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Judy G. Russell
August 11th, 2005, 12:34 PM
"It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn't support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay."

John McCain said it, in a foreword to a book by David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

Sound eerily like what is being (or should be) said right now about Iraq,,,

RayB (France)
August 11th, 2005, 02:31 PM
Out of curiosity, what was the date of the quote, Judy?

davidh
August 11th, 2005, 02:52 PM
Sound eerily like what is being (or should be) said right now about Iraq,,,

The Vietnam war is still going on in Vietnam. The communist party members are making a lot of money by the arrangements they have made with slave traffickers in various asian countries to sell Vietnamese women as sex slaves and men as slave workers. Many people in Vietnam are so poor that they are willing to sell themselves into slavery so that their families back home can get food to eat and clothes to wear. Basically this is another example of organized crime (i.e. the communist party) gaining control of whole countries under the pretext of a liberation struggle.

Incidentally, China is a good market for sex slaves since the abortion of girl babies has made marriageable women in short supply.

Depending one when one marks the beginning of the communist plague, 1. the French Revolution, 2. Karl Marx, 3. Lenin it has lasted between 80 and 200 years and still is powerful in some areas.

So regardless of what the situation and prognosis in Iraq might be, is there any good reason to expect that "Islamic" terrorism, nuclear proliferation, WMD's or other such problems will diminish quickly?

Perhaps "war on terror" is a bad concept. Roads and bridges need to be inspected and repaired continually forever. But we don't call fixing bridges a "war on rust and weather"

David H.
.

Judy G. Russell
August 11th, 2005, 03:31 PM
The reprint copyright is 1992; I expect it was written then. (The original publication dates in hardback and paperback were while McCain was a prisoner of war.)

Judy G. Russell
August 11th, 2005, 03:34 PM
Vietnam is hardly the only Asian country where women sell themselves (and are sold by their families) as sex slaves. It's common throughout the region, unfortunately.

As for the moniker "war on terror", it seems to me that the question of the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq is a question of chicken and egg... it's quite clear to me which one came first (our invasion of Iraq spurred the growth of anti-American and anti-western terrorism; Iraq had little, if anything at all, to do with any terrorist attacks on us).

Lindsey
August 11th, 2005, 06:31 PM
John McCain said it, in a foreword to a book by David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.
I've had that book in my "to be read" stack for some time now, and the parallels to the Iraq War were exactly the reason I bought it. High time I moved it off that stack and into the "being read" one. But not, I think, until after my beach vacation. That just doesn't seem like much of a beach book...

--Lindsey

Lindsey
August 11th, 2005, 06:39 PM
Vietnam is hardly the only Asian country where women sell themselves (and are sold by their families) as sex slaves. It's common throughout the region, unfortunately.
Indeed; Nicholas Kristof had a series of columns in the NY Times on the sex trafficking in Cambodia a year or so ago. Well, no, I just looked: it was in January. Boy, this has been a long year!

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 11th, 2005, 09:39 PM
Indeed; Nicholas Kristof had a series of columns in the NY Times on the sex trafficking in Cambodia a year or so ago.
I read that... amazing on his part, appalling in terms of the reality he reported.

Well, no, I just looked: it was in January. Boy, this has been a long year!
Tell me about it...

Judy G. Russell
August 11th, 2005, 09:42 PM
That just doesn't seem like much of a beach book...
You'd be surprised at what ends up being a beach book. I brought Carl Sagan's Broca's Brain with me to the Bahamas once. People kept looking at me funny because I kept laughing out loud. (Sagan was such an entertaining writer... and he didn't even mention billions and billions of anything that I recall...)

But yeah... Halberstam's book probably wouldn't be entertaining.

Lindsey
August 11th, 2005, 11:41 PM
I mostly prefer novels for the beach. I have the latest paperback releases from Sarah Dunant (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812974301/qid=1123820885/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-3906187-7123315?v=glance&s=books) (whose Mapping the Edge I took to the beach with me last year) and Jennifer Weiner (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743470109/ref=lpr_g_1/102-3906187-7123315?v=glance&s=books) as well as Bee Season (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385498802/qid=1123821333/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3906187-7123315), which I took on a cruise with me last December and never got around to reading. That should hold me, I think, though I'll likely take along a couple of backups just in case it rains all week. :(

--Lindsey

RayB (France)
August 12th, 2005, 05:33 AM
**(The original publication dates in hardback and paperback were while McCain was a prisoner of war.)**

Thanks.

Judy G. Russell
August 12th, 2005, 08:17 AM
Glad to help.

Judy G. Russell
August 12th, 2005, 08:18 AM
Look at The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Very powerful story opf Afghanistan by an Afghani writer.

chm
August 12th, 2005, 03:36 PM
"It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn't support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay."

John McCain said it, in a foreword to a book by David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

Sound eerily like what is being (or should be) said right now about Iraq,,,
Agree. Thanks for the quote.

And, yes, I do find myself liking McCain.

Along these lines I read this today: "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam."

Carolyn

Judy G. Russell
August 12th, 2005, 05:01 PM
Along these lines I read this today: "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam."
Oh ouch... true, but ouch...

Lindsey
August 12th, 2005, 05:27 PM
Look at The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Very powerful story opf Afghanistan by an Afghani writer.
Oh, that sounds wonderful--I will certainly look for it.

--Lindsey

rlohmann
August 12th, 2005, 06:24 PM
You'd be surprised at what ends up being a beach book. I brought Carl Sagan's Broca's Brain with me to the Bahamas once. People kept looking at me funny ...(This is such a major incidence of thread drift that you my want to give it a new thread.)

A book I once had on the beach can probably top that.

It was the summer of 1991, The Wall had come down about 18 months previously, and we were sitting on the beach in Trassenheide on the Baltic Sea, a resort in what had once been East Germany. The book was called "Der Absturz" ("The Collapse," or "The Crash"), and described the disintegration of the East-German government in the months following November of 1989. The author was Günther Schabowski, the former Communist Party Chief for the City of East Berlin.

