When I referred to the current Iraq situation as "the new Vietnam," that seemed to spur a discussion as to how it couldn't possibly be, because the casualty numbers don't match up. This is, of course, ridiculous. Vietnam didn't have 50,000 dead in the first few months. These things take time. But the point is, comparing it to Vietnam has nothing to do with the total number dead. It has to do with the fact that the military is sent into a situation for an indefinite period of time with only the vaguest of ideas of what they're supposed to be doing there or how they're supposed to go about it.
From the get-go, the Administration has been hazy on what was to happen after Saddam was deposed. The idea of the natives shooting at us for an extended period of time was never addressed. When one military advisor stated that several hundred thousands troops would be required indefinitely to maintain order, the upper echelon shouted the notion down. Except that's exactly where we are.
And when I said Saddam is fine, thanks, I thought the meaning was clear: He's alive. And he's planning. And he's waiting. And bin Laden still isn't caught (remember "dead or alive?" Remember that promise?) And soldiers are being picked off. And there's no end in sight.
We should never have gone in without, at the very least, a clear idea of a long term plan. We didn't. And now we're stuck.
And all the responses that are essentially name calling aren't doing diddly to change that.
PAD
Posted by Peter David at July 18, 2003 12:12 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingV is for victory that won't come
I is for bad intelligence
E is for emotion of mourning
T is for terrorism link not proven
N is for the naivte of the admin.
A is for administration run amok
M is for the many men and women who have and will continue to die
PAD wrote:
"And all the responses that are essentially name calling aren't doing diddly to change that."
Thank you, PAD, for addressing this. I read through the other thread and was astounded by the sheer number infantile insults! You were called a "fool", a "little man", and some other mundane nasties that I can't recall. I find it interesting that some of those who so vehemently disagree with your opinion are not only history-blind and politically narrow-minded but also seem so woefully incapable of delivering an articulate counter-opinion without the childish name-calling. Maybe if they spent a little less time cheerleading their own cleverness, they could debate on a level higher than that found on an elementary school playground.
mld
Instead trying to look like a "I know it all-I'm always right", why don't you go back to work and write some good comics for a change.
Well, PAD does write good, often excellent comics and novels. I wish he'd stick to that, instead of un-informed political commentary.
The most amazing thing was I found myself in a similar conversation earlier tonight. Sadly, we are completely stuck in the situation that we are in now. We created the situation that exists now. We disposed the previous government (and whatever side of the arguement that you stand on, there's no denying it), and now it is our responsibility and duty to try to keep the innocent people of Iraq, those that were just trying to live as best they could in the circumstances, safe from the anarchy that has resulted. It is a very helpless feeling, a different helplessness that existed the day of the September 11 attacks, but helpless none the less. I wish, hope, and pray to God above that the soldiers that we sent over there could come home, but that would condemn others who can't protect themselves. I would never be as callous as to scream to those people,
"well, we've taken care of the big guy, good luck on the rest, try not to put another guy like him in power. And don't worry about the pillagers, I"m sure that they will go away once they've got all the good stuff."
So what are we left with? A lack of options and a situations we wish didn't exist, but there it is none the less. We sit here and try to think about what can be done, and arrive at nothing substantial. In the end we are feeling helpless.
I don't know if I"m going to get raked across the coals for saying that. I hope not. I"m not attacking any decisions by anyone, and I surely wasn't trying to be political. It's just been something that has been on my mind for a little bit, and was curious if anyone else maybe felt the same?
"Well, PAD does write good, often excellent comics and novels. I wish he'd stick to that, instead of un-informed political commentary." - Rob Thorton
Since when in America do you have to be "informed" to state an opinion? I've seen plenty of opinions from you. Shall we assume you are one of the privileged "in the know"?
It's cool if you don't agree with PAD. There have been plenty of times when I haven't agreed with him. But he has every right to state his opinion, and as Americans it is our JOB to question the motivations and actions of our leadership. If we don't, how are we any better off than the Iraqis we just "liberated"?
mld
PAD,
I nominate Londo (not Mollari, but the poster from the prior thread) as official Opposition view for www.peterdavid.net.
He's the only conservative I've seen on this board who discusses cases on a point-by-point basis, who thinks about how terms are defined and what precedents exist.
You ought to make some sort of nice fuss over him for that.
I just think it's ridiculous the amount of crap PAD takes for posting his opinion on his own message board.
Am I really reading all of this correctly? Is Peter David against the war in Iraq? Wow! People tell me that I shouldn't mix my political views with how I spend my money but I must admit that this pushes my buttons a bit. Americans have died and continue to die for our country as well as the freedom that is coming to the Iraqi people. How can any of you be against this? We have a duty and obligation to use the resources given to us by God to do good in the world and that includes liberation. Some of you may ask why Iraq and not North Korea or China. That is a valid question and has an answer and NO it is not oil! North Korea and China need to be resolved by diplomacy unless they get real aggressive. Sadaam Hussein has proven to be a literal wacko and needed to be taken out before he directly or indirectly strikes us or any other nation especially Israel. He has attacked his neighbors before and there is no doubt that he was pursuing more and already had weapons of mass destruction. Many of you have a problem with Israel and side with the Palestinians. That is absurd and is worse than your liberal position on Iraq. Hopefully some of you will come around to the right side of history and do some research on your own rather that being spoon-fed what the media tells you. I encourage you to take the responsibility to search out the truths out there that relate to current events and politics. Yes, even you Peter David unless I am way off base and you are a supporter of this war. If I am mistaken, then you have my deepest apologies. However, I will not recant my postions and look forward to the sweeping wins my party will enjoy come 2004. God Bless everyone reading this and may God continue to bless America and bring lasting freedom to the good people of Iraq.
Richard
Name callers are jerks.
Actually, Peter is writing good comics and apparently quite informed. If you have a different perspective, shouting out "un-informed" really doesn't tell us much, does it?
Fair being fair, I'd like to also commend R. E. Contreras for actually giving a _detailed_ and _well-intentioned_ opposing opinion.
I don't agree with his opinion myself, but I'll let someone else pick at it. I'm in a weird mood tonight, I feel like being nice to people who comport themselves well.
"Name callers are jerks."
Good job at proving your point by doing some name calling of your own.
Good job at proving your point by doing some name calling of your own.
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who just doesn't get it.
Richard, that was an extremely well-written comment.
I just think it's ridiculous the amount of crap PAD takes for posting his opinion on his own message board.
Brian, i've come to the conclusion that you're right. All i'm doing listening to PAD here is aggravating myself. Instead, I intend to delete his website from my favorites list, and just wait for the books to come out for me to enjoy reading. I hope the next two (three?) New Frontier books will be in the continuing vein of what i've come to appreciate and not move into the political opinions he espouses here - I can't stand the politics, but I love the writing. Sayonara, y'all.
