squadrons embarked aboard the carriers. Nor, for that matter, do we call them “supercarriers” any more, since they’re all supercarriers. The last ship not in the supercarrier weight class was the USS Midway, which weighed in at a bit less than 60,000 tons but was decommissioned 15 years ago.
“I know this will sound crazy coming from a Naval officer”, she said. “But we‚Äôre all just waiting for this administration to end. Things that happen at the senior officer level seem more and more to happen outside of the purview of XOs and other officers who typically have a say-so in daily combat and flight operations. Today, orders just come down from the mountaintop and there‚Äôs no questioning. In fact, there is no discussing it. I have seen more than one senior commander disappear and then three weeks later we find out that he has been replaced. That‚Äôs really weird. It‚Äôs also really weird because everyone who has disappeared has questioned whether or not we should be staging a massive attack on Iran.”
More hooey. The “say-so” of “daily” combat operations under the purview of XO’s is how to execute the mission, not whether or not it ought to be done, and anyway, XO’s do “heads, beds and haircuts” not national policy. And since the correspondent talks of doing “traps” and “FARP” training later in the post - events that are at the very beginning of the training cycle, and a year or more before the ship and air wing deploy - she’s nowhere near being in the fight in any case, with two ships on the line right now and at least one between her ship and deployment. Something doesn’t add up.
As for all of those “disappearing” senior officers, there are a couple of well-trodden paths to professional ignominy - DUIs and “zipper failures” are among the most common - but no one gets vanished for “questioning whether or not” we ought to attack Iran, or any other country for that matter and if they had, you can be sure we’d all have heard about it by now. It’s also passing strange to hear a former Marine complain that orders come down from the “mountain top”, as though at some time in the cherished past they use to bubble up from the mess decks. But even in such a bizarrely constructed paragraph, it’s hard to plausibly and consistently argue on the one hand that orders aren’t being questioned and that people are being relieved for doing so.
“We‚Äôre not stupid. Most of the members of the fleet read well enough to know what is going on world-wise. We also realize that anyone who has any doubts is in danger of having a long military career yanked out from under them. Keep in mind that most of the people I serve with are happy to be a part of the global war on terror. It‚Äôs just that the touch points are what we see since we are the ones out here who are supposedly implementing this grand strategy. But when you liason (sic) with administration officials who don‚Äôt know that Iranians don‚Äôt speak Arabic and have no idea what Iranians live like, then you start having second thoughts about whether these Administration officials are even competent.”
I have to wonder what administration official a lieutenant would be performing “liason” with, or who it is among those officials doesn’t know that Iranians speak Farsi or how the subject would have even come up. While this is exactly the kind of paragraph that people personally invested in the narrative of the administration as a bunch of wooden headed bumblers would drink down like fine wine, it rings as false as a football bat on a tin cymbal to anyone who understands the way the Navy - and junior officers within the Navy - actually work.
JO’s avoid talking to their embarked flag officer if ever they can manage to, and even a shipboard flag wouldn’t speak directly to political types on policy matters, reporting instead to a 3-star ashore, who reports to the 4-star joint force commander who reports to a theater combatant commander - Admiral Fallon, in this case. The COCOM would be the first guy to routinely coordinate with the political arms of government and would be in any event be rather unlikely to share with a shipboard lieutenant his observation that administration officials didn’t know that Iranians spoke Farsi even in the unlikely event that the opportunity presented itself.
More jangling language here:
“But if you asked any of the flight officers whether they have a clear idea of what the goal of this strike is, your answer would sound like something out of a think tank policy paper. But it‚Äôs not like Kosovo or when we relieved the tsunami victims. There everyone could tell you in a sentence what we were here doing.”
The dKos diarist is quoting here, so I think it’s safe to point out that “flight officer” has a specific and restrictive meaning in naval aviation, referring to the weapons systems operators, navigators and mission specialists who, along with a Navy pilot, execute the aircraft mission in a multi-seat aircraft. The term “flight officer” itself is an awkward formulation - “naval flight officer” or NFO is the common term - and would never in any case be used in this way. Much more likely would be the more generic term “aviators” or even “aircrew.” We just don’t talk about ourselves that way, especially pilots - and all LSO’s are pilots.
Next up:
Last night in the galley, an ensign asked what right do we have to tell a sovereign nation that they can‚Äôt build a nuke. I mean the table got EF Hutton quiet. Not so much because the man was asking a question that was off culture. But that he was asking a good question. In fact, the discussion actually followed afterwards topside where someone in our group had to smoke a cigarette. The discussion was intelligent but also in lowered voices. It‚Äôs like we aren‚Äôt allowed to ask the questions that we always ask before combat. It‚Äôs almost as if the average seaman or soldier is doing all the policy work.”
The galley is where food is cooked for enlisted men, and an air wing ensign would have no business being there. There are no tables in the galley. Officers dine in a wardroom. Very few aviators smoke these days, and you certainly don’t go “topside” to do so - smoking galleries are on sponsons that give off the hangar bay. The questions we always ask before combat are all related to “how do I get in and do my job without getting bagged,” not whether or not it’s a job worth doing.
It’s almost as if the average seaman is a little out of his or her swim lane talking about things s/he has only heard about and in every case, getting it almost right. But missing.
Is there a plan to attack Iran? Absolutely there is: We plan for everything, always have. Before World War II we planned with equal intensity to fight Britain and Canada on the one hand, and Japan on the other. As you start heading towards a place that has an existing plan, you dust that puppy off, check the intel for updated threats and cross-check the other planner’s math. Having thus paid obeisance to the household gods of war planning, the entire package is laid aside until the next time you go by. Makes the time pass faster.
But every little bit of this story reads like BS to me, with the only real surprise being that there are so very many eager rubes in the world, waiting to be taken in by it.
So, as I said: I’m hoisting the flag.
Update: All gone. Mr. Macabee, meet Mr. Memory Hole. Mr. Memory Hole, meet…
Hey! Where’d he go?!?
118 responses so far ↓
1
1charlie2
// Sep 2, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Filterman, you miss the point, perhaps intentionally.