We had not yet become totally blasé about the occasional nudity on the beaches in that part of Germany, and I was startled when two thirtysomething and rather attractive women with nothing on walked up somewhat hesitantly and asked me what the book was about. I told them. They looked startled.

"Where did you get it?" the blonde asked nervously.

Eyes fixed intently at nothing in the middle distance, I named a bookstore in Zinnowitz, the next village.

"Do you mean," said the brunette, incredulously, "that you just walked in there and bought it?

I assured her that I had.

They walked away, shaking their heads.

I returned my eyes to the book and kept them there for some time. :)

Judy G. Russell
August 12th, 2005, 08:10 PM
It should be easy to find; it's on all the best-seller lists right now and deservedly so.

Judy G. Russell
August 12th, 2005, 08:12 PM
(This is such a major incidence of thread drift that you my want to give it a new thread.)
Thread drift here is more of a mark of honor than a requirement for a new thread topic!

In any event, I am just a little disinclined to believe the part of your story about keeping your eyes only in the book...

Lindsey
August 12th, 2005, 08:17 PM
I returned my eyes to the book and kept them there for some time. :)
LOL!!!

But for sure I'm not going to be opting for anything written in German to take to the beach with me...

--Lindsey

rlohmann
August 13th, 2005, 07:05 AM
In any event, I am just a little disinclined to believe the part of your story about keeping your eyes only in the book...Oh, but I did!

In our culture, with a few--mosty artistic and medical--exceptions, nudity is fraught with sexual fraughtness. In many European venues, particularly beaches, it is not. This is instantly apparent, but when first encountered by American mind, it induces nervous embarassment.

I kept my eyes in the book because, at the moment, I couldn't think of anything else to do.

rlohmann
August 13th, 2005, 07:10 AM
But for sure I'm not going to be opting for anything written in German to take to the beach with me...I'll lend it to you. :D

Schabowski writes well, which is surprising because he was once the Editor of the "Neues Deutschland," the unreadable East-German Communist Party rag.

davidh
August 13th, 2005, 08:49 PM
Vietnam is hardly the only Asian country where women sell themselves (and are sold by their families) as sex slaves. It's common throughout the region, unfortunately.


I'm not sure that most of the governments of countries in east and south east asia are as brutal as the communists in vietnam. Nor am I sure that in other countries there where slave trading takes place that party members in the government get such high "commissions", if any, from the trading.

Two Hoa Hao Buddhists there immolated themselves this month to protest the oppression by the government. http://www.pghh.org/

(IIRC self-immolation is based on the legendary story of a Bodhisattva [wisdom compassion being] who burnt himself to rescue others in the SadharmaPundarika (Wonderful Lotus of the True Dharma), a classic Buddhist scripture over the whole of east asia.)

A couple things that the communists and terrorists seem to share are lack of any qualms about violence against civilians and eagerness to benefit from corruption.

David H.

Judy G. Russell
August 14th, 2005, 12:21 AM
I'm not sure that most of the governments of countries in east and south east asia are as brutal as the communists in vietnam. Nor am I sure that in other countries there where slave trading takes place that party members in the government get such high "commissions", if any, from the trading.
No, in other countries it's just the fathers, brothers and/or husbands who get the financial benefit.

A couple things that the communists and terrorists seem to share are lack of any qualms about violence against civilians and eagerness to benefit from corruption.
Eagerness to benefit from corruption is hardly limited to communists or terrorists. I can think of an awful lot of garden-variety American politicians who fall into the same category.

Lindsey
August 14th, 2005, 11:31 PM
Eagerness to benefit from corruption is hardly limited to communists or terrorists.
Nor is violence against civilians; right-wing dictatorships have committed their share, and so have drug lords.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 15th, 2005, 12:01 AM
And sometimes right-wing dictatorships are drug lords...

Lindsey
August 15th, 2005, 04:09 PM
And sometimes right-wing dictatorships are drug lords...
Too true!

--Lindsey

Wayne Scott
August 16th, 2005, 09:23 PM
And good old Saddam was really a pretty nice guy, I suppose.

Wayne Scott
August 16th, 2005, 09:27 PM
Fortunately, left wing dictators are never drug lords. They are pure of heart.

Wayne Scott
August 16th, 2005, 09:36 PM
Thank you, Chief Cook, I just ordered it, on your recommendation. I expect to read it during time at sea on that September cruise!

Curm

Wayne Scott
August 16th, 2005, 09:39 PM
I was about to post the same comment. As a DOM of more than 80 years, I know damned well where my eyes would have been fixed. I'll bet His Graviness would be the same.
Lecherous in Lucerne

Judy G. Russell
August 16th, 2005, 10:30 PM
Aren't the left-wing types supposed to be dealing in weapons of mass destruction or slaves or some such? Wouldn't the right-wing dictator union object if the left-wing boys started muscling in on their turf?

Judy G. Russell
August 16th, 2005, 10:32 PM
He was no more a nice guy than the folks we appear to be ready to replace him with. Between the ones we picked (Chalabi? please!) and the ones the Iraqis may put in place (al Sadr? please twice!), this is a major league disaster that's well in the making.

Judy G. Russell
August 16th, 2005, 10:33 PM
Be warned: this is not a happy-ending-feel-good type of book. But it's very powerful and well worth the read.

Judy G. Russell
August 16th, 2005, 10:34 PM
Can you imagine? Eyes on the book, indeed!

Judy G. Russell
August 16th, 2005, 10:34 PM
I kept my eyes in the book because, at the moment, I couldn't think of anything else to do.
You are not that unimaginative!