Kinda funny that noone seems to be tackling the points PAD raises - when are we done? What, beyond tossing Saddam out and getting the oil resources "harnessed for the good of the Iraqi people", is the plan here?
We don't have one, other than "stay until it settles down", however long it takes. Winning the war and securing the peace aren't identical. I hope we learn that lesson with minimal loss of life.
I hope you don't mind, but just could not resist, as there are gaps of argumentation and implied foundational theses (i.e., God exists, therefore such and such follows) that should not stand as givens.
I respect the opinions written above, even if diametrically opposed to mine, and greatly appreciate the postings that attempt to refute the message, rather than the messenger.
Cannot resist just this bit though:
(quote]Americans have died and continue to die for our country as well as the freedom that is coming to the Iraqi people. How can any of you be against this? We have a duty and obligation to use the resources given to us by God to do good in the world and that includes liberation.[unquote]
Exact same argument, with appropriate replacement verbiage, could have been made by Al-Qaeda, to wit,
"(The faithful) have died and continue to die for our countries as well as the reward that is coming to the Muslim peoples. How can any of you be against this? We have a duty and obligation to use the resources given to us by God to do good in the world and that includes liberation (from the infidels)."
Note, please, that what is immediately above is NOT my opinion, and also not one I support or espouse - just attempting in my own clumsy way to point out that the faith-based initiative argument can be played equally plausibly to audiences on all sides. I certainly in no way mean to imply in any way, manner, shape or form that all Muslims should be lumped into one camp, just as all Americans cannot be lumped into one heterogeneous group. IMHO, blind, unquestioning allegiance to anything, be it a cause, a political party, a flavor of ice cream or whatever is always a call for skepticism.
As for comparing current day Iraq situation to Vietnam - apples and oranges. Different types of warfare, types of armaments, and types of troops preclude 'line by line' comparisons, just for a prelude.
Playing the numbers game is, simply, foolish. But for those who insist otherwise, it can be played the other way around:
# directly killed by Nixon's lying: zero
# directly killed by Clinton's lying: zero
# directly killed by Bush & Co. lying: scores of U.S. and 'coalition' troops; thousands of Iraqi troops plus civilians.
Hussein was/is a brutal, dastardly, irredemable tyrant, but remains one among many such. If that is the primary rationale for the carnage, for the flouting of internationally-accepted norms and for whatever else has gone on lately, then this is no longer a planet I recognize. The ends do not justify any means; might and right are not equivalent, interchangeable values.
I can't stand the politics, but I love the writing. Sayonara, y'all.
Rob, I applaud the fact that you can actually seperate the man (and his politics) from his writing. Can't say I agree with not coming to his site at all because of a few threads every so often that you disagree with, but I can see where you're coming from.
You know, it's odd. If I say I was opposed to Bush's war, people just assume I didn't want Saddam to be taken out. That's not it at all. I wanted Saddam to go down, and go down hard and in as much pain as he put he people through, but I wanted it done right. You can't tell me that the race to Baghdad against the wishes of virtually the entire world, based on claims of dubious nature, was the right way to finish off that tyrant.
So, as PAD says, we're stuck. Our soldiers are sitting in sweltering heat with no good direction, being told "you're going home in a month... oops, no, maybe six months... oops, no, you're staying for a year unless we need you for longer!" Even the best soldier is going to start cracking under repeated lies from his/her "superior" officers.
The goal was admirable, I suppose, but the execution so far has been lousy. Yeah, people in Iraq can speak their minds... to complain about the lack of water, electricity, security and to realize that Saddam's thugs are still there, waiting for the Americans to get tired and pull out. Or worse yet, they watch Saddam's thugs convincing people that the Americans never intend to leave, and that we're an imperial power out to control their oil.
I'm not opposed to taking out Saddam. I'm opposed to the way we sort of took out his power. I hope to God that something good comes of this, but every day another US soldier dies, and every day I wonder if our leaders even have a clue how to get Iraq back on its feet so we can pull most of our guys out.
So go ahead and call me names, but I'm with PAD on this one. To be honest, I'm surprised that anyone who has actually thought the whole thing through can disagree. Oh well.
I can understand both Peter David and Richard Contreras. I must say that I supported the war against Iraq. I also admit --because it's obvious-- that the US army doesn't know how to handle the situation now. What I think is most important for the average American citizen who doesn't want to get involved in such situations in the future, is to understand how Iraq got to the point where troops from other countries had to go in to protect civilization. First, understanding the situation requires acceptance of paradox. George Senior was once head of the CIA, I believe. The CIA and State Department had long supported Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Ba`ath party, who were mass murderers way back. Yet, few opinion makers in the USA or Britain said anything against them. When Israel took out Saddam's nuclear reactor in 1981 in a pinpoint operation, Israel was condemned by the US and foreign ministries around the world, eventhough, from a legal standpoint, Israel and Iraq had been in a state of war since 1948. When Iraq started a war against Iran in 1981, little complaint was heard in the US. The reaction was rather sympathetic in the US govt. George Senior was VP at that time. Maybe somebody could check up on what Senior was saying about Iraq and Saddam Hussein in those days. Now, it seems that there might have been no need to fight a war with Iraq if the CIA and State Dept had not been supporting Saddam, overlooking his mass murders of Kurds, Assyrians, etc., his Nazi-like incitement and indoctrination of his population against Israel and Jews, his general cruelty to his fellow Iraqis, etc. This means that the American people can't get out of this cycle of wars and terrorism without restraining the CIA and State Dept, who help create the need for civilization to defend itself against the Saddams. And everyone knows of course that Ben Laden worked closely with the CIA for years. As to Saudi Arabia, it has been a pet in Washington for fifty years!!! It has also supplied funds to PLO and Hamas for many years. Only lately has the issue of Saudi money for Hamas become an issue (the Saudis stopped funding Arafat directly after he sided with Saddam over Kuwait, which the Saudis perceived as a threat). Now, if you want to understand Washington policy toward Saudi Arabia over the years, you need to know how the Foreign Tax Credit law was used to subsidize Saudi Arabia, making it the largest single recipient of US foreign aid since 1950 [albeit the money was disguised as "oil income tax" payments to the Saudi govt., and thereby gave the US oil companies, ARAMCO, etc., a tax credit against their US corporate income tax]. So the Saudis grew superrich on the tax payments that were NOT made to the US treasury by the US oil firms [for info on the Foreign Tax Credit as applied to oil, see John Blair, The Control of Oil]. So on one hand, George Junior is in favor of Israel's security, opposes terrorism, etc. On the other, his Saudi friends finance Hamas, etc. Think of the whole situation as ridden with paradox.
For the people who think the "new Vietnam" label is wrong because the casualty rate is not nearly so high...
What is an acceptable amount of casualties?
Hmm...
# directly killed by Nixon's lying: zero
Plenty died in Vietnam due to Nixon's disseminations. How about "We are not in Cambodia?"
# directly killed by Clinton's lying: zero
"That isn't an aspirin factory we just bombed, it's a weapons factory."