This post, and the resulting discussion, is not about Iran. It’s about wannabes and fiction, and how much of a role those play in the anti-war faction. Let’s not try to hijack it.
Some of us deal from a position of facts, truth, and knowledge. Others have to create fictional circumstances to “prove” the value of their position.
When you start with a lie, as the diarist clearly did, I have no interest in “discussing” the putative subject. The anti-war faction is entitled to their own opinions, but I will not debate with anyone who thinks they are entitled to their own facts. We do not inhabit the same time-space continuum.
If that bothers the anti-war faction, then let them stick to the truth. A simple proposition, no ?
2
MarkJ
// Sep 2, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I propose we submit Maccabee’s diary entry to the “International Imitation Hemingway Competition.”
http://www.2camels.com/international-imitation-hemingway-competition.php
I’ve got a saw-buck, a bottle of single malt scotch, and a stuffed swordfish that say he’d be a contender.
3
P.H. Sheridan
// Sep 2, 2007 at 4:32 pm
The strategic goal of an attack on Iran must assume that in partnership with North Korea, Iran has long since obtained enough enriched uranium and plutonium to construct a number of nuclear weapons. They are also known to have a large number of effective long-range nuclear and conventional delivery systems.
In other words, Iran’s efforts at uranium enrichment have been a ruse to conceal and extend their timetable for constructing functional nuclear weapons that can be carried on their larger Taep’o-dong-1/Shahab-4 (+) missiles.
For this reason, our primary emphasis in the region has been the deployment of extensive and layered anti-missile assets to defend the four primary target classes in the region.
In order of importance: US fleets in areas from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean; US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Saudi Arabian oilfields; and Europe.
Israel is regarded by Iran as a secondary target, which they can comfortably attack by Syrian and Hezbollah proxies as a conventional second front. It also emphasizes blockade of ME oil shipments to further pressure the US.
Iran’s primary strategic goal is to drive the US from the Middle East entirely, by whatever means necessary. If they can accomplish this, they believe that their regional hegemony is guaranteed.
For these reasons, just the destruction of the Iranian uranium enrichment infrastructure is inadequate to prevent their obtaining and using nuclear weapons kept at other sites. While it is improbable that the US could eliminate the actual storage sites of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, we can maintain a long term effective regional anti-missile defense against them, and otherwise prevent Iran from accomplishing its goal of hegemony.
Iran must be partitioned.
That is, from its northwestern Kurdish provinces in a sweeping arc South, through Bushehr province and the nuclear reactor there, then East to Baluchistan, must be permanently removed from Iran, to deny them the revenue, oil, and mineral resources needed to reconstitute their nuclear program.
In turn, this requires that the Iranian military and IRGC be reduced, so they cannot reclaim these territories. The territories themselves would be annexed as follows: the Kurdish provinces to Iraqi Kurdistan; the Arabic oil producing province of Khuzestan to Iraq; and Baluchistan will be joined with Pakistani Baluchistan.
Each of these annexed areas are culturally and ethnically more related to peoples in the adjacent nations than to Persians. These peoples are powerless and despised minorities within Iran, and will hold no great objection to being liberated. Persia itself need not be invaded, or even necessarily attacked, except to destroy selected targets, such as C&C and any nuclear infrastructure.
Finally, the Iranian uranium mines in a heavily ethnic Azeri province adjacent to this partition, will have to be destroyed in such a way that further mining of ore will no longer be practicable. But most likely it will then be returned to Persian control.
After the air campaign has destroyed their nuclear infrastructure and reduced their military and IRGC, the US ground divisions in Iraq, and possibly US Marines, will be used in the partition. We will probably encourage the Pakistani military to annex Iranian Baluchistan to rejoin it with Pakistani Baluchistan.
Once the Kurdish Peshmurga, Iraqi and Pakistani armies have occupied their newly annexed territories, the US screening forces can redeploy to Iraq.
As a final note, it is also possible that Iran may use their al-Quds force to deliver a shipborne nuclear weapon to a major port or for other purposes, under the guise of an al-Qaeda terrorist operation. Most likely either against Naples, Italy or Port Said, Egypt, at the entrance of the Suez Canal.
4
TomB
// Sep 2, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I see “fliterman” has already trotted out the “fake but accurate” excuse.
No, filter, an attack on Iran isn’t the issue here. There are possibly two issues. One is the (poor) fabrication of a story that is so full of holes a non-mil lackey like me knew it was a lie from the first paragraph. Yet look at the replies to that thread and there are scores of slack-jawed morons convinced a junior officer is somehow privy to Tomahawk targeting plans that aren’t even on the boat.
The second possibility is that this officer does know of real plans, has used all the preceeding drivel to camoflage his/her position, and has leaked the information to someone who posts at the Daily KOS. If true, it is treason.
We could launch an attack on Iran tomorrow and it doesn’t excuse that post.
5
Gaius
// Sep 2, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Lex,
I sent this to you via email, but I thought your commenters would get a kick out of this. Kos himself has all but called “Maccabee” a liar. That is hilarious.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/2/15560/00042
6
lex
// Sep 2, 2007 at 6:28 pm
And now the story is vanished! Like those senior officers who dare to doubt the established narrative.
Projection, much?
7 Pirate’s Cove » >>Americans Never Quit » Nutroots Goes Nuts. Well, Nuttier // Sep 2, 2007 at 6:30 pm
[...] hey, you do not want to read me about this subject. You should listen to Neptunus Lex, who, you know, served in the Navy for 41 years, and flew jets, commanded a squadron of F/A [...]
8
lex
// Sep 2, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Emilio, fliterman makes a good point, as you do yourself. The issue of what to do about the topic of Iranian nukes is a serious one, perhaps the most serious issue we’ll face in the next 20 years or so.
Unlike the North Korean regime, which above all merely seeks to ensure its own continuation atop the mound of skulls that they have crafted at home, the mullahcracy’s true intentions are difficult for us to discern and their language - especially that of Ahmadinejad - is not in the least reassuring.