Lindsey
August 16th, 2005, 11:26 PM
(Chalabi? please!)
The first time I saw a photo of Ahmed Chalabi (http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,169308,00.jpg), my first thought was the campaign poster the Democrats had in 1972, with the picture of Richard Nixon and the caption "Would you buy a used car from this man?" How on earth did someone who looked so slippery manage to bamboozle so many people?

As for the rest: There were a lot of people who tried to warn the Bushies about the very things they're now discovering are a problem. It's not like nobody knew there was a good chance that the place would dissolve into civil war. It's not like there wasn't any reason to be skeptical of the claim that we would be hailed as liberators. It's not like nobody tried to warn that this might be, as Tim Russert put it in a question to Cheney before the war, "a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties."

But none of those guys wanted to hear that. Some people have to learn the hard way. Unfortunately, though, the people who are paying for that education are not the ones who needed to learn the lessons.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 17th, 2005, 12:13 AM
My biggest concern is that the people who need to learn haven't at all, even yet. The more sabre-rattling we do at Iran, the more worried I get...

RayB (France)
August 17th, 2005, 06:43 AM
I was about to post the same comment. As a DOM of more than 80 years, I know damned well where my eyes would have been fixed. I'll bet His Graviness would be the same.
Lecherous in Lucerne


Ah, but would you remember WHY it was interesting, Curm? That's MY problem.

Judy G. Russell
August 17th, 2005, 09:26 AM
There's an old joke about a very elderly man sitting on a park bench and sobbing as if his heart was breaking. A caring citizen sat down beside him. "What's wrong?" he asked. "How can I help you?"

"Oh," sobbed the elderly gent, "I have a gorgeous young wife, a beautiful house, lovely gardens where I can putter, a sunroom where I can sit and read..."

The younger man is perplexed. "Then why are you crying?"

"Because," the older man splutters, "I don't remember where I live!"

And the older I get, the less funny the joke gets.

Lindsey
August 17th, 2005, 06:24 PM
My biggest concern is that the people who need to learn haven't at all, even yet. The more sabre-rattling we do at Iran, the more worried I get...
I have to wonder what good anyone thinks sabre-rattling can do when it seems pretty obvious to me that we can't possibly follow through on it. We've already bitten off more than we can chew.

I started reading an article over lunch today in the current issue of Foreign Affairs about the limits of regime change, which began by contrasting our approach to the Soviet Union in the Cold War (which the author said in the end amounted to something like "regime evolution") and our approach to Iraq (pointing out that removing a regime was one thing; finding a suitable replacement for it was quite another). I will be interested to see what conclusion the article comes to when I get to the end.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 17th, 2005, 07:00 PM
It seems to me that if there was any lesson at all that we should have learned from Vietnam, it's that the end game has to be clearly in view before you begin. Iraq strikes me as another colossal example of either no end game at all or an end game so absurdly optimstic ("they'll welcome us as liberators, write a democratic constitution and have peaceful elections!") that is boggles the mind.

Lindsey
August 17th, 2005, 11:07 PM
It seems to me that if there was any lesson at all that we should have learned from Vietnam, it's that the end game has to be clearly in view before you begin.
That's an important part of the Powell Doctrine. And unfortunately, they all ignored it. (Just as they ignored the other part: Use overwhelming force.)

There's a discussion currently floating on the TPMCafe discussion board: What is the Plan B for Iraq if they can't agree on a constitution? Consensus answer: Waddaya mean "Plan B"??? There was barely even a "Plan A"!!!

:( :( :( :(

No, these guys have been flying by the seat of their pants since day one, and they're on the verge of losing their pants.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 17th, 2005, 11:28 PM
:( :( :( :(
No, these guys have been flying by the seat of their pants since day one, and they're on the verge of losing their pants.
Unfortunately, they're on the verge of losing OUR pants...

Lindsey
August 18th, 2005, 09:27 PM
Unfortunately, they're on the verge of losing OUR pants...
And a lot of other things as well. Not least among them our armed forces. Something I was reading recently quoted a general as saying that the wheels are going to come off the army within another 24 months unless we have a drastic change of course. They're starting to talk about third deployments.

My choral group's best bass has been over there since late May, and doesn't expect to be back home before the fall of 2006. He's older than I am--this guy served in Vietnam. Seems to me if you manage to survive one crappy war, you should get an automatic pass on the next one. Not that Paul was looking for one.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 18th, 2005, 09:55 PM
They're starting to talk about third deployments.
Dear lord... I am so very grateful that two of my three of my military brothers left the service before this started... and that the third one (whew!!!) just retired.

Lindsey
August 18th, 2005, 11:18 PM
Dear lord... I am so very grateful that two of my three of my military brothers left the service before this started... and that the third one (whew!!!) just retired.
And I am grateful, too, for all your sakes! I just cannot see any good outcome to this at all. Seems to me it's either going to be a prolonged civil war, a la Lebanon, or it's going to end up an Islamic republic with strong ties to Iran. Certainly neither of those is what we meant to sacrifice thousands of lives to achieve.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 18th, 2005, 11:23 PM
I wish I could believe there will be any kind of good outcome there. But we certainly can't stay there long enough to educate two or three generations, which is what it would take to begin to create a western-style democracy, nor even long enough to establish the conditions for a stable secular Islamic state, and anything else is, quite frankly, not worth having gone to war for.

Lindsey
August 18th, 2005, 11:40 PM
anything else is, quite frankly, not worth having gone to war for.
Amen.

--Lindsey

Wayne Scott
August 19th, 2005, 11:51 AM
You'll have to ask the Elector that question. His Grace is in charge of such matters. I am just a simple acolyte.

Humble in Holland

Judy G. Russell
August 19th, 2005, 12:14 PM
I thought His Grace was only in charge of the Departments of Demerits and Sneering.

chm
August 19th, 2005, 05:51 PM
Something I was reading recently quoted a general as saying that the wheels are going to come off the army within another 24 months unless we have a drastic change of course. They're starting to talk about third deployments.