# directly killed by Bush & Co. lying: scores of U.S.
While nothing he's said has proven to yet be a lie, I don't think that the situation is unique to GWB. Many presidents have told either outright lies, or at least, jumped to incorrect conclusions, that caused plenty of deaths.
PAD: We should never have gone in without, at the very least, a clear idea of a long term plan. We didn't. And now we're stuck.
I couldn't agree with this more. It's the Steven Covey "Begin with the end in mind" thing. While again, I don't think this is a failing unique to GWB (Two presidents presided over Vietnam, Mogadishu was little better as was Korea...) it certainly is a failing.
When one military advisor stated that several hundred thousands troops would be required indefinitely to maintain order, the upper echelon shouted the notion down. Except that's exactly where we are.
Well, as Rumsfeld said, if you define "several hundred thousand" as 300,000 or more, we're not there, and probably will never be there, since that would more than double the number of troops on the ground. Hopefully, the energy is being spent on how to get US Soldiers out of there, and not on bringing more in. Whether the soldiers are replaced with coalition troops or Iraqi nationals holds little interest to me, as long as we figure out a solution. It really hasn't been that long since the conflict ended, so I don't think that it's "taking too long" but I would indeed like to know that there is a plan...
Am I really reading all of this correctly? Is Peter David against the war in Iraq? Wow! People tell me that I shouldn't mix my political views with how I spend my money but I must admit that this pushes my buttons a bit. Americans have died and continue to die for our country as well as the freedom that is coming to the Iraqi people. How can any of you be against this?
Did you really just ask how people can be against American soldiers dying?
We have a duty and obligation to use the resources given to us by God to do good in the world and that includes liberation.
Cool....nation building
Some of you may ask why Iraq and not North Korea or China. That is a valid question and has an answer and NO it is not oil! North Korea and China need to be resolved by diplomacy unless they get real aggressive. Sadaam Hussein has proven to be a literal wacko and needed to be taken out before he directly or indirectly strikes us or any other nation especially Israel.
Are you saying the North Korean and Chinese leaders are stable, low-key guys?
He has attacked his neighbors before and there is no doubt that he was pursuing more and already had weapons of mass destruction.
Where are they? Colin Powell knew where they were before the war? Who hid them and where, and how did we lose track?
Many of you have a problem with Israel and side with the Palestinians. That is absurd and is worse than your liberal position on Iraq. Hopefully some of you will come around to the right side of history and do some research on your own rather that being spoon-fed what the media tells you. I encourage you to take the responsibility to search out the truths out there that relate to current events and politics.
Meanwhile, you fail to cite any of the reading you've done.
Yes, even you Peter David unless I am way off base and you are a supporter of this war. If I am mistaken, then you have my deepest apologies. However, I will not recant my postions and look forward to the sweeping wins my party will enjoy come 2004. God Bless everyone reading this and may God continue to bless America and bring lasting freedom to the good people of Iraq.
Richard
Did I just respond to a great big parody?
To quote Joss Whedon via 'Rupert Giles':
Now our fight is done, and we kind of won, so we sing our victory cheer,
But tell me, where do we go from here?
I know this won't be popular, but I believe that God puts our leaders in place (yes, even Clinton; even Saddam). I believe that as the leaders do the best they can that a grand plan is carried out to change the hearts of men, the course of nations, and the fate of the world.
I think what's going on in Iraq and Afganistan is horrible. I also believe it is horribly necessary.
Yes, the Middle East is a powder keg. Yes, I can see if you don't believe in God then this looks like the worst of blunderings in a china shop. I believe, however, that what is happening is necessary for the good the majority, not to mention the Iraqis.
Flame away. :)
I usually avoid political discussions because they quite often do end up becoming exercises in name calling, but what the hell, here goes.
Not living in the US (citizen yes, resident no) provides a slightly different perspective on all of this. Did Saddam need to be taken out? Definitely. Did Bush actually prove his case for HIS reasoning to do so at this time? No. I've seen no proof of weapons of mass destruction. I haven't even seen proof of Saddam's connection to 9/11 (not that I particularly doubt it), which was Dubya's primary argument. Personally, I like to have clear proof before I kill large numbers of people (maybe that's just me).
Basically, Bush is saying "Trust me, I'm telling the truth", and I haven't blindly trusted a politician since JFK (and I was only 6 then).
Our purpose is to establish a democratic system of government in the heart of the Arab world. To take a country that had been both feared and hated by its neighbors and plant the seeds of democracy in their backyard. I think that's been pretty clear from the beginning. Did some of you think we were there to recruit soccer players or obtain land for Speilberg to film Indy IV?
We're establishing democracy in the the middle east. Is it easy? No. It's hard. Damn hard. And as each day goes by, it's coming to light that the sixteen words were accurate(at least if you don't conveniently alter the meaning of those words). And while I think it wasn't a good idea to include those sixteen words in the speech, he didn't lie.
Why do you think that anything we could set out to do post war would be easy? That seems to be the point. Things are tough so the administration had no plan. Bullshit. Am I happy that we have guys getting killed? Hell, no. But I try to retain some perspective about what it is we are trying to do and what we face. This is dirty business, but the alternative is to allow the region to become even more unstable and a larger threat.
Frank Cooper wrote: Sadaam Hussein has proven to be a literal wacko
Is it you contention that Saddam is more wacko than Kim Jon Il? You know the guy who spent millions of dollars to film a Korean version of Godzilla, while his people were starving.
" I wish he'd stick to that, instead of un-informed political commentary."
Not that I agree with the bit about "un-informed", but I will point out that, even if I did believe PAD was talking through his hat (I don't), his comments on such matters DO bring out more replies and from more people than just about anything else, thus giving the [by your standards] 'informed' ones a chance to have their say and enlighten the rest of us. How can this be a bad thing?
It's interesting to note that even though some people villify him, PAD doesn't seem inclined to censor those speaking out against him, or whose ideologies differ from his. I wonder if those people would be as likely to return the favour on their sites - those who have them anyway.
Is this the same Vietnam that was predicted one week into the war? Two weeks before Baghdad fell?
North Vietnam had the backing of China and the Soviet Union. We couldn't even invade North Vietnam because of the geopolitics. The ones fighting in Iraq have nothing like that. They don't even have the support of many Iraqis: http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/07/week_3/16_poll.html
//We should never have gone in without, at the very least, a clear idea of a long term plan. //
Well, there was a reason why the UN was against this war. Just as there was a reason the Bush administration was eager, almost desperate to go to Iraque, even if it meant warping and fabricating information, even if it meant alienating a major part of Europe and, of course, the Middle Eastern nations.
