Remember when John McCain rattled his saber after Georgia attacked Russian-controlled turf in 2008? Aren't you sad he didn't get elected and thus we haven't even come close to getting into a war with Russia?
Well, he's back, pounding the war drums as usual. The AP reports:
Well, he's back, pounding the war drums as usual. The AP reports:
BENGHAZI, Libya – U.S. Sen. John McCain called for increased military support for Libya's rebels Friday, including weapons, training and stepped-up airstrikes, in a full-throated endorsement of the opposition in its fight to oust Moammar Gadhafi. ...
At a news conference in the rebels' stronghold of Benghazi ini eastern Libya, McCain said he did not believe that the United States should send in ground troops, but it should be much more involved in the air campaign and "facilitate" the arming and training of the rebels — much as it armed the mujahedeen who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Upside of Afghanistan: Fall of the Soviet Empire. Downside of Afghanistan: 9/11.
But what's the upside of Libya? Fall of the Libyan Empire?
"We need to urgently step up the NATO air campaign to protect Libyan civilians, especially in Misrata," he said. "We desperately need more close air support and strike assets."
McCain applauded the Obama administration's decision to use the drones "so we can better identify Gadhafi's forces as they seek to conceal themselves in civilian areas."
McCain urged the use of combat aircraft more suited for engaging targets in urban areas, such as A-10 Thunderbolts, which are anti-tank planes, and AC-130 gunships, outfitted with heavy weaponry, including cannons, rockets and machine guns.
Death from Above! The only thing that could be more awesome would be to equip the AC-130 gunships with big-ass loudspeakers playing "Highway to Hell" while they turn some Libyan oil refinery into a giant fireball.
... All nations should recognize the opposition's Transitional National Council as the legitimate voice of the Libyan people, McCain said, and provide it with "every appropriate means of assistance," including "command and control support, battlefield intelligence, training and weapons."
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the administration disagreed with McCain's call for recognition of the rebels' political leadership. "We think it's for the people of Libya to decide who the head of their country is, not for the United States to do that," Carney said aboard Air Force One as President Barack Obama returned to Washington from California. ...
Some in the West have raised the possibility that Islamic militants may be among the rebels, but McCain said he did not see any evidence of that.
"I have met these brave fighters and they are not al-Qaida," he said. "To the contrary, they are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation.
"They are my heroes," he said.
Some of these heroic rebels have hit speeds upwards of 100 mph while fleeing Gaddafi's crack mercenaries from Burkina Faso. You gotta be brave to drive that fast on those roads.
However, McCain cautioned that the situation could change if there is a deadlock on the battlefield. "I do worry that if there is a stalemate here, that it could open the door to radical Islamic fundamentalism because of the frustration that thousands and thousands of young people would feel as they are deprived from participating in democracy in the united Libya."
Well, that's reassuring.
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89 comments:
Wow. It's quite a measure of how hapless the Republicans are that they can't even rise in opposition to the most blatantly stupid thing this administration has done.
Another really dumb thing is the continuing coddling of the banking industry - which they can't oppose, either (except insomuch as Obama fails to coddle them enough.
This was the fundamental reason I reluctantly tilted towards Obama during the last election.
I thought McCain was mentally unbalanced and possibly brain-damaged. I honestly feared it would get us into a war with Russia. He seemed shockingly ignorant of critical foreign policy issues, and utterly in thrall to neoconservative fantasists.
__ said...
"Death from Above! The only thing that could be more awesome would be to equip the AC-130 gunships with big-ass loudspeakers playing "Highway to Hell" while they turn some Libyan oil refinery into a giant fireball."
Wow. Great writing, like P.J. O'Rourke at his best. You've been on a roll lately. Tipjar rattles.
This is the reason I might have voted for The International Man of Mystery, had I been American. I though McCain a lousy candidate - not quite as bad as John Kerry, but close.
Translation: “Look, compared with all the boring suits, $100 haircuts, pompously over-credentialed legislative assistants and hot but untouchable young receptionists I see every day in the Senate, these Libyan rebels are great guys, and I am having fun for the first time in decades.”
McCain is always the same: invade the world, invite the world, in hock to the world. At least he doesn't disappoint me in one sense: I threw my vote to Chuck Baldwin and I still don't regret it.
One thing for sure. It should be the McCain Way or the highway. Obama's approach of neither-here-nor-there gets no one nowhere, which is maybe what Obama wants. Maybe there is a political advantage to being a nowhere man: everyone can interpret what he's doing his own way. But, it's all politics and no principles. McCain, wrong though he may be, at least has a clear idea of what should be done. (On the other hand, he had no idea in 2008. He acts so tough on foreign policy even though--or maybe precisely because--he's such a wimp on the domestic front. It's like someone who's a coward with fellow humans but loves to kill lots of animals on hunts.)