Yes.

I especially don't want to see the "draft" word come up: I have a 20-year-old son (who already has been harrassed a great deal by the Army, 'least he got a nice T-shirt out of it). I add my own selfish interests into this.

Nah, this country would never stand for a draft, especially not these days.

chm

rlohmann
August 19th, 2005, 06:05 PM
Oh ouch... true, but ouch...The attacks on Bush in this thread inevitably bring to mind the attacks on FDR (otherwise not one of my favorite presidents) for having "allowed" Pearl Harbor to happen. He knew, it was alleged, that the Japanese were going to attack, but he did nothing in order to permit the attack to take place and thus manipulate the American people into supporting the war he was itching to get into.

I know a little bit about the intelligence that was available to Roosevelt prior to Pearl Harbor, and I know a little bit--all of it unclassified--about the intelligence available to Bush before Iraq.

Hindsight is always 100% accurate. While I have my own differences with Bush, it might be helpful if his accusers would do some reading about the events of 1938-1941 in the Pacific and the American politics of that era.

Judy G. Russell
August 19th, 2005, 08:42 PM
It would be nice if you could have shared your little bit of unclassified knowledge with those who were actually telling him the intelligence was bad, faulty and untested. They might feel a little better about the fact that nobody listened to them.

Judy G. Russell
August 19th, 2005, 08:43 PM
I especially don't want to see the "draft" word come up: I have a 20-year-old son (who already has been harrassed a great deal by the Army, 'least he got a nice T-shirt out of it). I add my own selfish interests into this.
Tell me about it, sez this aunt of 24, 23 and 21 year old boys...

Lindsey
August 19th, 2005, 11:39 PM
I especially don't want to see the "draft" word come up
You or me either. My sister has two boys, 21 and 18. I don't want to see either of them in a hellhole like Iraq. I don't want to see anybody's kids there.

--Lindsey

rlohmann
August 21st, 2005, 03:11 PM
All intelligence is faulty and untested. Much of it comes from individuals who got information they weren't supposed to have from people they weren't supposed to meet in places they weren't supposed to be. Some of that information is necessarily imprecise. It is certainly never as lucid and precise as those using it might wish.

Whether it was bad or not is something nobody knows until after the fact.

If you're the decisionmaker--as opposed to the Monday-morning quarterback--you go with what you've got.

Judy G. Russell
August 21st, 2005, 03:50 PM
If you're the decisionmaker--as opposed to the Monday-morning quarterback--you go with what you've got.
Absolutely. But then you're responsible, and should be held accountable, for the decisions that you make. When you send the nation's armed forces into harm's way based on intelligence that your own intelligence services said was questionable at best, and it turns out that they were right ("don't rely on this") and you were wrong when you did, then own up to making a mistake and move forwards towards finding a way to correct the mistake.

What you DON'T do when you've made that kind of terrible blunder is keep whining about 9/11 and Iraq and fighting "the enemy" somewhere else rather than fighting them in the streets here when you and we and the whole world knows that is/was/will always be a lie.

rlohmann
August 21st, 2005, 05:51 PM
Absolutely. But then you're responsible, and should be held accountable, for the decisions that you make.That's true.
When you send the nation's armed forces into harm's way based on intelligence that your own intelligence services said was questionable at best, and it turns out that they were right ("don't rely on this") and you were wrong when you did, then own up to making a mistake and move forwards towards finding a way to correct the mistake.Well, FDR did, but it was too late for Pearl Harbor.

Do you honestly believe that if Bush had not gone into Iraq, Saddam would have stopped trying to stick it to the US, the al-Qaida guys would have turned into altar boys and apologized for 9/11, the Muslim fanatics would have stopped their efforts to finish Hitler's job in Israel, and everything would have been right with the world?

What you DON'T do when you've made that kind of terrible blunder is keep whining about 9/11 and Iraq and fighting "the enemy" somewhere else rather than fighting them in the streets here when you and we and the whole world knows that is/was/will always be a lie.Please see my previous note. If you have proof that Bush knew that his intelligence information was false and unsupportable, and then knowingly and willingly decided to invade Iraq anyway, please disclose it.

Please keep in mind that that Saddam took affirmative steps to convince the world that he had MWD. (Where was Michael Moore then with proof that he was lying?) Al-Qaida had already declared war on the US and confirmed its intentions by the attacks of 9/11.

See my FDR reference.

The final judgment on Bush will not be in until the dispute with Muslims who hate the United States is over.

It's not over.

chm
August 21st, 2005, 07:10 PM
The final judgment on Bush will not be in until the dispute with Muslims who hate the United States is over.

Considering that these people are still bringing up the Crusades, that may be never?

Carolyn

Peter Creasey
August 21st, 2005, 07:59 PM
>> Sound eerily like... <<

Judy, Give President Bush credit or not, but be glad that the results have assured that our confrontations with terrorists since 9/11 have been on soil other than our own.

How quickly some people forget!!!

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 01:43 AM
I'm not sure we have confronted very many "terrorists" on soil other than our own since 9/11, Pete. We have confronted vast numbers of Iraqis who want us out of Iraq and themselves back in Iraq. But we haven't even figured out if Osama bin Laden is alive, much less brought him to the justice Bush keeps promising.

I repeat: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Let's get over that nonsense, shall we? Killing 1800 of our kids and injuring 15000 of them so we can fight Iraqi insurgents who wouldn't have threatened us is NOT my idea of of confronting terrorists.

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 01:46 AM
Do you honestly believe that if Bush had not gone into Iraq, Saddam would have stopped trying to stick it to the US, the al-Qaida guys would have turned into altar boys and apologized for 9/11, the Muslim fanatics would have stopped their efforts to finish Hitler's job in Israel, and everything would have been right with the world?
I do not honestly believe that a is related to b is related to c is related to d. There is no evidence, repeat NO evidence, that anything in Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. Why is it that the Bush apologists can't even say the word "Iraq" in a sentence without also saying "9/11"?