The US will now have cheap oil until approx. 2040, a major military and strategic presence in the Near East, the dollar is stil the No. 1 (oil) currency, the EU have fallen out over the question of being pro or contra the war, thus Europe has lost weight as a political and economic counterweight to the US, no one seems to care about the ecological, social and economical inner problems in the USA these days, Bushs re-electon, which wasn't thta much of a given before 911 is a rather sure bet, Halliburton et al are making lots of money... and so on and so on. Bush has reached a lot of strategic and political goals, and I'd guess it's fair to say that some very personal and some rather selfish motives were served as well.
That, of course doesn't mean (and never meant) that the terrorism will ebb (on the contrary, the Iraq war effort is, if anything, fuel on the fire of global terror), that the population of Iraq will be that much better off in the long term, that democracy and peace will prevail in the Middle East. All that MIGHT happen (and might also have happend if we went the Hans Blix route of getting rid of Saddam peacefully) but we also might get a massive kind of Belfast Situation, a rise in Anti-Western-Terror, and absurdly, an alliance of the more fundamentalist and the more secular Islam leaders (because lets face it, Saddamm never had anything to do with Bin Laden, they are at two very different ends of the political and religious spectrum... only now we forced them and their supporters together.) It might lead to more fear, and thus more rigid 1984-style inner policing in Europe and the US, with legislative cutting deeper and deeper into our democratic freedom, as if such state supervision ever actually could effectively fight terror as long as the terrorists are willing to die for their cause and fight to individually and guerille-style to ever get caught by a bureaucratic and technocratic large system. (If THAT worked, Israel would be the safest land in the world, but somehow it isn't...)
So... the short-term egocentric political goals of the Bush administration were fully realized, but the long-term global political and social problems weren't solced but rather actively escalated.
There's a lot of unanswered questions about 911 and about both the Afghanistan and the Iraq war... and one of those questions should be WHAT excactly have your soldiers died for in Iraq?
The rationale behind the Iraq invasion seems to have been that of The Bad Guy: Only Hussein and his followes hate us, the rest of the Iraquis are innocents crying out for U.S. help, and once we get rid of Hussein the rest of the country will love and embrace us.
Only it doesn't work like that. Many Iraquis hated us, even before we dropped bombs all over their country, for our politics, or our liberalism, or our wealth, or our secularism. While news crews showed lots of Iraquis cheering our arrival, they haven't been showing the natives burning American flags and chanting that we must go. And they've started a guerilla war that's killing American soldiers on almost a daily basis. (The Bush administration has also tried to keep up The Bad Guy theory by blaming Hussein for the guerilla attacks. Even if this is true, how is this reassuring? We threw everything we had at him, and he's still doing a lot of damage to us?)
And while I'm glad about the pleas against name-calling, I wish I'd stop seeing people using God as the reason we're right. Used improperly, religion can be the ultimate selfish validation for what we want: No matter how much it flies in the face of reason, logic, or decency, God wants it so it must be right. This sort of thinking empowers both the terrorism we fight and the nation-building we're in now. (It also led to Pat Robertson's hysterical fatwah against "three Supreme Court" judges.)
My grandfather is an old-fashioned traditionalist who voted for Bush, and bought into everything he said about the threat Iraq posed and the necessity of the war.
Yesterday he said to me that it now seemed to him that the Bush administration has no plan for dealing with post-war Iraq, and that we are in a very bad situation with no clear way out.
That was the moment I realized this was no longer a partisan issue, and this thing was truly off the rails.
Of course, it will take some longer to come to that conclusion. It always does.
Check out Charles Krauthammer's column in today's Washington Post for a convincing (at least to me) rationale for attacking Iraq.
Re: God put the leaders in position.
I'm sorry. I just don't see this. What seems to be said is that God has put Saddam Hussein in place as a ruler in order that we can have someone to liberate? That what's gone on under the reign of Saddam has been part of God's plan for the world?
Wow...
This isn't a flame. This is complete, full on, actual confusion.
If this is true, then it reduces the lives of thousands of Iraqi citizens that died under Hussein to little more than bit players in the grand scheme of things.
If I did believe in God, I'd hate to think he'd create people just to die in such bit parts to give other people something to do.
I really am confused by such points.
I partially agree with David E.C., leave all the "God" crap out of it!
The hijackers who flew planes into the WTC and the Pentagon thought they were serving their "god", I guess since "god" was on their sides, they were right to do so?
Any claim that the non-existant "God" is on your side shows a severe mental illness and detatchment from reality.
Even similar religions like the different Christian factions (catholics, lutherans, baptists, methodist, etc) can't agree on what "God" wants/says, so how can we trust the sanity of anyone claiming that the kind, loving New Testament God that sacrificed his own son supports going to war and killing people?
Too many people who claim to be "doing god's work" seem to pick and choose what they want to use from god's word while ignoring the parts that don't match them.
World would be better of if everyone were atheists...
While nothing he's said has proven to yet be a lie, I don't think that the situation is unique to GWB. Many presidents have told either outright lies, or at least, jumped to incorrect conclusions, that caused plenty of deaths.
First: Bush has lied--although whether it was truly his fault or not is still up for debate. Remember, in his State of Union address, he told us that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Africa. So he has lied.
Second: So just because other Presidents have purportedly lied and caused many deaths, that suddenly makes it okay for Bush to do so?
Josh said:"Remember, in his State of Union address, he told us that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Africa. So he has lied."
Except he didn't say that. He said that British Intelligence has learned that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Africa, something Tony Blair said yesterday that he still believes to be true. Sure, it's a techincality, but Bush's statements were probably literally true.
PAD, while I appreciate your right to your opinion I would like to say I vehemently disagree with you. However I do enjoy your books and will most certainly continue reading them so long as they entertain me.
partially agree with David E.C., leave all the "God" crap out of it!
blah blah blah...
I understand your point, but I consider that a fairly unattractive way to present your opinion.
If you cannot present your opinion in a logical, non-offensive way, then you are no better than the people who write books called "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" and "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism."
I don't think people understand that your opinion is given credence when you go out of your way to present an intelligent opinion. Calling something "God Crap" is sort of lighting gasoline underneath an oil well.
Mind you, I agree with you on the fact that too many atrocities have been done in the name of God, YHWH, Allah and others. But... as most people understand, being inflammatory helps nothing.
At All.
Travis
Except he didn't say that. He said that British Intelligence has learned that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Africa, something Tony Blair said yesterday that he still believes to be true. Sure, it's a techincality, but Bush's statements were probably literally true.
Doesn't that all depend on what your definition of "is" is?
Another thing that irks me: People who disagree with someone's position calling them "uninformed." If anything, PAD has shown that he has read and researched a lot about this issue. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make them any less informed than you are. People can look at the same facts and draw different conclusions. They can even disagree on politics with you and be good people.
I'm really getting sick of this attitude where people on both sides of the issue can't just say, "well, I disagree with you on that." They have demonize and call people ignorant or stupid or even evil (unpatriotic, anti-God, insert whatever sinister label you like best).
Den said, "Doesn't that all depend on what your definition of "is" is?"