So this is a critically important issue for people to examine carefully. It helps not at all when people on one side or another manufacture a narrative to suit the prejudices of their partisans.
9
Aaron
// Sep 2, 2007 at 8:15 pm
I have practically zero knowledge of the inner workings of the Navy, but I know my pop culture, and I have this question: How old is the average LSO? I ask because, while it’s not impossible, it’s extremely unlikely that ANYONE under the age of 35, at an absolute minimum, would make a reference to E. F. Hutton TV commercials, which ended in the early 1980s.
IMHO, such a reference puts the original poster somewhere well above the age of 40.
10 Never Yet Melted » Comedy at Daily Kos // Sep 3, 2007 at 6:08 am
[...] Neptunus Lex Hoisting the (BS) Flag. [...]
11
Jeopardy
// Sep 3, 2007 at 6:11 am
Admiral Canard,
LOL
This reminds me of a commenter on another website who went by the handle FLY_NAVY. He claimed to be a 25 year-old LCDR aviator who graduated from the Academy in 02. He wanted to join the Navy to be able to provide for his son, who was born in the early 90’s. riiiight.
Anyway, he basically got torn apart by some of the other commenters, many of them retired senior enlisted types. Funny thing about Chiefs; They don’t tolerate posers.
12
Mrs G
// Sep 3, 2007 at 6:34 am
I’m sure the disappearance of this Kos post is due to Lex’s articulate debunking however, my guess is, the Kos kids will think otherwise. Seeing as they are as brainless as their blogger, they’ll think it’s a conspiracy.
but no one gets vanished for ?¢‚Ǩ?ìquestioning whether or not?¢‚Ǩ¬ù we ought to attack Iran, or any other country for that matter and if they had, you can be sure we?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d all have heard about it by now.
And poof! it disappeared.
Re: Mr Lopez
Will someone PLEASE pop the bubble we apparently live in so we can let the riches and information flow to those “regular Americans”. Are you a regular American Meester Mr. “Emilio Lopez”?
Yes, Emilo, the US military (baby killers) are out to obliterate everyone, we have no conscious, we’re ‘Morally Retarded’, didn’t you get that memo from Kos.
I think Mr Emilo Lopez is the one living in a bubble, a Kos bubble.
13
SeniorD
// Sep 3, 2007 at 6:34 am
Cap’n,
See what happens when I take the weekend off to play with the Lady Katherine?
Having once, some time ago, worked with T-Hawks, I can say that the subject of this thread is bogus. I can’t, to this day, say why suffice it to say he/she/it is making smoke.
14
steve
// Sep 3, 2007 at 6:58 am
Lex,
How come she did not even mention the goat locker? Don’t we rate?
steve cpo ret.
15
dick
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:12 am
I wish someone would explain to the LL that we have to have plans to cover any eventuality and those plans have to be realistic enough to be implemented in need be. Let’s just suppose that Iran attacked our Mediterranean fleet. If we had no plans to handle that attack, it would take a goodly amount of time to get them made and then passed out and then implemented. In that time period, the situation would have changed so that the plans would not be the right ones.
To take a civilian example, look at the situation in NOLA at Katrina. The idiot mayor failed to implement his own plans and the outcome was a disaster with all those school buses that should have been used to take people out of the path of Katrina underwater and the rest of the population left to fend for themselves or having to wait for the NG to get them out. If the mayor had implemented the plan in existence, all those people would have been out before Katrina landed. The same situation writ large is needed for the country. If we don’t imagine what can happen and plan how to counter it, how can we protect ourselves. I truly despair for my country if these dingbats get in power and implement the plans they want to.
16
B Larson
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:15 am
Good illumination on the KOS fraudster. Now will you do the same to The London Times? Are they still standing by their story.
17
B Larson
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:27 am
Sarah Baxter has been saying it for at least over a year.
Nato May Help US Airstrikes on Iran
March 05, 2006
Sunday Times
Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0305-03.htm
18
lex
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:39 am
Well B. Larson, even a painted clock may eventually be right I suppose.
19
B Larson
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:45 am
Good one!
20
Eris
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:57 am
hey, what’s a story like this when you have major US newspapers publishing stories that promote being nicer to
terrorists… um … pedophiles???LINK
I don’t make this stuff up.
21 Kossacks get taken for a ride // Sep 3, 2007 at 8:17 am
[...] fun on the subject here from someone actually in the [...]
22
AW1 Tim
// Sep 3, 2007 at 8:29 am
Mr. Lopez,
Every military man and woman I ever met is all for giving peace a chance. It’s high on everyone’s priority list because they are the ones who will be the most directly affected by it’s implementation or absence.
Having said, that, however, I would argue that no one really knows whether or not there is such a thing as peace. To poorly quote a description I read many years ago: “Peace is a theoretical state of affairs whose existence we deduce because there have been intervals between wars.”
Being that man is, by nature, a predator, it might be better argued that war and conflict is his natural state. Competition is what drives us, regardless of what form it takes, IE: job advancement, sports, games of chance, acquisition of material goods, etc. Competition is the foundation of warfare, and it is something we are born with, not taught, but certainly refined. Those who fail to learn are often those who fail at everything else, and eventually become subservient to the fast learners.
Regardless, I would take a moment to address your concerns about morales. Your argument about the United States having no maral authority to tell Iran they cannot have nuclear weapons is only valid if all moral & value systems are equivilant, which is impossible on it’s face, and demonstrably so. Although certain moral absolutes exist in every succesful society, such as prohibitions against theft, murder, etc, that does not grant that each set is the equivilant of any other.
Iran has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in any sort of civilized behaviour. The very president of the nation not only publicly touts the national program(s) to develop nuclear weapons, but in almost the same breath promises to remove Israel from the map, promises to cleance by fire the Jews from arab lands, and warns his neighbors not to interefere with his(Iran’s) plans.
To further his own arguments, Iran has also developed IRBM’s capable of reaching large swaths of Europe, and of lofting a nuclear or large chemical warhead.
The world twice sat idley-by in the past 100 years while similar heads of states played with fires that quickly got out of control. No one believed (except, perhaps, Hindenburg)that “some damned thing in the Balkams” could trigger a worlf-war. Yet it did.