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 01:50 AM
Considering that these people are still bringing up the Crusades, that may be never?
It certainly doesn't help when the President of the United States calls this a Christian nation... and don't I recall some military commander there who kept speaking in the same terms about this being the Christians against the Muslims...?

Dick K
August 22nd, 2005, 02:16 AM
It certainly doesn't help when the President of the United States calls this a Christian nation...
I would quite agree, but I must have missed that. Could you give me a citation or reference for the President saying the USA is a Christian nation?

Dick K
August 22nd, 2005, 02:23 AM
I'm not sure we have confronted very many "terrorists" on soil other than our own since 9/11, Pete.
Judy -

Not a whole lot of confrontation with terrorists in Iraq, but there have been many arrests and killings of al-Qaeda leaders and cadre in, inter alia, Yemen. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Western Europe since 9/11. I would suggest that these actions definitely qualify as "confrontations with terrorists on soil other than our own."

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 02:07 PM
I may be in error about Bush using those specific words (I have seen it reported but can't find a reference). I do know that Lt. Gen., William G. Boykin, deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence, has made such comments in precisely those terms: he said that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 02:09 PM
I certainly hope that those confrontations were in fact with "al-Qaeda leaders and cadre". I will believe it when every press release from the Pentagon or other source stops saying that "the top leader of al-Qaeda in [fill in the blank] was captured / killed / wounded"...

Lindsey
August 22nd, 2005, 09:37 PM
be glad that the results have assured that our confrontations with terrorists since 9/11 have been on soil other than our own.
Like Madrid and London, you mean?

I seriously doubt that the invasion of Iraq has done anything to prevent another al Qaeda attack here. And in the meantime, it is providing bin Laden a made-to-order training ground for urban guerrillas.

--Lindsey

Dick K
August 22nd, 2005, 09:44 PM
I may be in error about Bush using those specific words (I have seen it reported but can't find a reference). I do know that Lt. Gen., William G. Boykin, deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence, has made such comments in precisely those terms: he said that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."I very much agree with you about the stupidity of General Boykin's comments, but I seriously doubt that the President ever claimed (at least not in a public declaration) that the US is "a Christian nation."

Lindsey
August 22nd, 2005, 09:55 PM
don't I recall some military commander there who kept speaking in the same terms about this being the Christians against the Muslims...?
Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, currently serving, I believe, as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

He's the guy who said that God put Bush in the White House. (Gee--why does God hate us?) He said, of an encounter with a Muslim war lord in Somalia, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his was an idol." He has also said that terrorists, "are after us because we are a Christian nation."

--Lindsey

Lindsey
August 22nd, 2005, 10:24 PM
I may be in error about Bush using those specific words
In this, as in a number of other things (like trashing John Kerry and making the claim that Iraq was directly tied to 9/11), I suspect Bush is relying on others around him to do the heavy lifting and give him plausible deniability. Certainly a lot of people who are close to the Bush administration or are at least heavy supporters of it have made that claim (Antonin Scalia, for one, and General Boykin for another), and Bush's own rhetoric comes very close to it.

It's funny, from the beginning of the 2000 campaign, I was struck by how much even the cadance of Bush's speaches sounded like a sermon from an evangelical preacher.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 10:27 PM
As I said, I've seen it reported, in terms very close to that. I seem to recall it was a comment about the founding of the nation. But I'm prepared to be wrong, or to be misremembering.

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 10:29 PM
You may be right that this is the party line of those around Bush rather than Bush's own personal words. I do seem to remember one comment that did say that, but I may be confusing something said by one of the inner circle.

Judy G. Russell
August 22nd, 2005, 10:29 PM
That's the one. Scary, isn't it?

Lindsey
August 22nd, 2005, 11:05 PM
You may be right that this is the party line of those around Bush rather than Bush's own personal words. I do seem to remember one comment that did say that, but I may be confusing something said by one of the inner circle.
He has been quoted as saying that this country was "founded on Christian principles," but I'm not sure just where that quotation comes from. That's not quite the same thing as claiming it's a Christian nation, but it's getting close.

--Lindsey

Lindsey
August 22nd, 2005, 11:07 PM
Scary, isn't it?
It struck me at the time as downright loopy. But notice that he got a promotion. Bush evidently wasn't so terribly upset by what he said.

--Lindsey

RayB (France)
August 23rd, 2005, 03:48 AM
**It certainly doesn't help when the President of the United States calls this a Christian nation...**

When a nation is founded upon Christian principles and a vastly overwhelming majority of its citizens ARE Christians, what else would you call it? Would it be out of order to call France, Spain, Mexico, etc. Catholic Countries?

RayB (France)
August 23rd, 2005, 04:00 AM
**Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, currently serving, I believe, as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.**

We have Loony Tunes on 'our' side just not nearly as many as you do on 'your' side! It all works out.

Judy G. Russell
August 23rd, 2005, 10:49 AM
We have Loony Tunes on 'our' side just not nearly as many as you do on 'your' side! It all works out.
Not nearly as many? Surely you jest. Newt Gingrich. Trent Lott. Gen. Boykin. Dick Cheney. Shall I continue?

Judy G. Russell
August 23rd, 2005, 10:50 AM
He has been quoted as saying that this country was "founded on Christian principles," but I'm not sure just where that quotation comes from. That's not quite the same thing as claiming it's a Christian nation, but it's getting close.
That may be what I'm thinking of.

Judy G. Russell
August 23rd, 2005, 10:53 AM
I was mostly upset by the fact that he appeared in uniform to say what he said. He can believe whatever he wants. He can say whatever he believes. But when he wears the uniform (and so officially represents the country), he ought not to be stupid.