I assume you're being facetious, which I can appreciate. However, I think in light of our intelligence failings that this line is very important. That in the SOTU, POTUS would rely upon, as well as cite, intelligence from a foriegn nation, is incredible. If our own stuff is wrong, we'll we can only blame ourselves, but if we rely one someone else's work, and it's wrong, then whoa, that's pretty bad. Kind of like copying Susie's paper and getting a D-.
If this information turns out to be exactly wrong, then I think it makes GWB, or whomever runs our intelligence, a terrible researcher, intelligence agent, and non-dilligent. It's nonfeasence, instead of malfeasence, which I think is different enough to make a distinction.
In my opinion, nonfeasence is worse. No one can really fault a guy who is doing his best, and fails. But to not even do the work yourself, and make a huge bet on it is like reading Henry Blodgett's stock opinions, and putting the Social Security money on it.
So, there you go. I think the President (or the administration, however you wish to put it) is guilty of nonfeasance, which in my mind, is more damnable than being wrong.
However, I don't think that it was a lie.
...and may God continue to bless America...
This cracks me up. 9/11, soldiers killed and injured every day. Yeah, God just loves America.
To prove this is a war that is more about semantics than semtex, one should observe that the British governemnt has admitted that the source for various *important* pieces of information may have been misleading, but that no-one was misled.
The fact is I'm hearing lots of questions and opinions, but very few facts. The sound most deafening is the one of the buck being passed in the vain hope that when the music stops it'll be in some patsy's hands.
John
I assume you're being facetious, which I can appreciate.
Of course.
However, I think in light of our intelligence failings that this line is very important. That in the SOTU, POTUS would rely upon, as well as cite, intelligence from a foriegn nation, is incredible. If our own stuff is wrong, we'll we can only blame ourselves, but if we rely one someone else's work, and it's wrong, then whoa, that's pretty bad. Kind of like copying Susie's paper and getting a D-.
The thing is, we sent one of our CIA to Niger to check the story out. He reported back to Tenet that it was bogus, but the reference still found its way into the State of the Union address.
Whether Bush was personally willful saying something that wasn't true or if Cheney or someone below him stopped the report from reaching Bush, it's still a lie because the head of this administration said something that the administration knew or should have known was untrue.
Mitch said
I nominate Londo (not Mollari, but the poster from the prior thread) as official Opposition view for www.peterdavid.net.
He's the only conservative I've seen on this board who discusses cases on a point-by-point basis, who thinks about how terms are defined and what precedents exist.
You ought to make some sort of nice fuss over him for that.
I also have to make a nice fuss over Londo. He and I shared a nice little debate over the relative harm done by dishonest presidents and not only did it not degenerate into a flame-fest, it ended quite amicably with us mutually understanding yet respectfully disagreeing with each other's point of view.
I wish all debates on this board could go so smoothly.
I would say that the war against drugs has more similarities to vietnam then the situation in iraq.
I'm not saying your wrong, i'm saying that you are jumping in way to early, give it at least a year before you make these kind of accusations, that make you seem irrational and one sided.
Travis, I don't really care whether people like how I refer to the religious groups and their beliefs.
I consider religion to be a way for people to avoid responsibility for themselves and their lives.
"Oh, it was god's will..."
"It's all part of god's plan..."
"god has his reasons..."
Yeah, children being raped and killed, war, famine and disease are such a great plan...
Den said:"The thing is, we sent one of our CIA to Niger to check the story out."
See again, here's where I get to nonfeasance. We didn't send CIA, we didn't even send an operative, we sent, wait for it, Retired Ambassador to Gabon, Joseph C. Wilson IV. We sent a state department diplomat, whose report (you can read it in the NY Times, if you're willing to pay) basically said, "I had tea with them, and they told me that it didn't happen."
Now, he might turn out to be 100% right, but if all he's going to do is ask nicely, you can be sure that Niger would respond with a firm "No way." If they didn't meet with Saddam, then saying No would end the discussion. If they did, they'd certainly want to hide it, no? And deny, deny, deny.
I think that the report from Niger was specious. However, I think it was intentionally that way, otherwise, why didn't we actually send in the CIA (or Agent Bristow?) I think that someone didn't want to know for sure, so that they could ignore contrary evidence.
Londo
See again, here's where I get to nonfeasance. We didn't send CIA, we didn't even send an operative, we sent, wait for it, Retired Ambassador to Gabon, Joseph C. Wilson IV. We sent a state department diplomat, whose report (you can read it in the NY Times, if you're willing to pay) basically said, "I had tea with them, and they told me that it didn't happen."
The fact is, we sent someone to verify it and he couldn't. Tenet warned against using it because it came from one single unverified source and Bush used it anyway. It's a lie. To be honest, all this effort to make it look like just a goof is starting to sound downright Clintonian.
And you don't have to pay to view the NY Times online.
Den: "Tenet warned against using it because it came from one single unverified source and Bush used it anyway. It's a lie."
Again, I'll agree to disagree with you if you like, but I think it's worse than a lie, but not a lie. I think it's a failure to thoroughly do the job that we pay there (hundreds?) of tax dollars to do. They didn't fail in execution, they failed in effort. And that, if you ask me, is much worse.
...
And if you can tell me how to read articles like this without paying, you'll save me about $20/month. Honestly :)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30D12F7355E0C758CDDAE0894DB404482
Richard wrote:
Americans have died and continue to die for our country as well as the freedom that is coming to the Iraqi people. How can any of you be against this?
Then Frank asked:
Did I just respond to a great big parody?
So den I sez::
That was my thought, too. That line, in particular, at first read to me like it was dripping with sarcasm. But the rest of it sounds so sincere...
You just gotta wonder...
Rob
First of all I want to tell you, PAD, that I completely agree with you. Unfortunately what is going on now doesn`t surprise me, I expected that to happen (and, no, (referring to an earlier thread here), I definitely don`t say this with Schadenfreude in mind).
Yes, I have been against the war from the very beginning. This doesn`t mean that I am anti-USA, a traitor (as some papers in Britain labelled Germans) or that people like us should be dismissed as being uninformed and that we should really see now that the war was right. As seen here but also during a discussion between journalists here on TV, which was very interesting, I find it annoying that instead of arguments the pro-war side often accuses people who think differently to be unpatriotic, that they don`t support the soldiers serving there and risking their lives, that everything is getting better now thanks to them over there. And seeing one posting here even mentioning God and that it seems to be the "duty" of the USA to go around and play policeman, it makes me sick.
The USA is the only super power left on this world but that also means to handle this position responsibly. Unfortunately, after the Sept. 11 atrocities the USA lost a lot of sympathies in the world because of this kind of arrogance.