When the dust settles, the narrative in Libya will be that these rebels were nothing more than Western backed pawns.
LOL! Now that's classic Sailer. Great post.
The US sure has a way of turning minor conflicts into expensive enterprises. I guess its a feature of having so much hardware and (printed) money. Regional powers like France have been fighting colonial and neo-colonial wars on a shoestring for decades, if not centuries. This was Frances war and they would have dealt with it the most economic way to achieve their result. The US should have stayed home and minded their pacific and Mexican borders, as Ron Paul says.
Upside of Afghanistan: Fall of the Soviet Empire. Downside of Afghanistan: 9/11.
You are wrong here, Steve. American intervention in Afghanistan did not cause "9/11." American intervention in Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq caused "9/11."
Blaming Afghanistan for "9/11" is like blaming a sense of injustice, or food, or oxygen.
I voted third-party, and now I wish I had voted for McCain. He is terrible, and possibly unhinged, but if he had won, the bureaucracy would have kept him in line. Presidents hold very little real power (they're rather like Popes in that regard), they rule by getting the bureaucrats on their side and keeping them there.
That crowd would've hemmed McCain in from Day 1, but they're lapping up everything Obama dishes out to them, because he's one of them: an Ivy-leagued, CIA-linked, multi-culturalist.
The problem with the Republican Party is that McCain is still its leader. Respected, deferred to.
In other words, the main problem (from the standpoint of the would-be GOP voter) is that the GOP goes by seniority. Not political viability (popularity, not to put too fine a point on). Not principle. Not good ideas.
Whoever has been around the longest is DA MAN, according to Republicans.
Such a mindset is common among, well, older people, and they have it in regard to almost everything. Crazy but old = better than rational but newer. An 85 year old idiot is better than a 83 year old statesman, every time.
Air conditioning, cell phones, bottled water, Mitt Romney, Apple computers, Japanese cars - all make old people mutter uneasily.
If McCain were to run next year, a gigantic number of Republicans would vote for him. Guaranteed.
McCain reminds me of Ross Perot. I couldn't vote for Perot because he had invaded two foreign powers as a private citizen.
Now we have the "refreshing" Donald Trump calling for expropriation of Iraqi oil fields.Expropriating Middle Eastern oil fields makes some sense but we spent lots of money and lots of lives forging a nascent democracy in Iraq. They are our ally. Trump wants to punish our allies. Could it be that he has mixed up Iraq and Iran?
All this agitation about Libya seems misguided. We are not backing a full regime change. We don't expect them to hold "free, fair, and open" elections any time soon. All we want is Mommar Qaddafi dead.
In the movies James Bond and Jason Bourne are employed in just this role. Assassination of the toxic leader is also a tactic advocated by Tom Clancy. In the real world there doesn't seem to be much doubt that the KGB assassinates foreign nationals often in bizarre ways that 'Q' would endorse.
If our one true goal is assassination of Qaddafi. Let's do it, preferably by one man alone with no collateral damage to civilians. I know that this is not easy, but don't we pay enough money to the CIA and the military now?
We don't need any entangling alliance with these mysterious rebels. You would think that the lesson of Obama's rise would argue for caution. McCain wants us to accept a group who like Obama is largely unknown.
America has its own cassus belli. Qaddafi killed our people. We bombed him before, lets do something like that again - on the ground or from the air.
Get Qaddafi and get out.
Albertosaurus
Sounds to me like McCain just thinks bombing is cool. Apparently the Vietnamese failed to cure him of this.
If McCain was paid by Obama to make Obama look good, what would MCain do different?
McCain hired election managers who warned him they'd quit if it came down to McCain versus Obama. This after Obama had given the 2004 Democratic Convention speech, the one that said, 'Kerry's anointed this time, but get used to my face 'cause I'm the man in 2008'.
Good point about seniority. The Republican geriarchy won't get together on anything but tax cuts.
The Republicans = Democrats 5 years ago, tax cuts for billionaires, plus war. Since conservatism has completely caved on the cultural (read racial) front, they're basically hollow, they've been reduced to nothing but shameless whoring for multi-millionaires, hardly bothering to pretend they're not in it solely for the money. They've got nothing domestically, they NEED war to squeeze the last drops of support out of their deluded white supporters before the inevitable collapse. It's as cynical as that - they understand the coming train wreck, they understand that these constant wars are bankrupting us, that eternal wars for electoral victory is a loser in the not-so-long-run, that is must end in a fiasco for economic reasons alone, but they must have SOMETHING to squeeze the last drops out of the lemon before it's reduced to nothing more than a rind. Somebody's going to get that money, eh, it might as well be them. In some ways you really have to admire their sheer gall, they're like the consummate con man who after being caught cleaning out his victims bank account somehow manages to bamboozle the fare for the cab ride home out of the hapless dope.