Judy G. Russell
August 23rd, 2005, 10:59 AM
When a nation is founded upon Christian principles and a vastly overwhelming majority of its citizens ARE Christians, what else would you call it?
Our citizens are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Confucians, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and even (gasp) nonbelievers. Our Constitution prohibits laws respecting an establishment of religion or the free exercise of religion, and our legal tradition is one of separation of church and state. So what would I call it? A SECULAR nation where many people believe many things.

Would it be out of order to call France, Spain, Mexico, etc. Catholic Countries?
I suspect the Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and other residents of those countries would certainly hope so.

RayB (France)
August 24th, 2005, 03:39 AM
Our citizens are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Confucians, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and even (gasp) nonbelievers. Our Constitution prohibits laws respecting an establishment of religion or the free exercise of religion, and our legal tradition is one of separation of church and state. So what would I call it? A SECULAR nation where many people believe many things.


I suspect the Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and other residents of those countries would certainly hope so.

Of course and I wasn't inferring otherwise. If I had inserted the word 'Only' at the end of it, that would naturally be wrong. This is simply semantics and picky-picky in my opinion. It, to my mind, is an appropiately applied 'broad-brush' description.

Judy G. Russell
August 24th, 2005, 09:15 AM
There is a maxim in the law: "Expressio unius est exclusio alterius." By saying one thing, you exclude all others. And by describing the United States as a "Christian nation," the speaker strongly implies that it is nothing BUT a Christian nation. I don't like that. Not one bit.

Dick K
August 24th, 2005, 10:29 AM
It, to my mind, is an appropiately applied 'broad-brush' description.Sorry, but I disagree most strongly. The United States is not "a Christian nation." As Judy says, those who describe it as such are telling me it is not my country.

Similarly, France may have a Roman Cathlolic majority and be known as "the eldest daughter of the church," but it is not "a Catholic country"; it is officially a lay state.

Judy G. Russell
August 24th, 2005, 12:51 PM
The United States is not "a Christian nation." As Judy says, those who describe it as such are telling me it is not my country.
And anyone who says -- or even dares to imply by exclusion -- that this is not YOUR country needs to be slapped upside the head. After all your years of service to the United States both in the Air Force and in the civilian governmental ranks, if anyone deserves to feel this IS his country, it's you.

RayB (France)
August 24th, 2005, 02:32 PM
And anyone who says -- or even dares to imply by exclusion -- that this is not YOUR country needs to be slapped upside the head. After all your years of service to the United States both in the Air Force and in the civilian governmental ranks, if anyone deserves to feel this IS his country, it's you.

You people LOVE your semantics and are 'creative readers' par excellence!! I'm impressed no end by the ' imply by exclusion' bit. Let's see . . . . 'I like hot dogs' . . . . conclusion: 'all other food in the world is of no value nor exists.'

'needs to be slapped upside the head.' My, my, however dramatic that may be, I shouldn't think that advisable with me. You ARE most welcome to try.

If I am understanding your 'imply by exclusion' theory, would it follow that my years of service and occupation in the private sector preclude America from being MY country?

Sigh!

Lindsey
August 24th, 2005, 03:05 PM
When a nation is founded upon Christian principles
I would take issue with the notion of the US being founded on Christian principles. This country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Enlightenment#Short_history_of_Enlighte nment_philosophy), not the principles of Christianity. There is no mention of God in the Constitution, let alone of Christianity. As Brooke Allen put it in an article (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050221&s=allen) earlier this year in The Nation, "God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent." She also pointed out that the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli (unanimously ratified by the Senate--only the third unanimous vote of the 339 taken by the Senate up to that point) explicitly states that the United States was "not in any sense" founded on the Christian religion.

You may certainly describe the US as a nation in which the majority of the population describe themselves as Christians. But to call it "a Christian nation" implies, or at least strongly suggests, an official religion, and that is most certainly not the case. It is one of the important things that distinguished the United States from Britian and the other countries of Europe in the 18th century, which indeed were Christian nations--nations the people who were here in 1776 had specifically come to the New World to get away from.

--Lindsey

yankeeharp
August 24th, 2005, 03:08 PM
Roosevelt said "You must understand America is a Protestant nation and you Catholics and Jews are only here by sufferance."

Lindsey
August 24th, 2005, 03:40 PM
Roosevelt said "You must understand America is a Protestant nation and you Catholics and Jews are only here by sufferance."
Franklin Roosevelt was profoundly wrong.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 24th, 2005, 03:44 PM
Let's see . . . . 'I like hot dogs' . . . . conclusion: 'all other food in the world is of no value nor exists.'
Don't be silly. "Like" is not a word of exclusion. "I like A" doesn't even suggest that you don't also like B. "A is B" however certainly implies that A is not C.

Judy G. Russell
August 24th, 2005, 03:48 PM
Amazing, isn't it, how very deeply anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism was (and, perhaps, is) ingrained even here in this purportedly secular nation? Can you imagine if we ever gave in, even a little bit, to the tearing down of the wall between church and state? A thoroughly terrifying prospect!

RayB (France)
August 24th, 2005, 06:39 PM
Don't be silly. "Like" is not a word of exclusion. "I like A" doesn't even suggest that you don't also like B. "A is B" however certainly implies that A is not C.

Just as silly as your statement, IMO. No comment on the rest of my message?

Judy G. Russell
August 24th, 2005, 11:09 PM
No comment on the rest. I didn't, and don't, think it's worthy of comment.

Dick K
August 25th, 2005, 01:05 AM
You people LOVE your semantics and are 'creative readers' par excellence!! I'm impressed no end by the ' imply by exclusion' bit.As well you should be impressed. Look, how does the statement, "The United States is a white nation" grab you? How do you think African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans would feel about it?

If you want to say, "The United States is a predominantly Christian nation," go right ahead, but if you drop the qualifying adverb, you completely change the sense of the statement.