These same ardent wishers of peace refused to accept that perhaps Mr. Hitler was actually laying out his plans for Europe when he wrote “Mein Kampf.” The work was popularly played down with patronizing “Oh, he didn’t really MEAN he would kill all the Jews” or “It’s just politics, he won’t really annex the Sudetenland.”. Etc.
Similarly, Stalin and Beria also had their publoc pronouncements played down, parsed and nuanced.
Yet, in every case, the world discovered, to it’s own sad end, that each and every one of these fellows, these ’statesmen” were telling the truth, speaking plainly of their intentions.
Untold tens of millions died because those in power, those who claimed to speak from knowleadge and experience followed what their hearts said, what they WANTED so desperately to believe, rather than what ther own eyes showed them, and that right plainly.
Iran is developing nuclear weapons. They may already have some on hande, gotten through the old Societ Union or from North Kores. When they have them, they will use them. They will attack anyone and anything they percieve as a threat because they can, and because their own religious beliefs demand it. Whether through direct use, or through proxies, Iran will use it’s weapons.
Iran’s president has openly stated, on numerous documented occasions, that he believes it his destiny to bring about the return of the 12th Imam. That will only occur through Armaggedon. Iran fully intends to do everything it can to achieve that result, and we ignore it at our own peril.
The moral imperative for the United States to act to stop such foolishness is clear and unassailable. Moral failure would be to stand back and do nothing or to wait for Iran to act first.
Killing in order to save other life is not a sin, and never has been. It is not something to relish, but there are times when it must be done.
Respects,
23
unkawill
// Sep 3, 2007 at 10:30 am
How did we go from 59 to 70?
24
unkawill
// Sep 3, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Mr Lopez you don’t have a clue as to what’s going in the world, Have you ever been to the ME? I thought not. You rail against “American Impearilism” Yet we haven’t stolen one drop of oil, You rail against our thuggishness, yet we treat our POW’s by the Geneva accords. Our enemy certainly dosen’t. Why do you feel guilty for being American? You should celebrate your good fortune instead of denigrating those who go forth to make the world a much better place.
25
lex
// Sep 3, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Emilio,
re: “Yet, (the US) does not conduct itself as a leader of the world. It tends to act (and not only under Bush) as a global thug, selfishly, narrowly concerned about ?¢‚Ǩ?ìits own?¢‚Ǩ¬ù interests (?¢‚Ǩ¬ùour oil?¢‚Ǩ¬ù under their sand, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìour?¢‚Ǩ¬ù security and that of ?¢‚Ǩ?ìour?¢‚Ǩ¬ù allies, etc.). Not as a global cop, because cops are supposed to abide by laws. As a thug, since thugs make their own ?¢‚Ǩ?ìlaws?¢‚Ǩ¬ù as they go.”
Every country acts in its national interest. Powerful ones simply have more freedom of action. Weaker states also act in their own self interest, but they either accommodate to the greater powers or compromise their principles and interests in pursuit of balancing alliances. This has being going on for quite some time, by the way.
The Marshall Plan has been held out as an example of unadulterated international altruism, but it was in fact driven by the cool logic of the benefits accruing to international trade and combating conditions conducive to collectivist tyranny. We have always been a trading nation, and even today we trade for “our oil” as you put it, under their sands. On an open market, in free competition for the most part - unless of course you count those countries so eager to bargain with regimes like Sudan for energy resources that they are willing to overlook the genocide occurring in the west.
Now, you may argue that it would be better for a country to not act in its own interest and we could have a spirited discussion as to what exactly that would mean, who would get to choose what was “best for the rest of the world,” how those choices were made and who got consulted. In the end though, it’s hard for me to imagine a sustainable democracy that acts with any less regard to collective self-interest on the international stage than it does to personal self-interest domestically.
If the way of gaining more legitimacy on the world’s stage is to sacrifice our own interest, then what exactly was the point? Is it so people will like us more? No one will truly love a country that is both wealthy and powerful, no matter how much aide we give out, no matter how many millions of minds we free. If the price of sustained international approbation is to be poverty and impotence, then I am not currently interested.
Fortunately for us and the world, our system does in fact require transparency and the rule of law, not just internally but internationally. And it also seems to me that few powerful countries in history have abused their position less than has the US since the end of World War II, partly because our “interests” include free markets and free minds as a way to support free trade.
It’s quite right to hold ourselves to a higher standard, but to argue for no abuses or mistakes or to refuse to draw distinctions between error and evil is to set a precondition of human perfection for ourselves while waiving any such requirement for those with whom we interact. Not a bad goal I suppose, but neither it is a safe underlying assumption from which to make plans.
We cooperate and collaborate where we can because it is in our mutual interests. We are even cooperating with the international community on the subject of a Iranian nukes. But if at the end of the day their good offices fail and negotiations prove fruitless, there is no controlling legal authority to prevent us from acting in such a way as to protect ourselves.
26 Insight into the World of the Moonbat | The Free Citizen // Sep 3, 2007 at 1:01 pm
[...] that exposes a planned attack on Iran. Several bloggers (including Confederate Yankee and Neptunus Lex) so easily destroyed this post as false, that even Kos had to pull it. But you can get most of it [...]
27
TomB
// Sep 3, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Tom: You overreact. Maybe you just didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t like to confront the issues that filterman brought up and are using a technical argument to dismiss them. Blog comments are, well, comments. They don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t need to be narrow replies to the post. They only need to be reasonably related to it, which in this case they are.
What, in the name of God, are you talking about?
The thread that Lex started here is about a poster on Daily Kos, with a history of dubious stories, writing about his conversation with a “friend” who tells him, authoritatively, that we are about to attack Iran. In that article, there is absolutely no discussion on the pros or cons of that attack, just that it will happen. Oh, that and the entire carrier she is on is close to mutiny, so intense it the hatred for Bush. In addition, in the over 1300 responses nobody takes the opportunity to question the veracity of the report or to “explore the bigger issue” of attacking Iran.