All this agitation about Libya seems misguided. We are not backing a full regime change. We don't expect them to hold "free, fair, and open" elections any time soon. All we want is Mommar Qaddafi dead.
That's not a very intelligent thing for us to want. If we know that his probable successor is going t be a lot better, then we might want Qaddafi dead. But for us to do a 180 and suddenly decide that we want him dead, regardless of who comes after him, right after we previously decided that he's the man we should work with, makes us look stupid and feckless.
Of course that's exactly what we are, but could we refrain from broadcasting the fact to the rest of the world at every opportunity?
America has its own cassus belli. Qaddafi killed our people.
And the British burned Washington.
Didn't you vote for Juan McCain, Steve?
"The problem with the Republican Party is that McCain is still its leader."
Which is another way of saying that the problem with the Republican Party is that it's really the Democratic Party Lite.
"In the movies James Bond and Jason Bourne are employed in just this role. Assassination of the toxic leader is also a tactic advocated by Tom Clancy.
If our one true goal is assassination of Qaddafi. Let's do it,"
---- The front door of Quaddafi's Presidential Palace ----
Royal Guard - "Who are you?"
CIA Agent - "I'm the new, um Janitor here to clean Mohamar's bedroom, but I can only do it while he's here"
Royal Guard - "They have sent a 30-year old, strapping blond American who speaks fluent Arabic to clean the Khalifate's bedroom?"
CIA - "Uh, yeah, uh, Maria had the day off."
Royal Guard - "What is that bulge in your belt?"
CIA - "Oh, that's a bottle of...uh...409, make the place spic-and-span; new American janitorial technique, you know how much Mo loves his cleanliness!"
Royal Guard - "Are those rapeling ropes, plastic explosives, and an ultralight aircraft over your shoulder?"
CIA - "Uh, no that's my vacum cleaner."
Royal Guard - "But of course- Ahmed, escort this fine young Janitor up to the Presidential bedroom, and have him stop by the Harem first to see if there is any one he likes!"
The operative work in what you wrote, Al, being "In the movies."
If Republicans keep selecting morons people are going to start getting suspicious.
St. James’s Palace also confirmed for the first time that Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa will be attending, despite British concerns about the treatment of activists there.
Bahrain’s royal family ordered a wide-ranging brutal crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators that started in mid-February. At least 30 people have died, including four in custody, and many well-known activists and lawyers have been imprisoned.
It's shameful, Gheddafi bombing and the tormentor of Bahrain at the wedding...english ipocrisy.
"Sounds to me like McCain just thinks bombing is cool. Apparently the Vietnamese failed to cure him of this."
Classy.
"Whoever has been around the longest is DA MAN, according to Republicans."
Haha, David nailed it. I saw that on a local level for sure: the oldest members were the most perplexed that the younger GOPers did not fall in like behind McCain and pleaded for UNITY. They go entirely on name recognition and party cred, with no regard to character or content.
Libya presents a once-in-a-century opportunity for conquest - oil, Mediterranean weather & beachfront, and not-too-shabby-looking women.
Any corporate takers?
McCain breathlessly anxious to pull Obama's chestnuts out of the fire. The Republican who can only get it up by sabotaging Republicans.
The only thing I need to know about Comrade McCain is that Ho Chi-Minh erected a monument to him.
Everything else follows from that.
At least McCain wants to win. Obama wants to lose. Think how much gas goes up when Iran realizes they can do as they please in the Gulf.
Albertosaurus killing Khadaffi is nearly impossible. He's not say JFK adhering to a tight schedule in an open society. He's a dictator surrounded by a praetorian guard utterly dependent on him. Like Saddam. There are limits to Ninjas and assassins. The Islamic ones failed against the Mongols.
If Obama had said nothing at all about Libya, I would have been disappointed (an easy win early for US power and influence in an oil producing country squandered) but not much. Letting Khadaffi and the Muslim Brotherhood/AQ kill each other has a certain appeal. [Then just annihilate the victor if needed.]
But now, America needs a win, desperately, and Obama is determined to lose (as Mark Steyn suggests). A win keeps American power demonstrated in Tehran, deterring costly moves by the Iranians to exert power designed to jack up oil prices further.