RayB (France)
August 25th, 2005, 05:24 AM
No comment on the rest. I didn't, and don't, think it's worthy of comment.

I didn't think you would want to.

RayB (France)
August 25th, 2005, 05:29 AM
**As well you should be impressed. Look, how does the statement, "The United States is a white nation" grab you? How do you think African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans would feel about it?**

Terrible! However I don't remember seeing any such statement. How pitiful it is that we seem to have to have XXX-Americans and we all can't be just 'Americans'. Somebody wants to discriminate. My wife is a naturalized American citizen but doesn't call herself a British-American.

**If you want to say, "The United States is a predominantly Christian nation," go right ahead, but if you drop the qualifying adverb, you completely change the sense of the statement.**

The misinterpretation was yours and not what was said or in any way inferred.

From my remote outpost, it appears that what I call 'The League of Easily Offended' seems to be growing at an alarming rate. There are even a large number of International Branches, as well. My, how thin-skinned and self-important these people have become.

Judy G. Russell
August 25th, 2005, 10:00 AM
**how does the statement, "The United States is a white nation" grab you? How do you think African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans would feel about it?**
Terrible!
And just what is the difference between "The United States is a Christian nation" (for our many many Jewish, Muslim or non-believer citizens) and "The United States is a white nation" (for our many non-white citizens)?

Peter Creasey
August 26th, 2005, 11:00 AM
Anybody have any comments about the following?

__________________________


Things that make you think a little........
1. There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during the month of
January.....
In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January.
That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn country
of Iraq.
2. When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the
following ..
FDR...led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did.
>From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.
Truman...finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never
attacked us.
>From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,334 per year.
John F. Kennedy. ..started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never
attacked us.
Johnson...turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
>From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.
Clinton...went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never
attacked us.
He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and
did nothing.
Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
3. In the two years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has liberated
two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors
in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a
terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...It took
less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian
compound. That was a 51-day operation.
We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time
than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy
the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after
his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick killing a woman.
Wait, there's more.......................
Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they do for
a living. This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard
Metzenbaum is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech,
but it's also a good example of one man's explanation of why men and women in
the armed services do what they do for a living.
This is a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never served
think of our military.
JOHN GLENN ON THE SENATE FLOOR
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13
Senator Howard Metzenbaum to Senator Glenn: "How can you run for Senate when
you've never held a real job?"
Senator Glenn: "I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. I served
through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire
on 12 different occasions. I was in the space program.
It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was not a
nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the
bank. I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day... to a veteran's
hospital and look those men - with their mangled bodies - in the eye, and tell THEM
they didn't hold a job!
You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the
widows and orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee... and you look
those kids in the eye and tell them that their Dads didn't hold a job.
You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery,
where I have more friends buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch
those waving flags.
You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that those
people didn't have a job? I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on
your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men - SOME
MEN - who held REAL jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose - and a
love of country and a dedication to duty
- that was more important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what
made this country possible.
I HAVE held a job, Howard! What about you?"
For those who don't remember - During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an
attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA.

rlohmann
August 26th, 2005, 12:04 PM
A good eye-opener for those with a limited perspective on the Iraq situation.

Judy G. Russell
August 26th, 2005, 01:11 PM
Anybody have any comments about the following?
It'd be a lot more interesting if it were a lot more accurate.

Let's start with how many "combat-related killings" there were in Iraq in January. Unless I counted wrong, there were more than 100 Americans who died in Iraq in January. Thirty died on a single DAY in January.

Shall I go on?

Peter Creasey
August 26th, 2005, 01:43 PM
>> "COMBAT-RELATED killings" <<
________________

Judy, I'll not defend or promote the thesis, but it did stipulate "COMBAT-RELATED killings".

Does anyone have any comments of a general nature?

Dick K
August 26th, 2005, 02:49 PM
Anybody have any comments about the following? Yeah; I have a few comments. Those allegations are a hodge-podge of facts, half-truths, and downright misstatements. For example,...

FDR...led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. So what? Germany declared war on the United States on December 8, 1941, before the US declared war on Germany.

JOHN GLENN ON THE SENATE FLOOR
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13
Senator Howard Metzenbaum to Senator Glenn: "How can you run for Senate when
you've never held a real job?" For openers, the alleged "dialogue" took place in the opening days of the 1974 senatorial campaign, not in 2004. It was not on the Senate floor, and it was not face-to-face. Metzenbaum did not say that Glenn "never held a real job." Rather, he said (somewhat stupidly, in a campaign speech) that Glenn had never "met a payroll." Glenn's well-crafted rejoinder was also in the context of a campaign speech. And Metzenbaum was never "an attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA."

Just because something has appeared on the Internet does not make it fact.

Judy G. Russell
August 26th, 2005, 05:51 PM
Pete, it's WRONG. That's the comment that's required. As Dick pointed out, the other "facts" alleged are also wrong. Urban legends are urban legends no matter whose ox they gore.

Peter Creasey
August 27th, 2005, 08:38 PM
>> I repeat: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Let's get over that nonsense <<

Saturday, Aug. 27, 2005 5:45 p.m. EDT

New 9/11 Probe Could Spotlight Iraq Link

Congressional hearings coming this fall into revelations by the military intelligence group Able Danger could spotlight other evidence overlooked by the 9/11 Commission: including a March 2001 report suggesting that Osama bin Laden was working with Iraqi intelligence operatives in Germany at a time when Mohamed Atta and two other 9/11 hijack team leaders were living in Hamburg.

On March 16, 2001, the Paris-based newspaper Al Watan al Arabi reported:


"Two Iraqis were arrested in Germany, charged with spying for Baghdad. The arrests came in the wake of reports that Iraq was reorganizing the external branches of its intelligence service and that it had drawn up a plan to strike at US interests around the world through a network of alliances with extremist fundamentalist parties."