The story was completely bogus, hundreds of the KosKiddies fell for it and no “overriding questions” were discussed.
As to your argument, you may replace the word ?¢‚Ǩ?ìleft?¢‚Ǩ¬ù above with ?¢‚Ǩ?ìright,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù ?¢‚Ǩ?ìart collectors,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù ?¢‚Ǩ?ìinvestors,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù ?¢‚Ǩ?ìbaseball fans,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù any demographic category! ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù and it will work all the time. We (humans) tend to accept more quickly false info that confirms our beliefs and are sluggish in accepting true info that refutes them. Isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t this what they call ?¢‚Ǩ?ìcognitive dissonance?¢‚Ǩ¬ù?
No, you have your terms mixed up. You are thinking of “confirmation bias”.
However, I would be willing to bet money that if I were to post a similarly flawed article on Free Republic, there would be serious questions raised within 10 posts or so, and the thread would be deleted not long after that. Guaranteed.
28
Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien
// Sep 3, 2007 at 1:29 pm
This bogus story serves a real purpose.
It scares the living daylights out of the Iranians.
As some others have pointed out, they’ve been issuing press release after press release about their great new weapons. One is a knock-off of the F5 fighters they bought in Shah days, an aircraft designed in the late 1950s. (If you see our fighter pilots, tell them this and watch their hands not shake. That is how well they control their anxiety). Another cracked me up — their “stealth plane” is an Osprey amphibian. Not the so-advanced-it-hurts tiltrotor, but a civilian-designed sport plane of similar name, which is built from plans. Of plywood.
Either this bumf is for internal propaganda, or they’re trying to give us the impression they’re bumbling bozos.
A little US sabre rattling can’t hurt. They can talk a good jihad, but they know that there is no roof on their Mohammedan paradise. They have few ports, few railroads, ONE oil refinery. Their war machine can’t survive without constant importation of a variety of things.
At D +1 their air force would be a cleanup problem on various ramps and runways, and their navy would be Purina Crab Chow.
But we don’t need to hit them with any of our big hammers. The hammers back up our ability to hit them in a way that will really hurt the terror mullahs. That is to encourage underground organization, subversion, sabotage, and all sorts of mischief — not to mention political organization.
If the US really wanted to upset the applecart, we’d sponsor a government in exile, as we (following a British lead) did for the nations under Nazi occupation in the 1940s. After all, we don’t have relations with the mullahs now — not since they kidnapped, abused and tortured the last set of diplomats that they promised to respect. If we’re going to negotiate, let’s do it with people who represent the good hearts of Iran, the people who have been so cruelly oppressed since the revolution devoured its liberal wing and imposed the current nightmare state.
I know Iranians read these pages. Think about how best to serve your country, your people, and your family. It might not be by dying for the mullahs, who are always ready to praise someone’s sacrifice — as long as it’s someone else.
29
Jim C
// Sep 3, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Emilio,
Lucky to be born in the richest country in the world? Yeah, I was lucky to be born an American. However, there were millions who came before me that made this country what it is. There were millions who came before me who used brute force to protect this country from facists like Hitler, Tojo, and Ahmadinijad, and thank God there are those willing to do the same now!
Furthermore, I challenge you to name one time in the last six years where we’ve acted as “a global thug”.
Jim C
30
AW1 Tim
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Emelio,
I thank you for your comments, but you are quite wrong, IMHO, when considering my remarks. Humans are very much predators, and I stand by everything I have saif.
What you fail to connect to is that we humans have developed “firewalls” over time to assist us in surviving. Although predatory by nature, and born competitors, we have also realised a the need for, and thus developed, societal rules of conduct to protect the species.
Ahead of all other life forms, we humans realised the need for certain safeguards to our behaviour, and these are what allowed us to rise above the rest of the animal kingdom. Call it the “breath of God” call it what you will, I am not here to argue that particular point or dogma.
Suffice to say that we developed rules for the game of life. Rules that allowed us to create civilization, to create greater and lessor nations. Rules that set the boundaries for acceptable conduct between societies.
Competition is what drives us to excell. It makes us stake out claims, defend territories and clans, cities, farms, etc. It is present in all major life forms, but in humansd, alone, it has developed into simple, yet complex forms pf understanding that define the rules of the survival game.
It might be all well and good to condier humans as basically benign, peace-lovong peoples, but that is not who we are. Our very canine teeth belie that label. Our own history as a speies gives the lie to us being anything but warlike.
We learned to define our cultires, to set boundaries to our behaviours, in order for us to survive. Nothing more, and nothing less.
When societies, such as Iran, act beyond the pale, outside of the specified societal norms, then it is incumbant upon the rest of humanity to act to force a stop to such behaviour. Our survival depends upon it. and no nuancing or parsing of the issue will make it any less important.
Respects,
31
lex
// Sep 3, 2007 at 8:17 pm
re:“I pray we have this plan, it is updated and if things don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t go as planned, they have options to deal with it and we don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t hear ?¢‚Ǩ?ìstay the course?¢‚Ǩ¬ù ever again from this administration.”
You mean like, if things don’t go as plan we adapt our strategy to the situation at hand? Like we’re doing?
“Stay the course” never meant “don’t change what we’re doing.” It meant, “don’t start wars and then decide to lose them.”
You make your plan. The enemy makes his. In between there’s friction. Plans are useless, planning is crucial. It’s a military thing.
32
bob
// Sep 3, 2007 at 11:37 pm
re:You mean like, if things don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t go as plan we adapt our strategy to the situation at hand? Like we?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re doing?
?¢‚Ǩ?ìStay the course?¢‚Ǩ¬ù never meant ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdon?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t change what we?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re doing.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù It meant, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdon?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t start wars and then decide to lose them.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù
You make your plan. The enemy makes his. In between there?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s friction. Plans are useless, planning is crucial. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s a military thing.”
Yes, we are adapting our strategy to the situation at hand, the problem is the situation at hand has been that way for three years. And we are just now getting around to adapting? That is what I meant. This strategy and change in tactics should have been started years ago. Instead, we got “stay the course”. And if we lose this one, you can point to the lack of adaptation during the early years by senior leadership in the Pentagon and White House.