This is the main goal, preserving US deterrent forces which are not well regarded by Iran. Secondly, preventing Libya from being AQ HQ #2 after Pakistan. This is a secondary goal, important, but not critical. Not nothing either. Thirdly preventing mass refugees "flipping" France particularly with nuclear weapons instantly to Muslim controlled nations. France is fragile and will collapse into Islamic Jihad WITH NUKES if 10 million Muslims flood in there. France would collapse faster than they did in May 1940.
"The problem with the Republican Party is that McCain is still its leader. Respected, deferred to."
Not really. McCain won almost by default in 2008 because he was seen as a 'maverick'. After 8 yrs of Bush's 'party politics', many conservatives thought McCain, who didn't seem so blindly ideological, was the right man for the nation. After all, for 6 yrs under Bush, GOP had both the presidency and Congress but messed it all up. Of course, one could argue that Bush and GOP Congress were not really conservative-conservative, but it was true enough that they got to do much of what they wanted.. and they were not good for the country. Since Bush and the GOP came to seen as 'politics-as-usual', many conservatives in 2008 were desperate for anything different, and Maverickcain seemed to be the thing. I think the early fascination with Palin also had something to do with a hunger for something new. But in fact, McCain's maverickism was generally sucking up to AIPAC and NY Times. Not a rightwing maverick but a stab-in-the-back maverick. And Palin turned out to be a real dummy.
It would have been wonderful if the people of Libya could have overthrown Gaddafi in the manner it was achieved in Egypt. But the war in Libya had devolved away from People vs Gaddafi(which seemed to the narrative in the first weeks of the conlfict) to anti-Gadaffi tribes vs pro-Gaddafi tribes. It might be more a war between two groups of peoples than between a dictator and the people--as was the case in Romania near the end of the Cold War. Maybe it's not a good thing for the US to get stuck behind that kind of conflict... which may be why Obama, through his air-war-only-policy, is careful to stay ABOVE than BETWEEN the two sides in the war. (Actually, there may be more than two sides. There could be rebel vs rebel conflicts too.)
Even so, would it be bad for Libya if we played a role in toppling Gaddafi? In the short run, maybe. In the long run, maybe not. Only time can tell.
Having an authoritarian leader isn't necessarily bad for a developing nation: Lee in Singapore, Putin in Russia, Chiang in Taiwan, Pinochet in Chile, etc. But not all 'modernizing' dictators are the same. Gaddafi seems more a fool, like Castro has been for 50 yrs. In the end, it's more all about him than about his nation.
I don't see a happy democratic spring upon the fall of Gaddafi, but Libya might do better with a better authoritarian ruler, but who will that be? For that to be decided may take a lot of bloodshed, not least among various rebel forces.
"McCain urged the use of combat aircraft more suited for engaging targets in urban areas, such as A-10 Thunderbolts, which are anti-tank planes, and AC-130 gunships, outfitted with heavy weaponry, including cannons, rockets and machine guns."
Yeah, because nothing is better at discriminating between soldiers and civilians than a 20 mm Vulcan gatling gun fired from one of Team America's airplanes. Way to go, Maverick - let's win some hearts and minds over there by shooting up some market-place and turning a bunch of Libyan Hausfraus into red mist.
The republican party's foreign policy seems, essentially, to have become this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC_H2s7rMvE
USA! Hell yeah!
I have long suspected that Obama's victory in 2008 was basically an anti-Neocon vote. What scares me now is that McCain may be preparing for another failed run at the presidency and what scares me even more is that he may get the GOP nomination and guarantee Obama another four years in the White House.
I wonder if McCain would support a democratic revolution if it happened in the US?
This is McCain's attempt to be relevant, nothing more. I mean, on what other issue would he stake a claim since his re-election to the Senate? The border? Nah.
He's old and he's a pol and there's nothing an old pol hates more than not getting some press; it means irrelevancy. He's never forgotten that at one time he was the press' favored son, BO (Before Obama.) He wants their love again.
To tour Libya and make the statments he did gets him in photos, in stories, even to the pinnacle--Steve's blog.
Of course, you are thinking he could have taken the opposite position, right? Announce that the US should stop offering any aid to the rebels...better yet, announce we should pull out of NATO altogether. Now, *that* would have been news and would have offered up something worth discussing.
But visions of the Sugar Plum Surge are still dancing in his head. He got props from the press for that, eventually of course, after it could no longer help him in his election bid. Even w/out their approval, however, it got him attention.
In the end, pols are like kids in class. Attention of any kind is preferable to none. John always was the kind of kid who didn't want positive attention by behaving, by getting good grades, etc. It was always less work for him to earn the attentionby simply being the contrarian.