I am not sad that Saddam is gone. He needed to be stopped - but by Iraq`s people, not the USA who did so without being invited, without being asked to help by invading them. I listened to the parts of the intelligence reports published on British TV and found them to be very dubious indeed. No WMDs haven`t been found to date, various intelligence reports circulating in Britain had been "dramatized" in order to convince more members of parliament to support the war when it was time to decide. As it happened today, all this pressure and ugliness going on to find out who exactly changed what cost one well known British scientist his life and I am afraid, it will continue to be a very ugly story indeed.
What also amazed me is the conviction the USA voiced when the war is going on, that in essence people will welcome them with open arms, that they will do the work for him to get rid of Saddam`s men, that after Saddam is gone also the problems are gone. The extent of the looting surprised me too but it is not difficult to guess that befriending civilians who aren`t paid, who have no water, no electricity and poor health care is a difficult task indeed.
On top of that tensions, misunderstandings and some incidents that are difficult for me to judge what they were cost lives of Iraqi civilians. Unfortunately it is obvious what the consequences are: Soldies die during attacks. Which means they are even more strict now, which means more people see them as invaders instead of liberators... Now I have heard that more US soldiers died AFTER the war than during. And I also heard that these soldiers have been told they can`t come back in September but have to stay indefinitely.
What will that do for their morale? Being stuck there in a country where they arrived as liberators but are less and less wanted, where nearly each day another soldier is killed in an ambush, where there is little progress to enhance the living standard back to before they entered and they have to wonder when they will finally see their families again?
I feel sorry for these soldiers and find it disgraceful how they are treated. On the one hand, they are called heros. On the other, I can`t shake the feeling, they are more and more becoming victims of politics and are stuck where they are because nobody wants to lose "face".
This is not a situation to be proud of and it also smells to me like a kind of Vietnam.
"PAD, while I appreciate your right to your opinion I would like to say I vehemently disagree with you. However I do enjoy your books and will most certainly continue reading them so long as they entertain me."
I wish I could say the same..... sadly he hasn't done a good book in so long that it is very sad.
How can one do such great work and now do such pathetic work is ..... I can't find the words.
I would give my left lung to have PAD return to greatness, but all the wishing in the world won't make that happen.
How sorry.
Goddamn.
A Fat Fuck works on a successfull comic many a year ago (yes I mean the Hulk) and now he thinks he is an expert concerning world politics??
Gimme a break.
So I guess all that fat was actually the swelling of his head spreading to the rest of him.
What a freak.
Way to go on proving youve just reached the age of 5 Johnny Boy (boy being appropiate in your name). Very mature arguement there.. except there was no arguement..
Just name calling by a little baby
I think its time PAD started hitting the ban button
TO: Johnny Boy
FROM: Josh
Re: your post
Y'know, last I recall, no one makes you come to this weblog and read it. If you don't like what Peter has to say (well, write in this case), then go elsewhere and leave the man--and the rest of us--alone.
Maybe you'd be better off at Bill O'Reilly's site. Here's the link: http://billoreilly.com
I swear. Some people...
"The president of the United States is not a fact-checker."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13744-2003Jul18.html?nav=hptop_tb
"A key Iraqi scientist recently told the CIA that high-strength aluminum tubes bought by Baghdad weren't meant for nuclear bomb production, as President Bush suggested in his State of the Union address, two experts on Iraq's nuclear program say."
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V9135.AP-Iraq-Aluminum-T.html
I think Bush did lie, on purpose of not, his claims about Iraq were at best overstate and at worst bald face lies.
Am I reading this? Is this actually the excuse that's being trotted out? He didn't read that section? The President of the United States, the most powerful military power in the world, decided to use that awesome power without even bothering to read the documentation he would use to justify that use of force to the people of the nation?
Okay, seriously, I think I'd like it better if he had lied. Say whatever you like about Clinton, about Nixon, about any President, but at least it was generally accepted that they would bother to read the intelligence.
He didn't read it. That's the justification. "Well, we may have used faulty information, but that's not our fault because we didn't read all of the stuff we collected anyway." I realize that the reason we have an intelligence service to collect data and then sort it for patterns is because the President can't read everything (unless we somehow elect Reed Richards President sometime soon...and yeah, I guess President Luthor could swing it), but still:
The official said Bush was "briefed" on the NIE's contents, but "I don't think he sat down over a long weekend and read every word of it." Asked whether Bush was aware the State Department called the Africa-uranium claim "highly dubious," the official, who coordinated Bush's State of the Union address, said: "He did not know that."
Is it too much to ask the President to, in fact, sit down and read a ninety page document in its entirety before making a speech based on it? Is 90 pages really all that much to read? Most college textbooks are hundreds of pages long...most novels exceed this page count...hell, a good trade paperback collection of a comic book can be hundreds of pages long. My copy of Yuri Stoyanov's The Other God, a reasonably dense book on the nature of religious dualism, is 476 pages long counting footnotes and index, and I read that...and I'm not expecting to have to apply the knowledge anytime soon. I'm not trying to brag here, either...I'd bet almost every single person who commented on this thread or the previous one could match or exceed that, and I'd be willing to put a lot of money that they could read a 90 page document if they were going to be going to war based on its contents.
He didn't even read it.
People read more than 90 pages in a weekend for fun.
Excuse me to introduce myself a moment.
I'm from Argentina (that, and the Office spell checker working bad, are the reasons of this not so good english) and I've been a fan of Peter David work for many years, buying things even quite awfull just because they had his name on it (I hope nobody will come to defend Wolverine in Global Jeopardy).
I had to quit many things during the recent economic crisis that jumped exported comic books and novels to ridiculous prices.
I usually read PAD page, and usually don't read the comments, but I was curious to read the opinion of readers about the topic.
Well, I'm glad to know that, even against 70% of the United States public opinion (at least, that's what the numbers they gave us says), one of my favourite authors is with 90% of the rest of the world opinion.
Outside the United States the people of this and (we know thanks to internet and cable tv) other countries see this war as false, hypocritical, dangerous and bully.
False, because those famous "chemical weapons" were never found (and, most important, never used, I cannot immagine a terrible dictator who has them and not use them when in a such situation), because the intelligence reports were proved fake and because even people in the government declared that the weapons were just an excuse (and I saw it in the CNN).
Hypocritical, because Saddam reached his power with the help and the blessing of United States. It's not an X-File conspiracy theory, it's a well known fact to those who have memory that Irak regime was financied to oppose to the Iran's one twenty years ago, as well that Talibans were financied and helped by CIA when it was directed by Bush sr. (Rambo 3 anybody?).
Dangerous, because if terrorist were a real threat before when they had only ideological reasons, now that they bombed one of the most important cities in the islamic culture (Bagdad) they have real reason to be angry.
And bully, because who the heck give United States the right to invide an outside country without any kind of aprovation by ONU or anyone?
Even if Saddam was not a nice person (to put it in a way), he was the leader of a country and the only people who had the right to put him down were his own citizens.
If the United States takes this right as his own, who assures that they will not do the same with any other country they decide they don't like their government.