33
Cosmo
// Sep 4, 2007 at 7:58 am
First time reading your blog–connected via Jawa.
Excellent read–well constructed and to point: completely destroys any credibility that the Kosby Kids allege to possess.
As for the “I can’t seem to find that story”…cockroaches scatter once the light comes on. Keep up the great work!
34
lex
// Sep 4, 2007 at 8:06 am
There really are very few spectacles so easy to pull off, so personally rewarding and so generally unedifying than that of an amateur criticizing those in the arena in the clarifying light of hindsight.
The enemy and the nature of battle have adapted continuously. They continue to adapt. We continue to adapt with them. After the conventional fighting ended a general state of insecurity required coalition presence on street corners. That presence was resented in places like Najaf and Fallujah generating a hydra-like organized resistance which had to be methodically smashed with large, armored formations and conventional assaults.
After that the insurgency went to ground, hiding in plain sight, intermingling with a disaffected, suspicious populace whose good will would have to be earned over time. Mounting personnel losses and public criticism fueled by a news media wedded to the “another grim milestone” brand of reportage caused coalition commanders to build cantonments from which to execute targeted, intel-driven raids.
These tactics enabled the drafting of a constitution and one of only two popular elections in the Arab world in 2006, with a participation rate higher than that of the US 2004 presidential election. This allowed the coalition to seize the moral high ground, but risk-averse tactics did not secure neighborhoods and al Qaeda shifted the debate by succeeding in their goal of fueling sectarian tensions by the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.
The initial attempt to stabilize Baghdad through an “oil spot” concentration of troops failed due to lack of numbers. The surge was initiated. And here we are.
“Stay the course” always meant maintaining the political will to persevere long enough to finish the arduous task of nation building. I’m not a big fan of it myself - it’s hard, it takes time and there are people back home conditioned by 30-minute sitcoms and MTV attention spans who stolidly fail to understand the fact that the enemy gets a vote.
35
TomB
// Sep 4, 2007 at 3:05 pm
So, at the end of the day, whose interest has been served? Qui bono?
Er, paranoid conspiracy theorists?
36
Alex
// Sep 4, 2007 at 6:11 pm
I served on a birdfarm (Big-E) back in the 80’s. Even this old ‘blackshoe’ could see the holes big enough to drive a whole Air Wing through.
Bravo Zulu!
37
Emilio Lopez
// Sep 5, 2007 at 5:25 am
Lex:
> Every country acts in its national
> interest.
Indeed. And I am for a firm defense of our *national* interest. But how exactly do we define our *national interest*? Unlike a market, where your power depends on the thickness of your wallet, the principle of a political system that claims to be democratic is supposed to be equality under the law. In the political process that defines our national interest, everybody should count.
However, if we judge the quality of our foreign policy on the basis not of special interests — big oil, large military contractors, etc. — but of the nation as a whole, including the less privileged majority of Americans, then our current foreign policy is a fiasco.
Regardless of how they got there, whether it was luck or effort (as I said, much depends on our ability to choose our parents, i.e. on luck), a lot of poor, working, and even middle-class people in the country are alienated from the government that, supposedly, represents them. How do we know? Well, less than half of the people who could in principle vote, don’t. They are either unregistered or registered but abstain.
Aside from electoral trickery that disenfranchises some, these people’s alienation from the political process is not unrelated (is chicken-and-egg cause and consequence) of the *fact* that our government’s priorities do not reflect our priorities as a diverse people. Katrina, our sucky health care system, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the taxcuts for the very rich, etc. exemplify what the interests and needs of poor and middle-class working people really mean to our government. The gov’t’s priorities are tied to special interests, to stingy, narrowly selfish, not very enlightened, big money.
From the point of view of our true national interest, our entire current foreign policy, the doctrine of unilateralism and preemptive strikes against our enemies (real or not), the use of our military and treasury to invade and occupy Iraq, all these things are disastrous.
Thanks to modern technology, lower com/transp costs, growing trade, migration, etc., the world is becoming smaller, more interdependent. Peace and stability (based on fairness, legitimate in the eyes of the global populace) are increasingly necessary. How can a global functional economy work without them.
Our current foreign policy seriously endangers our future as a coherent, respected nation, living in a workable peace with the world at large. That’s why, although international cooperation is viewed as naive by the Hobbesians, our current approach is what’s really naive.
> If the way of gaining more legitimacy on
> the world?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s stage is to sacrifice our
> own interest, then what exactly was the
> point?
Not sacrifice, but *subordinate* the special interests currently dominant of our foreign policy to our general national interest. Something that any self-respecting nation needs to do internally, through its own political process.
But even if our national interest subordinates the special interests, it will still be different from the interest of France, Iran, Brazil, etc. Yes, but different doesn’t necessarily mean mutually exclusive. And we still can decide *how* to deal with conflict of interests should they arise.
> Fortunately for us and the world, our
> system does in fact require
> transparency and the rule of law, not
> just internally but internationally.
We’ll see how robust this is. Under Bush, there’s have been a lot of power grabbing, secrecy in matters that need to be publicly discussed, and sheer lying and manipulation on important matters. We’ll see whether the damage can be easily mended. We may need more invasive constitutional surgery.
> And it also seems to me that few
> powerful countries in history have
> abused their position less than has
> the US since the end of World War II,
> partly because our ?¢‚Ǩ?ìinterests?¢‚Ǩ¬ù include
> free markets and free minds as a way
> to support free trade.
I’m not impressed by this “free trade” stuff.
In principle, free trade is a form of cooperation with reciprocity enforced via prices. Good synergy.
But, as the economists note, even if two nations gain from voluntarily trading (as opposed to not), the issue of how the gains from trade are distributed within each nation is another matter. That’s why not everybody is as enthusiastic about free trade. NAFTA? What’s in it for U.S. workers? What’s in it for Mexican peasants? Etc.