Obama elected = Democrats get blamed for all the crazy shit he does, and the fact the economy doesn't recover.
McCain gets elected = Republicans get blamed for all the crazy shit he does, and the fact the economy doesn't recover.
McCain would've done lots of crazy, unconservative shit, and the economy wasn't going to recover no matter who won, because we're broke. If McCain had won, however, the faux conservative would now have a Democratic supermajority to work with.
Bush wasn't conservative, and you could hear the cheers coming from the Oval Office on Election Night 2006 when the WHite House spokesman came out and said the election presented an awesome opportunity to take another stab at amnesty.
Given the neoconservative/Rpuert Murdoch influence on the GOP, the Republican Party will not soon be nominating a man who thinks America should mostly stay out of other country's business.
Some of these heroic rebels have hit speeds upwards of 100 mph while fleeing Gaddafi's crack mercenaries from Burkina Faso. You gotta be brave to drive that fast on those roads.
Nice. :)
('Cept it's Ghaddaffey)
Oh, didn't they stop calling the A-10 the "Thunderbolt" a long time ago?
McCain reminds me of Ross Perot. I couldn't vote for Perot because he had invaded two foreign powers as a private citizen.
Hell, that was party of why I did. The man had balls, and a serious sense of responsibility toward his employees.
McCain has never met a war he didn't like. If there was a penguin war in Antartica he would favour intervention.
ex-Stroke joins Libran rebels:
bit.ly/hmPPus
"In every subsequent photo we see of the Libyan rebels, they get more and more fucking hipster. Don’t be shocked if this is what the next seasonal Urban Outfitters catalog looks like."
Make it "Riding on the Wind," and that would be one hell of a recruiting ad.
The only thing that could be more awesome would be to equip the AC-130 gunships with big-ass loudspeakers playing "Highway to Hell" while they turn some Libyan oil refinery into a giant fireball.
As pointless and suicidal as this entire interventionist adventure has become, I'd be okay with this scenario. At least we'd have one cool enduring visual for all the borrowed billions we're spending.
"I have met these brave fighters and they are not al-Qaida," he said. "To the contrary, they are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation. "They are my heroes," he said.
They aren't the only combatants in this conflict The Maverick has met on his taxpayer-funded travels...or has he forgotten already?
During the 2010 election, McCain was on Fox News daily, virtually running his campaign from the studio of Fox News while his opponent in the primary, JD Hayworth was almost never on Fox. Roger Ailes was trying to help his Neocon masters get their puppet re-elected.
Psychoanalyzing politicians can be risky and ridiculous, but it seems like McCain can never let go of Vietnam. He probably grew up hearing about the great ole glorious, heroic, and gung-ho USA kicking butt in WWI and WWII. And though Korean War wasn't an all-out victory, US did save South Korea from communism. But, the great war of McCain's life, the Vietnam War, was a disaster for his generation. Worse, even though McCain was eventually treated as a war hero, the fact is he was shot down and spent most of the war as an helpless POW. It was the war that America lost nationally and a war that McCain list personally.
Though McCain came to bury the hatchet with his former enemies in Vietnam, the fact is the true glory belongs to the North Vietnamese who fought to the bitter end... to final victory. America lost far fewer lives than North Vietnam, but it was a humiliating defeat for the greatest superpower in the world.
One part of McCain's psyche learned a profound lesson about humility from the Vietnam War; another part is committed to restoring lost honor, to prove to the world--but more importantly to himself--that he is still a tough guy and will die an old warrior.
It seems like McCain is a sort of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde about the Vietnam War. On the one hand, he learned the world is a complicated place and you can't always get what you want; sometimes, you have to swallow your pride, cut your losses, accept defeat, make peace with your enemy, and let bygones be bygones. We see this part of McCain in his domestic politics, with some degree of emphasis on compromise, breaking ranks with 'hard-lines', and being a 'statesman' than merely a partisan politician.
But when it comes to the international stage, it's as though he's fighting Vietnam over and over. So, the Iraq War and now the Libyan War are all examples of 'doing it right THIS TIME and winning'.
But really... McCain should realize... the Cold War is over and the so-called 'War on Terror' is not 'World War IV' or even another Vietnam War as Irving Kristol would have had us believe.