Al Watan said that German intelligence was investigating "serious indications of cooperation between Iraq and bin Ladin.* The matter was considered so important that a special team of CIA and FBI agents was sent to Germany to interrogate the two Iraqi spies."

The pre-9/11 Al Watan report continued:

"German authorities were surprised by the arrest of the two Iraqi agents and the discovery of Iraqi intelligence activities in several German cities. German authorities, acting on CIA recommendations, had been focused on monitoring the activities of Islamic groups linked to bin Ladin."

A timeline established by U.S. intelligence shows that three out of four 9/11 hijack team leaders, Mr. Atta, Marwan al Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, lived in Hamburg from Nov. 1998 thru Feb. 2001.

The Weekly Standard, which covered the Al Watan report this week in a story by Captain's Quarter's blogger Ed Morrissey noted:

"Despite this contemporaneous report about the nature of the German arrests and the involvement of American counterintelligence officials in the investigation, not a word of the affair appears in the 9/11 Commission's final report."

This fall's hearings will undoubtedly begin with questions about why both the 9/11 Commission and the Clinton administration dismissed Able Danger's stunning identification of Mohamed Atta inside the U.S.

But any congressional investigation that doesn't explore other overlooked bombshells - including indications of possible Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks - will leave even more important questions unanswered.

Judy G. Russell
August 27th, 2005, 10:43 PM
R-i-i-g-h-t. And (quoting CNN) "In a statement issued August 12, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chairman and vice-chairman of the 9/11 commission, did not dispute that a program called Able Danger existed and that the commission had investigated it.

But, they said, the covert program "did not turn out to be historically significant, set against the larger context of U.S. policy and intelligence efforts that involved [Osama] bin Laden and al Qaeda."

Which is bureaucratese for "ain't much there, folks."

Tom Kean, by the way, is the thoroughly independent former Republican Governor of NJ who would not be averse whatsoever to calling the shots as they are.

Lindsey
August 28th, 2005, 06:43 PM
It'd be a lot more interesting if it were a lot more accurate.
Thank you--my thoughts exactly. That's the way it always is with these sorts of pieces. They sound really convincing until you take a closer look at the assertions and find that they don't stand up to scrutiny. It's really easy to make a convincing argument if you're not constrained by the truth.

--Lindsey

Lindsey
August 28th, 2005, 07:19 PM
Let's start with how many "combat-related killings" there were in Iraq in January. Unless I counted wrong, there were more than 100 Americans who died in Iraq in January. Thirty died on a single DAY in January.
And that, of course, does not count Iraqi deaths--and Iraqis are the main target (or perhaps just the easiest one) of the insurgency at this point. It also does not count other casualties besides deaths, and the ratio of serious wounds to deaths among coalition soldiers in this conflict is higher than in previous wars because (rather ironically) of advances in battlefield medicine. Soldiers are surviving wounds that would have been fatal ten years ago, though often in a horribly damaged condition.

There is an interesting web site here (http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx) which attempts to quantify casualties in Iraq. I don't know how accurate it is, but for that matter, it's not easy to know just how accurate the Pentagon's figures are, either. According to those figures, in January 2005, there were:


127 coalition military fatalities (107 US, 10 UK, 10 other)
at least 7 contractor fatalities
109 fatalities among Iraqi police and military (as well as the site's compilers could determine)
Between 355 and 402 violent deaths (excluding those from accidents) reported at the Baghdad city morgue, according to The Iraq Body Count (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/).


--Lindsey

Lindsey
August 28th, 2005, 07:37 PM
He [Clinton] was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing.
This one has been debunked, too. See:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200406220008
http://mediamatters.org/items/200407230005
http://www.44thad.org/opinion/DontBlameClinton.htm

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 28th, 2005, 09:36 PM
It's really easy to make a convincing argument if you're not constrained by the truth.
That as my SIL would say is a True Fact.

Lindsey
August 28th, 2005, 10:23 PM
There was an interesting review in the August 22 issue of The New Yorker on the subject of bullshit, and how it is adversely affecting substantive discussion in contemporary society. Bullshitters were distinguished from garden-variety liars in being completely unconcerned about the truth or falsity of what they say. Liars are concerned with truth, albeit in a negative way, in that they are concerned with concealing or denying the truth. To the bullshitter, truth is an irrelevance. And the assertion of the author of the book that was being reviewed (and I don't have it in front of me now, so I'm afraid I can't give specifics at the moment) was that in the long run, bullshitters did more harm to the concept of truth than liars.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
August 28th, 2005, 11:31 PM
Sigh... it isn't at all clear where the saying originated, but there is a maxim: "In war, truth is the first casualty."

Lindsey
August 28th, 2005, 11:55 PM
Sigh... it isn't at all clear where the saying originated, but there is a maxim: "In war, truth is the first casualty."
I think it might be more accurate to say "In politics, truth is the first casualty." :(

Of course, BS isn't restricted even to politics. Two examples that were cited in that review were advertising some academic treatises.

--Lindsey

RayB (France)
August 29th, 2005, 03:16 AM
Sigh... it isn't at all clear where the saying originated, but there is a maxim: "In war, truth is the first casualty."

"Only ' I ', and those who agree with me, know the REAL truth! ' I ' have found it easier to criticize 'your' truths than to share mine because you don't care anyway." - R. Bell

Isn't that about the way it works?

Judy G. Russell
August 29th, 2005, 10:16 AM
I think "politics" and "truth" may be fundamentally antithetical.

Judy G. Russell
August 29th, 2005, 10:16 AM
"Only ' I ', and those who agree with me, know the REAL truth! ' I ' have found it easier to criticize 'your' truths than to share mine because you don't care anyway." - R. Bell

Isn't that about the way it works?
All too often, unfortunately. In too many endeavors these days.