This leads me to another point: I don’t think free trade agreements *as they are* are the embodiment of the Smithian doctrine of free trade. There’s so much “friction” between the pure doctrine and the practical result than they have only the name “free trade” in common. They suck for both the U.S. and its trade partners. Why? Because of the disproportionate weight of special interests (drug makers, technology companies, big farming interests, and the small economic elites that rule the partner countries, cronies). They determine the agenda. In the U.S. at least, such is the weight of big money in U.S. politics, which — as judge Scalia once implied — is as “natural” as water running down.
Even without special interests hijacking these agreements, the outcome of free markets (like the outcome of political democracies or any other institutional mechanism through which people may negotiate their mutual interests) depends on the premises. If two *fairly equal* (in power terms) partners trade voluntarily, chances are they will both benefit at the other end. However, if there’s too much asymmetry between the partners to start with, then free markets (or democracy, etc.) will only cover with Smithian ideology the abuse of the weak by the powerful. Economists say that asymmetry in information (one party in trade knowing what the other party doesn’t) unravels a market or turns into a caricature. That’s true, but ultimately largely unequal information boils down to largely unequal power.
This is why it will be so complicated for the U.S. to navigate the coming decades. Aside from Iran. That’s why we need to be effective global leaders.
Kevin R.C. ‘Hognose’ O’Brien:
> It scares the living daylights out of the Iranians.
Oh boy, here we go again. Have we learned anything?
Imagine a country five times as big as ours in territory and population, with immensely much more military power. Let’s call it Kanada.
Now suppose Kanada decides that our democracy is a farse. They allege it’s their patriotic duty to teach democracy to the Americans. They can marshall a few facts to make their case. Most U.S. citizens don’t vote; their vote is filtered through an anti-democratic electoral college that effectively cancels the principle of one-person, one-vote; one person in a rural, less populated (often conservative) state has more clout than one person in a large city (often less conservative), etc. On top of that, on a recent presidential election, our Supremes — as opposed to the actual votes of the citizens — designated that Gorge W Putsch from the Conservative party would be our president.
Suppose also that, since we don’t trust the Kanadians (they are demographically different, recently invaded and are occupying our neighbor Mexiko, plus we think like them in Hobbesian terms), Putsch decides to develop nuclear capabilities (suppose we don’t have them yet). But then Kanada uses the power of its global media to claim that we are becoming a threat to their security. They bribe, twist arms, etc. and align the UN Security Council against us. In that scenario, what will be the reaction of any self-respected American, *even of those who didn’t support Putsch and consider him a tragedy?
I, for once, will say: “F***k the Kanadians! The problems of our democracy are for Americans to fix. Our problem with Putsch is ours, not of the Kanadians. We don’t need no freaking Kanadians to teach us democracy and treat us like kids. Their system of government is not perfect either. If our political institutions fail or function, we decide whether to tolerate them, fix them, or overthrow them and build others from scratch.”
Now, if the Kanadians make noises threatening us, will we be scared? I guess. We’re human. But for the most part, we’ll be incensed, angry, and bent to fight them with whatever we have. We will circle the wagons and fight the Kanadians until the very end. Most people will reason that we need to postpone our internal disagreements to deal with the Kanadians first (although some sectarian idiots will undercut our efforts). We’ll deal with our disagreements after the Kanadians leave us alone. The priority will be to drive the Kanadians out. The Kanadians, with much better hardware, may bomb us and destroy much of our infrastructure. They may even occupy us temporarily. And they will use that as propaganda in Kanada to tell their people that their “surge” is working, blah, blah. We will recoil for a while, but they will never *ever* defeat us. As a nation, we will grow by fighting the Kanadians. Long live the United States of America! Down with Kanada!
And for the person who wrote that the U.S. should be readying an Iranian government in exile, consider in the hypothetical scenario above a group of Americans (lead by the despicable libirals Juan Kirry, Alex Gure, and Hiffary Clifton). Suppose these people don’t have the patriotism (and/or the guts) to deal with Putsch through our own political process, to persuade us American citizens to fix our problems domestically. Instead, they go out, lobby, and persuade the Kanadians to help them (a la Chalabi) overthrow Putsch and bomb us. What will we think of them? Disloyal m-f-rs! Traitors!
38 Cold Fury » Testing… // Sep 5, 2007 at 7:14 am
[...] or Dad’s favorite chair — to see that the DKos crowd is still the same passel of mouthbreathing, gullible liars they always were - and that ConYank is still on the too-easy job of publicly humiliating them when [...]
39
lex
// Sep 5, 2007 at 8:55 am
Emilio,
I should probably open a separate thread or even a private correspondence with you, so far have we drifted from the original topic and so fundamental our differences. This will take time, and effort, and at the end we’ll understand one another somewhat better, but - I suspect - agree no more or less than when we started. This is nothing less than the side by side comparison of cognitive lenses, in which two people of different philosophical persuasions look at the same thing and perceive different realities. But what the hell.
Since “special interest” is a word that people use to describe politically active groups they disagree with - you hoist out “big oil” and the military industrial complex, but you might as well have added big pharma and Halliburton, I would reply with government employee unions, NOW, NARAL, the NEA, the ADA, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, the Trial Bar lobby, and all of those other Pauls who don’t mind rummaging around in Peter’s pocket, etc. - perhaps it would be better to say that our democracy reflects a tension between the self-organizing groups of politically active people with the apathetic on the sidelines.
Since there are no structural barriers to the apathetic registering and voting, and since a great deal of effort is spent by various people fruitlessly attempting to whip those same people to the polls by strenuously appealing to their naked self-interest, your complaint about our democracy being somehow less legitimate than it ought to be rings hollow to me, all the more so since I cannot readily envision a replacement system that does not have even more flaws than does our own, and yes - that includes proportional representation, if you’re curious.
Thus having (in my own mind at least) removed the foundation stone from your position, the rest of your argument on the “suckiness” of our system I decline to refute in detail - I hope you understand. I will state that your desire to “subordinate” the current special interests reads as a desire to elevate those special interests more congenial to your own preferences. For that, we use the ballot box.
re: From the point of view of our true national interest, our entire current foreign policy, the doctrine of unilateralism and preemptive strikes against our enemies (real or not), the use of our military and treasury to invade and occupy Iraq, all these things are disastrous.