PS. It could be McCain's humiliating loss in 2008 made him even more belligerent in foreign affairs. He got whupped, indeed tortured, so badly by Obama(and the POWER ELITE JEWS) and looked so wussy and helpless--indeed, he was even upstaged by Palin, who seemed to have the bigger balls-- that maybe he's eager to show the world that he's the REAL TOUGH GUY, unlike that undecisive and weak Obama who doesn't know how to fight a war. And maybe he wants to signal to the Jewish community that he would have looked out for its interests more than the will-nilly Obama is. Of course, no matter how loudly he barks, McCain will never amount to much more than a dog for AIPAC. Indeed, Jews may prefer the willy-nilly Obama cuz the hardline-pro-Zionist Bush made everyone around the whisper, 'America is bitch to Israel'.
America has its own casus belli. Qaddafi killed our people.
Just like with Iraq, there's always a bloody shirt at hand. When they demand we charge into Iran, expect much disngenuous outrage over the embassy hostage crisis.
The day before Gaddafi suddenly appeared no longer viable due to popular resistance (the real reason for our precipitous action against him) we were, and had long been, content to forgo justice (after the Lockerbie convictions and reparations) and establish semi-normalized relations with Gaddafi.
Calling in that revenge chit now is transparently opportunist, and isn't going to fool anyone outside of a rest home recently energized/terrorized by a John McCain speech.
Re the A-10 "Thunderbolt", I don't recall that name ever being widely used. The A-10 is known as the "Warthog" if I'm not mistaken. Sometimes the manufacturer's name for a bird doesn't stick, and a nickname rises up to replace it.
'Cept it's Ghaddaffey
Is there a count on spellings for this name? If that's why we're after him I change my position. This has got to stop.
"I have met these brave fighters and they are not al-Qaida," he said. "To the contrary, they are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation."
Aren't al-Qaida also Arab patriots who want to liberate their nations?
"Think how much gas goes up when Iran realizes they can do as they please in the Gulf."
They already do.
jody:
I was wondering if maybe McCain would tell us he'd gazed into the Libyan rebels' eyes and seen their souls.
I suspect part of the reason why our interventions always end up so expensive is because there is a huge, well-funded, well-connected constituency for spending more money on bombs and missiles.
I'm a born and bred Republican but the rush of much of the neo-con faction to try to get us to involved in the Georgian affair was too much...at a time when we had plenty of our own problems in Iraq and Afghanistan to take on Russia as well? Exposed a lot of people as borderline insane.
"Think how much gas goes up when Iran realizes they can do as they please in the Gulf."
They already do.
And yet the Iranians aren't trying to push gas prices up. Maybe they aren't as bad as the mainstream media tells you they are.
Dennis Dale said...Is there a count on spellings for this name? If that's why we're after him I change my position. This has got to stop.
There are 112 spellings listed here.
Is there a count on spellings for this name? If that's why we're after him I change my position. This has got to stop.
Dennis, whenever such a matter is in doubt, I always rely on the official website. So it's Al Ghatafi, apparently.
BTW, I heartily recommend anyone here who hasn't yet perused the ruminations of the Brother Leader on the above link to do so now. Particularly enlightening is his 2009 address to the UN, which includes, in addition to a demand for $777 trillion in reparations for African colonization by the West, the following observations:
The Preamble of the Charter states that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest. That is the Preamble that we agreed to and signed, and we joined the United Nations because we wanted the Charter to reflect that. It says that armed force shall only be used in the common interest of all nations, but what has happened since then? Sixty-five wars have broken out since the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council — 65 since their creation, with millions more victims than in the Second World War. Are those wars, and the aggression and force that were used in those 65 wars, in the common interest of us all? No, they were in the interest of one or three or four countries, but not of all nations. . .
The principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of States is enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. No country, therefore, has the right to interfere in the affairs of any Government, be it democratic or dictatorial, socialist or capitalist, reactionary or progressive. This is the responsibility of each society; it is an internal matter for the people of the country concerned.
And finally, this gem:
We would be content if Obama could remain President of the United States of America for ever. . .American Presidents used to threaten us with all manner of weapons, saying that they would send us Desert Storm, Grapes of Wrath, Rolling Thunder and poisonous roses for Libyan children. That was their approach. . .can you imagine? One would have thought that Presidents of a large country with a permanent seat on the Security Council and the right of veto would have protected us and sent us peace. And what did we get instead? Laser-guided bombs carried to us on F-111 aircraft. This was their approach: we will lead the world, whether you like it or not, and will punish anyone who opposes us.
What our son Obama said today is completely different. He made a serious appeal for nuclear disarmament, which we applaud. He also said that America alone could not solve the problems facing us and that the entire world should come together to do so. He said that we must do more than we are doing now, which is making speeches. We agree with that and applaud it. He said that we had come to the United Nations to talk against one another. It is true that when we come here, we should communicate with one another on an equal footing. And he said that democracy should not be imposed from outside. Until recently, American Presidents have said that democracy should be imposed on Iraq and other countries. He said that this was an internal affair. He spoke truly when he said that democracy cannot be imposed from outside.