What gets to me is the assumption that "Well, we haven't found the weapons, so they must never have existed". Remember, no one - not even the UN inspectors - disputed the weapons. The real question that should be asked is "Well, we haven't found the weapons, so where could they have gone?"
Iran? Not likely. Iraq didn't get along well with them. They've likely been moved to Syria. The traffic (both physical and communication channels) between Iraq and Syria was increasing once the US troop buildup started. They are on our list of terrorist states, but we still have relations with them, which I think is a mistake.
The Syrian government has the distinction of being the author of much of the anti-US/anti-Israel school programs that have since been exported to Saudi Arabia and other countries. They host terror groups in their capital - no matter what they told Colin Powell. Frankly, I'm convinced that Syria is a larger threat to us than Iran.
Okay... this is slightly off topic, but I feel the need to address this nonetheless. It always irks me whenever I check on a message board that addresses political topics there will inevitably be one person who will start the "religion ball" rolling along. And roll along it does... filled with many useless and hateful posts that usually insult both the readers and the posters. I'm a Christian and proud of it... and yet that somehow seems to make me an idiot, a sociopath, and a trilobite in eyes of the media, hollywood, and mainstream America in general. How is this possible?
Let me ask this question: how many of you have actually read the Bible? Now, after you've raised your hands and rolled your eyes at me, let me say that it doesn't count if you've simply read "some of it", "a few books here and there", or "I know enough." I mean read the whole thing... cover to cover. Yep, I probably have only three people now left in the whole category. And yet, since the majority of America is so utterly misinformed on this book, how is it possible for so many people to have such a negative opinion of it and its contents? Have any of you ever read the Bhagavad Gita? The Rg Veda? The Koran? And yet none of these religions have even half the stigma associated with them that Christianity has. Now why is that?
I'm not going to get into a long-winded discussion here about that, I just want you all to think about it a moment before you jump on the "Christians are all stupid" bandwagon that seems to be so popular in America. I mean, Pat Robertson makes a comment that he wants his supporters to pray to God to incline a few judges to retire and all of a sudden all of Christianity is to blame. We have a few Islamic fundamentalists hijack some planes and kill over two thousand people and everybody's quick to dismiss it as the work of a "few fanatics." How is it possible that we could be so skewed against Christianity like this? Sure, many folks may say, "Well, I've had bad experiences with Christians in the past." And your point is? I've had bad experiences at McDonald's before but that doesn't mean that I'm going to assume that the entire corporation is filled with stoned sixteen year olds, am I? I don't remember there ever being an election held that suddenly placed Pat Robertson in the position of Christian Spokesperson. But everybody is automatically reacting like he is and begin attacking, not his position, but his religion. Yeesh! If I were to believe the postings and opinions of the internet, news media, etc. I would have to draw the conclusion that the majority are atheist (if not agnostic). This leads me to ask: why does it matter to you? If you don't believe in God and think it's just a big fabrication, why let it bother you one more second? If I were to tell the mass media that I pray to my favorite pillow about the President's foreign policies, nobody would even give me a second thought. Yet, if I say I pray to the Almighty and am a Christian- well, watch out!! That's a double-standard folks...
Let me finish up here with a last comment about Pat Robertson. So what if he wants a couple of Supreme Court Justices to stand down? He isn't calling for assasination, murder, kidnapping, or death by hijacked airline jets is he? No, he's calling for prayer to God to have these men feel that maybe they need to retire. It's his opinion. He's entitled to have one folks- that's what America's all about. And he's free to call upon God for his prayer requests- that's what He's there for. And God will ultimately decide what to do about Robertson's prayer- either move the hearts of the judges, or Pat Robertson's heart- that's for Him to decide.
Yet, if I say I pray to the Almighty and am a Christian- well, watch out!! That's a double-standard folks...
No, it just shows you're ignorant and silly. Just like the Moslems or any other foolish religion... The religious just use gods as an excuse for their own fooliness and their incompetence.
Let me finish up here with a last comment about Pat Robertson. So what if he wants a couple of Supreme Court Justices to stand down? He isn't calling for assasination, murder, kidnapping, or death by hijacked airline jets is he? No, he's calling for prayer to God to have these men feel that maybe they need to retire. It's his opinion. He's entitled to have one folks- that's what America's all about. And he's free to call upon God for his prayer requests- that's what He's there for. And God will ultimately decide what to do about Robertson's prayer- either move the hearts of the judges, or Pat Robertson's heart- that's for Him to decide.
Hey, the best thing would be if Pthe evil cowardly (see his Korean War hiding, for example) Pat Roberson drops dead in the next twenty-one days. Then we'd know that, if there is a god, he has a sense of decency and humor.
No, it just shows you're ignorant and silly. Just like the Moslems or any other foolish religion... The religious just use gods as an excuse for their own fooliness and their incompetence.
Hey, the best thing would be if Pthe evil cowardly (see his Korean War hiding, for example) Pat Roberson drops dead in the next twenty-one days. Then we'd know that, if there is a god, he has a sense of decency and humor.
Yep... knew it would eventually come to this. Rather than attack my position using logic and reasoning, there will always be people who resort to name calling instead. Thanks for showing what a truly "big" person you are and revealing the expanses of your wonderfully "enlightened" mind. I defer to your "greater" wisdom, logic, and intelligence in the debate.
First, I agree with Peter David's comments on the war. To me, this is just the latest incompetence shown by the Bush administration since they took over.
It's been two months since "active fighting" ended and the Iraqi capital still doesn't even have reliable running water or electricity?! The US troops should leave Iraq, not for safety reasons, but because their leaders are proving to be grossly incompetent. Get some UN people in there whose agenda will be to help the Iraqi's, because nobody from the US is getting the job done unfortunately.
And yes, Saddam was horrible and should be removed from power- but there is a right way and a wrong way to do things like this. And we did it the wrong way, against the wishes of everybody else in the world. For the wrong reasons, which turned out to be fictional reasons on top of everything else.
Oh, and to touch briefly on the religion undercurrent running through this thread-
I'm Catholic (with a distinctly Taoist bent). And still as liberal as they come.
The God I believe in has two basic rule (which I was taught in Catechism as a child). 1. Love God. 2. Love all people.
Number Two includes Everyone. Iraqis, Americans, Israelis, Palestanians, Russians, everyone. Which is among the reasons that I believe in trying to find peaceful solutions that will work for a common good (common good, unfortunately, will not satisfy many people, I've found). So my religious beliefs do influence my feelings on the war, but they do not inform my understanding of the faulty tenets that the war and its aftermath have been based on.
Religion, like almost anything else, money, love, etc, can inspire some horrible actions. It can also inspire some amazingly wonderful things. Faith isn't a bad thing in and of itself, it's just as suceptable to personal interpretation (read, free will for the more religious among you) as every other philosophy and driving influence in the world.
And if you can tell me how to read articles like this without paying, you'll save me about $20/month. Honestly :)
To Clarify: You don't need to pay to read recent articles. It's only the archived ones that they charge.
