DragonFlight

As MLK once said, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Unfortunately, that is an apt description for those who continue to blindly swallow and parrot neo-con “talking points” without any effort to verify what is said.

If Hannity says it, it must be true because he “tells both sides of the story.” Or at least that’s what Hannity says he does, and if he says it, it must be true. Right? Notice the circular thinking in that? The proof of the statement is the statement itself. No critical thinking needed (or wanted) by those who promote these ideas.

It is a sad commentary on our education system that teaching our children to think is not part of the curriculum. That omission continues to feed into a large segment of the adult population that is susceptible to the manipulation of the fresh faced, well dressed, political manipulators.

With their scrubbed and sincere looks, these operators peddle Christian values, patriotism, and national security as the privately owned attributes of themselves and those who agree with them. They claim superiority in the areas of fiscal management, foreign policy, and small government; claims which at one time might have been valid but have been disproved by performance for many years if anyone would bother to look at their record.

In response to those who disagree with them, the manipulators indulge in a campaign of name calling, denigration, twisted spin and outright lies. But what they do not do, is argue on the facts. It would be a problem to argue the facts because so much of what they say is not backed up by fact. Or if there are some facts mixed in, they have been so twisted they no longer relate to the story being told.

Why then, are there so many seemingly intelligent people who just accept what these manipulators say without bothering to find out if it is the truth? Are they too lazy to bother? Or do they just not understand the concept of thinking things through, weighing the evidence, and coming to a reasonable conclusion based on the facts? People who continue to filter everything they hear through a blanket of preconceived notions, do not think, rather they chose to remain willfully ignorant.

Republicans are better qualified to start wars.

Leading? What's that?

"Seemingly intelligent people.." "weighing the evidence.." "...coming to a reasonable conclusion." I love it, Stephen. "Willyfully ignorant." Yep, that's got to be the ticket.

When I saw "Crapola" in the blog title, I though maybe you were going to talk about a new Francis Ford Crapola movie.

I will not argue for a political party having an implicit advantage in prosecuting war, rather this is a display of individual character. Certainly Wilson and Roosevelt had what it took to see things through to victory. The dynamic duo of Kennedy and Johnson on the other hand left Nixon with a bag of crapola to dispose of. Bush would appear to have the will while leading a country that does not.

I don’t believe the United States military will remain in Iraq as long as we have in Germany and Japan and rightly so. I do believe you are misrepresenting the intention of the government of Iraq when you state that they demand a timetable for removal of troops. The desire is for a draw-down with a continuing US presence of advisors and special ops for trouble spots. Splitting hairs I guess but true.

The war in Iraq ended long ago. What is left is martial law. This will soon be a thing of the past. Iraq is now courting tourists….enough said.

As for strong words and heavy military spending…..see the Reagan Doctrine……seems to have won the cold war. I am old enough to remember when Russia was our enemy and nuclear war was a cruel possibility, how soon we forget.

You are right on the War Czar, the idea suggest incompetence; that is what generals are for.

I will never suggest that any American life lost is trivial but statistics don’t lie. More US soldiers had died under the Clinton administration than under Bush. Sadly, thousands of young men and woman die annually in the military due to illness, accidents, murder, suicide, and currently combat. These statistics are presented to congress in a document titled American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics. It is a heartbreaking document.

Trish is funny! Republicans started WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam? Oops, I forgot those were all noble causes with no domestic dissent. I might allow a little time to pass before judging this was to harshly…

David, my main point and reason for even writing this blog was because sadly, the Republicans DO argue they are a “political party having an implicit advantage in prosecuting war,” and seem to GET AWAY WITH IT among all too many people who prefer being partisan over being correct. We are presently being beat over the head with it, and continually bombarded with the idea that “Republicans will keep us safe,” over and over. My surprise, and why I’ve taken exception to this idea, is that it has no basis in fact.

John McCain, the present Republican candidate, has jumped on this bandwagon with all the enthusiasm of a boy with his hand in the cookie jar (oval office). Every other word out of McCain’s mouth is “my service this and that, and the surge worked, the surge worked.” It is highly questionable as to the ultimate success of that surge; the original purpose of which was to give the Iraqi government time to get its act together. Thus far, that government is still pretty much a mess, but it does seem to be agreeing lately that it wants the Americans out, and a timetable set for doing so. As for John McCain’s “service,” being a POW for five years did not make him a military genius or somehow imbue him with the experience to be a president. Lest we forget, except for the decision to invade Iraq, something McCain agrees with, there would have been no need for a surge, or hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq!

Sure Reagan spent a LOT of money on defense, and the Soviet Union finally spent themselves into oblivion. Although this worked to our advantage, I’m not quite sure as a strategy (if it indeed even was one) that it was totally sound. It could have just as well literally blown up in our faces. The world, because of all that spending and the proliferation of nuclear arms was on the brink of destruction. It was a dubious policy and possibly the kind of thing on Einstein’s (smarter than most all politicians) mind when he had said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created the problems...You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."

And, Reagan was also the guy that got us out of Beirut very quickly after 241 or so US military personnel were killed in an attack on the Marine compound there. I recall at that time Reagan was accused of "cutting and running" just as Democrats would later be accused of the same for even suggesting we leave Iraq during this present fiasco. And Nixon kept bombing Vietnam and negotiating for peace, while LBJ merely stopped bombing while negotiating for peace. Because of Nixon, thousands more died to end the war no differently than it might have without all the accelerated violence.

I would agree with you, that the ability to wage war successfully is more “a display of individual character.” It is the GOP that has made it a party, rather than individual issue.

Some have speculated that the "Bush administration" is looking for some event to impose the Patriot Act in it's full force. Do you think that the Russian invasion of Georgia is that event they're looking for?

President Bill Clinton seized on every possible excuse--from the first World Trade Center bombing (1993), right through the atrocities in Kenya and Tanzania, to the attack on the USS Cole--not to respond meaningfully to Osama bin Laden. So who is better qualified to protect the US?

Publius2, Clinton was looking for Bin Laden, and did send cruise missiles into Iraq. Bush appeared to show no interest in Bin Laden whatsoever, according to the testimony of Richard Clarke, anti-terror adviser under both Clinton and Bush, before 9/11 and pretty much afterwards. Bush went through the motions, attacking Afghanistan, and then purposely took his eye off the ball, allowing Bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora so that he could recklessly and irresponsibly invade a nation (which the neocons had for a long time been drooling over to invade) that had no connection to 9/11 or Bin Laden, and was of no imminent threat to the United States, even though that is how it was sold to the American public. For that alone, Bush should have been impeached!

Obviously the attack on the World Trade Center took the game to a whole new level, one that no president could ignore, even George Bush, and which required action on a whole new scale. What a pity that ultimately that action was quickly turned in the wrong direction, one that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, alienated the US from most of the rest of the world, and ended up in seriously damaging our economy and military, while increasing our debt to foreign nations to the highest in our history, all the while stirring up the Middle East against us in a new way, and creating even more terrorists and the justification to be such.

If this is what you call protecting the US, I’m not sure what to tell you. I know you are a smart person, and I’d expect more logical thinking from you.