I imagine he's reconsidered that last part by now.
"At least McCain wants to win"
Win what? Libyan oil? John is too PC for that.
No it's about winning "democracy" for Libya i.e. AA, women's lib, crashed fertility rate, open borders, culture of critique, hostile globalist elite, kooky environmental agenda etc.
'And it's 1, 2, 3...what are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn...next stop is Everywhereistan'
F*** the New World Order!!!
"At least McCain wants to win"
Win what? Libyan oil? John is too PC for that.
No it's about winning "democracy" for Libya i.e. AA, women's lib, crashed fertility rate, open borders, culture of critique, hostile globalist elite, kooky environmental agenda etc.
'And it's 1, 2, 3...what are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn...next stop is Everywhereistan'
F*** the New World Order!!!
I'm trying to think of one time Bond assassinated anyone in the movies. I mean in the sense of cold-bloodedly murdering someone of importance. He wanted to assassinate that Paradorian drug lord, but botched it. Same with the North Korean. He's killed a few guys more or less in cold blood but they were nobodies. He never assassinated any heads of state or dictators that I can remember. He's killed a lot of evil capitalists, though.
As far as I know, my pet spelling, "Ghaddaffey," has more letters than any other. And is therefore more respectful. And is therefore more PC. And is therefore better.
Unless someone wants to come up with something longer. But I don't think adding a bunch of silent vowels ("Ghuaddauffey") is a good idea - it might seem subtly mocking.
On the other hand, "Ghhahddhhaffhhey" kinda works.
So it's Al Ghatafi, apparently.
That makes twenty by my count. That's it. Nuke the bastard.
I think fewer vowels and more apostrophes would be even more respectfully baffling, such as:
Al-Q'th'f'
True, there's something to be said for giving him a celebrity-esque, monosyllabic name, too.
Like:
Kwa
or
Q
McCain has always been off his rocker. He's always been a "Maverick" - beloved by the New York Times. I was reading a book about the '96 campaign and who did the (Liberal) author love? John McCain. You see McCain even in '96 was bad mouthing the Republicans, and regaling the Washington Press Corps with how dumb Conservatives were. And he was RIGHT!
He spends 7 years bad-mouthing the party, reaching across the aisle, and the dumbshits reward him by nominating him. Then he pats himself on the back for pulling his punches against Obama in 2008.
And no matter what he does there's always some doddering old fool who'll say "Well, he's a war hero".
"Re the A-10 "Thunderbolt", I don't recall that name ever being widely used. The A-10 is known as the "Warthog" if I'm not mistaken. Sometimes the manufacturer's name for a bird doesn't stick, and a nickname rises up to replace it."
That's not the manufacturer's name, it's the Air Force's name. Technically, IIRC, it is Thunderbolt II, named after the original Thunderbolt, the P-47.
John McCain unfortunately is significantly responsible for Obama becoming president. McCain is an old coot screaming at the kids running over the corner of his lawn. A fool.
Has anyone noticed how vulnerable the rebels are to being penetrated by pro-Qaddafi operatives?
Consider the discrepancy. Someone who enlists in the Libyan Army will, presumably, have to serve for many years before given a position of leadership, provided they are not a bad ass virgin female and thus eligible to serve in his elite guards.
Joining the rebels, by contrast, seems a much shorter route to leadership, especially for those who prove capable of basic military tasks.
I wonder why Qaddafi doesn't just adopt a "Trojan Camel" strategy, having members of his army fake a defection for the purpose of gathering intelligence and disrupting the rebels from within.
Happy Easter Steve.
"Some of these heroic rebels have hit speeds upwards of 100 mph while fleeing Gaddafi's crack mercenaries from Burkina Faso. You gotta be brave to drive that fast on those roads."
HAHAHAHA!
As for the Libyan Lord Protector's name, probably the most accurate spelling would be "Qaððafi", but unless you're Icelandic, we tend not to use the edh. The "dh" spelling (Qadhafi), suggesting a voiced "th" as in "this", is okay, but not immediately apparent to English speakers who are not J.R.R. Tolkien fans -- unlike, say, "zh", which has been used for decades to transliterate Russian, but is also never used as such in any English word. And besides, it's a double "dh", so... "Qaddhafi"? I guess the double consonant, coupled with the cynical expectation that the average English-speaker won't pronounce a "dh" as a voiced "th" but instead turn it into "d" (as in Abu Dhabi), is the reasoning behind the "Qaddafi" spelling.