That is an expression of faith, and you are welcome to it. Just please remember that history would not have frozen on 22 March 2003 had not we invaded Iraq and deposed a murderous tyrant who had pursued WMD in the past (liberating 25 million minds along the way) had in fact used them against his own people as well as his enemies, and who had declined to sufficiently explain what he had done with those programs as it was his affirmative requirement to have done based on the 1991 cease fire agreements and UN sanctions. Well-intentioned sanctions, which I helped enforce but which resulted in immoral consequences including the deaths of up to 300,000 Iraqis, many of them children while not preventing Saddam from playing his nasty little games, nor building stately pleasure domes for a despicable regime and which were on the very brink of collapsing in any case.
Since you mention France, is it not curious that the biggest political casualties in France and Germany have been those who opposed our intervention in Iraq, while their replacement heads of government are remarkably more amenable to American foreign policy (and its current president) than were there obstreperous predecessors? Inconvenient facts, I know - but worth pondering on.
re:” Under Bush, there?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s have been a lot of power grabbing, secrecy in matters that need to be publicly discussed, and sheer lying and manipulation on important matters.
Argument by assertion. There is always a tension between the various co-equal branches of government, and since Vietnam and Watergate the legislature’s star has been in ascendance. In wartime though it is natural for the executive to assert primacy in those areas provided to him by the constitution. “Secrecy” is used by partisans of one sort or another to talk about the process by which the political sausage is made (remember Hillarycare?) rather than the merits of the sausage itself and “lying and manipulation” are bumper sticker words that have no meaning apart from their use to help provide cover for politicians who voted for military action and then sought to protect themselves from the consequences of their votes.
I don’t have room to try to impress the benefits of free trade upon you if you continue to remain unimpressed. I only ask you to Google up Smoot-Hawley for the counter-argument or take some undergrad-level economic courses. A non-Marxist would make a be good professor, if you can find one in the academy (they are, these days, found almost nowhere else).
We could easily craft free trade agreements that would provide assistance to the Mexican peasant, and if the Mexican peasants ever organize in sufficient numbers to control the levers of their own democracy, I’m sure we shall. In the meantime, your presumption seems to be that we should organize our trade along the lines of succoring the disenfranchised - noble in theory, but in practicality it’s better to negotiate in national interest and let the general economic benefits accrue to everyone through a market-driven process, the distribution of those benefits regulated by the social policies of the affected democracy.
So much for unequal relationships.
Look, if you seek to impose your preferences, or those of a like minded cohort on the market, you would not be the first to do so - almost inevitably to the detriment of everyone concerned. Funny thing, but the beneficial effects of the aggregated preferences of all 300 million of us easily trump the choices of the 10, 100 or 1000 elite minds that you could empower in an economic star chamber. Markets are not perfect, and we do have bubbles. But they almost correct and they are usually far superior to the bureaucratic management of government’s dead hand.
In your Kanada example you manage to trot out worn tropes on our constitutionally-enshrined electoral college - not to mention the 2000 election in Florida, will you people never get tired of stroking your little pet grievances? - while also managing the non-trivial feat of making a moral equivalence between the worlds oldest functioning democracy and the Ba’athist tyranny in Iraq. It’s beneath my contempt and I won’t spend a moment further thinking on it.
Honestly, Emilio - you seem so very unhappy with the system here, and barring a huge social catastrophe it’s very unlikely that even the most liberal representatives of the party that most closely reflects your concerns would ever change the country in a way that comports to your preferences.
Are you sure you wouldn’t be happier somewhere else?
40
Lyle B.
// Sep 5, 2007 at 10:36 am
You guys (fighter pilots, etc) are very good at what you do. You should understand that other people are good at their jobs, too. There are other ways to fight besides straight ahead combat.
Mossad’s slogan is “By means of deception, thou shalt wage war.” They are as well trained to do that as you are to fly a plane. They spend years getting everything in place, planting a mole, and then fire a deadly shot. And they are always looking more than one move ahead.
You may be right about this particular case. Yes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and this may be one of those times. It is possible that Maccabee is who he presents himself to be, and he just made up a story and thought he could get away with it. But there are other possibilities, and yes, conspiracies do exist. That’s why the US is fighting Israel’s war in the first place, as you would discover if you applied your debunking skills to other problems.
Capt. Russ Wittenberg, himself a pilot, says regarding Flight 77, which allegedly hit the Pentagon: “The airplane could not have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into what they call a high speed stall. The airplane won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t go that fast if you start pulling those high G maneuvers at those bank angles. ?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ To expect this alleged airplane to run these maneuvers with a total amateur at the controls is simply ludicrous…”
http://patriotsquestion911.com/#Wittenberg
41
Lyle B.
// Sep 5, 2007 at 11:35 am
You and everyone in the armed forces would be well advised to remember that in a war crimes trial, “I was just following orders” is not a valid defense.
42
Lyle B.
// Sep 5, 2007 at 11:38 am
“Ah, a truther. That explains a lot, thanks.”
Is that what you would say to Capt. Wittenberg if you were talking to him face to face?
43
lex
// Sep 5, 2007 at 11:42 am
You mean that whole thing about not being required to obey illegal orders that they taught us on the first day?
Thanks for the refresher.
You know, I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for intellectual heterodoxy, and I don’t even mind hosting the occasional conspiracy theorist who see the JOOOOS behind every door just for the entertainment value that’s in it. But I don’t much like threats, even the veiled type and I bore easily. You, my friend, are boring me.
You only get one warning. That was it.
44
unkawill
// Sep 5, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Masterful takedown on Emilio, Cap’n, with that Billion put on the S&P, I think He might want to get out of town!
45
Steeljaw Scribe
// Sep 5, 2007 at 1:42 pm
“Former political-affairs officer”
Yep, there’s someone who is qualified to investigate a crash site…but one would sooner make progress arguing with paint on a wall I suppose.
-SJS
Proverbs 1:22
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