Couldn't we get him to change his name to some weird symbol, like Prince did a few years back? ("The dictator formerly known as Gaddaffi today pledged to fight on, despite the additional ten thousand NATO troops deployed this month. President Clinton proclaimed her confidence that the Libyan Surge, which brings the total number of NATO troops in the country up to 200,000, would soon bring the short-duration kinetic humanitarian intervention to a victorious close.")
America has its own cassus belli. Qaddafi killed our people.
So did Obama. And Bush. And Clinton. And on and on.
Whiskey said, "But now, America needs a win, desperately, and Obama is determined to lose (as Mark Steyn suggests). A win keeps American power demonstrated in Tehran, deterring costly moves by the Iranians to exert power designed to jack up oil prices further."
I can't believe this is what you think America needs. You and your buddy McCain are deranged. You think a win over Libya or keeping Tehran deterred is going to do it for America? You don't think maybe America needs a win on the demographic front, by perhaps dealing with our borders and immigration problems? You don't think America needs to get its manufacturing groove back and start producing things again?
If you are a mainstream republican, then I can only pray they never take the White House again.
Remind me again why Arizona picked McCain in the last primary.
When K/G(h)ad(d)/at/af(f)i/y/ey changes his name to a symbol, a la Prince, then I'm going over to his side. Obama and his acolytes are pikers in comparison!
In fact I like Libya more the more I think about it.
Reminds me of a line from Patton: the General is reviewing a parade of smart-looking Moroccan troops. One of the dignitaries asks him what he thinks of Morocco. "I love it." He says. "It's a combination of the Bible and Hollywood."
"Remind me again why Arizona picked McCain in the last primary."
I think it was $20 million versus $2 million.
But now, America needs a win
Why? Didn't we get wins in Afghanistan and Iraq? Yeah, that's right. So the guys who gave us Afghanistan and Iraq, promised they'd be cakewalks, are now demanding we embark on another adventure while the last two still fester like open wounds. What we do or don't do in Libya is not going to influence Iran. What the insurgents did in Iraq gave the Iranians all they need to know to deal with Uncle Sam.
K/G(h)ad(d)/at/af(f)i/y/ey
LOL! I stand humbled, sir! :D
The dictator formerly known as Gaddaffi today
What the hell good would that do? It'd be:
"The dictator formerly known as x"
With just as many substitutions for x as we have now. :)
This whole Libya thing is getting confused by the minute. If the motive is to get Gadhaffi out then go in take care of business. Tired of the excuses, NATO knows the rebels cannot do this alone but the fear is the perception that a direct armed interventi¬on would create worldwide.
McCain, in the rebel capital, is criticizin¬g the U.S. policy, calling for the U.S. to do more, and saying the U.S. cannot fail in Libya. Those who criticized Iraq policy from outside Iraq during the Bush admin were called traitors by many repubs, including McCain. Irony is ironic, isn't it?
Who appointed this guy to speak for the U.S.?
Maybe McCain sees the world as a western movie, and he's Wyatt Earp.
Maybe McCain sees the world as a western movie, and he's Wyatt Earp.
In old John's mind, maybe.
McCain is really more like Yosemite Sam.
LOL! I stand humbled, sir! :D
Thanks, but I see I've put one too many slashes in there. That's gonna be like stifling a sneeze now.
Here's the game: the most alternate spellings of The Name with the least characters, utilizing () and / properly to indicate alternate letter combinations.
Yeah, I need a life.
But now, America needs a win, desperately, and Obama is determined to lose (as Mark Steyn suggests). A win keeps American power demonstrated in Tehran, deterring costly moves by the Iranians to exert power designed to jack up oil prices further.
You funny man.
As gcochran pointed out on another blog, the Saudis are cutting back oil production NOW. It is obvious why.
Oil prices were spiking already, owing to the devaluation of the dollar to pay for government spending. This will really do it.
Will voters vote for more Obama? The Saudis can play at regime change, too.
AFAIAC, McCain's former captors can have him back. I'm starting to wonder if he picked up mad cow disease in Vietnam.
Thanks, but I see I've put one too many slashes in there.
No, thank you. I just read it again and laughed loudly again.
Hey, it's Niles and Fraser chuckling over clever 18th century Danish Philosopher puns:
"Oh..ho...ho..ho, Svigor, I have my Kier-Ke-GUARD up! alright...ho.ho..ho, Chortle chortle.
My good man, you totally slay me!"
You guys would be a barrel of monkeys at one of Whiskey/Roissy's "Game" Seminars
Speaking of foreign policy, this is a must see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOcRnbGhQqc
It kinda explains why smart/experienced/important people can fall for bullshit.
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