"Bush has lied--although whether it was truly his fault or not is still up for debate. Remember, in his State of Union address, he told us that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Africa. So he has lied."
Correct usage of words is important. That way, the meaning doesn't get tangled up somewhere along the way.
In this instance, the words "his fault or not" suggest that maybe Bush Jr. DIDN'T lie. Because one can unwittingly pass on erroneous information, but how can it be a "lie" if one doesn't KNOW the information is incorrect?
No, I don't trust him. But let's be careful in how we put things, shall we?
PAD said:
When I referred to the current Iraq situation as "the new Vietnam," that seemed to spur a discussion as to how it couldn't possibly be, because the casualty numbers don't match up. This is, of course, ridiculous. Vietnam didn't have 50,000 dead in the first few months. These things take time. But the point is, comparing it to Vietnam has nothing to do with the total number dead. It has to do with the fact that the military is sent into a situation for an indefinite period of time with only the vaguest of ideas of what they're supposed to be doing there or how they're supposed to go about it.
First of all, thank you Peter for addressing my post point-by-point. What other widely published writer gives you service like that?
Still, I do think comparing something to Vietnam without taking into account the number of dead comes way too close to 'having it both ways'. Also, I think it's way too early to be throwing loaded terms like that into the mix.
But at least you explained yourself. Better late than never, and more than I was expecting from a piece of "toxic waste".
As for bin Laden, he's still a whipped dog. If we catch him, that's great, but his power base had been seriously weakened, and I can't imagine many Muslims having respect for someone who has been humiliated like that. I don't think he has any power within the Arab world unless we give him power by characterizing him as a person who still has the same capabilities as before.
David O'Connell
"I can't stand the politics, but I love the writing. Sayonara, y'all.
Posted by Rob Thornton"
Dont let the door hit ya on the ass on the way out.
I’m fully willing to discuss religious issues calmly and logically. The problem tends to be that most religious belief isn’t necessarily based on logic. That’s not intended as an insult, but rather that most religious belief requires faith which may or may not be based on logic.
>>>I'm a Christian and proud of it... and yet that somehow seems to make me an idiot, a sociopath, and a trilobite in eyes of the media, hollywood, and mainstream America in general. How is this possible?<<<
I’ll admit, this is a statement that gets under my skin. This sort of statement is used time and time again to demonstrate that Christians are picked on and belittled for their beliefs. The reality is quite the contrary. The vast majority of citizens in the US is Christian. Christianity IS mainstream. It’s by no means a minority.
For that reason, I believe, it is ‘picked on.’ When you make a movie or comedy that mocks society in general, it’s going to mock the primary elements of that society. Christianity is the major religion, and is therefore a target of that mockery. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. I’m saying WHY it’s there.
>>>Let me ask this question: how many of you have actually read the Bible? Now, after you've raised your hands and rolled your eyes at me, let me say that it doesn't count if you've simply read "some of it", "a few books here and there", or "I know enough." I mean read the whole thing... cover to cover. Yep, I probably have only three people now left in the whole category.<<<
I have. Over a dozen times. In multiple versions and translations. I was a lay minister in a second reformation protestant church. I had a full scholarship to a seminary. I’m quite well versed in the Bible. To finish the statement and my point of view: I’m an atheist today. An atheist attorney—the ultimate evil, pretty much.
There is an additional question I would ask: how many Christians actually know the history surrounding the Bible as well as the book itself. Even if you read it cover to cover, you still only have a part of the story. There is a greater history to the book than just that. The actual creation of the New Testament by the early Church is something that should be taught and understood by all Christians, but the vast majority of believers have the impression that the Bible was passed from writer to writer and everyone took their turn in writing their book. The truth is vastly different.
>>>And yet, since the majority of America is so utterly misinformed on this book, how is it possible for so many people to have such a negative opinion of it and its contents? Have any of you ever read the Bhagavad Gita? The Rg Veda? The Koran? And yet none of these religions have even half the stigma associated with them that Christianity has. Now why is that?<<<
I have two feelings on this. First of all, it’s the most misunderstood Bible because there are so many followers of it that have not read it. You ask this board how many people have REALLY read the Bible. I’d ask the same of Christianity. The vast majority of believers only crack the book when they’re told to in worship services to read along with the minister/preacher/priest reading it to them.
I’ll stand by my argument that it has the most stigma associated with it because it is the book that most people in the US have access to and THINK they understand: both believers and unbelievers. I agree that there is some very invalid criticism of the religion by people that don’t understand it. The flip side is there are many believers that misunderstand the Bible just as badly and use it to justify all sorts of behaviors.
>>>I'm not going to get into a long-winded discussion here about that, I just want you all to think about it a moment before you jump on the "Christians are all stupid" bandwagon that seems to be so popular in America. I mean, Pat Robertson makes a comment that he wants his supporters to pray to God to incline a few judges to retire and all of a sudden all of Christianity is to blame. We have a few Islamic fundamentalists hijack some planes and kill over two thousand people and everybody's quick to dismiss it as the work of a "few fanatics." How is it possible that we could be so skewed against Christianity like this?<<<
I think this is a vast overstatement of the case. When the scandal involving some Catholic priests was revealed, there was not a witch-hunt for all Catholics. All Catholics were not painted with the same brush. The problem you run into with someone like Pat Robertson is that he has appointed himself the public leader of protestant Christianity. Whether or not you want that, he has done it. As such a ‘leader,’ valid or not, he is going to be the target of attention. When he makes a statement, he seems to be speaking for all of protestant Christianity. No other leader will make a stand against him,.
>>>I don't remember there ever being an election held that suddenly placed Pat Robertson in the position of Christian Spokesperson. But everybody is automatically reacting like he is and begin attacking, not his position, but his religion.<<<
Very true. I agree. He has marketed himself as such, however. He has made himself the public target. No voice stands against, him, though.
>>>eesh! If I were to believe the postings and opinions of the internet, news media, etc. I would have to draw the conclusion that the majority are atheist (if not agnostic). This leads me to ask: why does it matter to you? If you don't believe in God and think it's just a big fabrication, why let it bother you one more second?<<<
I am an atheist. And religion doesn’t bother me. This will sound pretentious and patronizing, but my personal view is that people should be entitled to whatever support they need to make it in the world. I’m not anti-religion in the least.
What does bother me is when presidential candidates (and later presidents) makes statements like “atheists cannot be considered citizens.” That was George Bush Sr. When they single me out because of my lack of belief, then I have a problem. When the government decides that the best way to provide social assistance in through churches (the ‘faith based initiatives’), then I have a problem. When religion is made an issue, I have a problem with it.
>>>If I were to tell the mass media that I pray to my favorite pillow about the President's foreign policies, nobody would even give me a second thought. Yet, if I say I pray to the Almighty and am a Christian- well, watch out!! That's a double-standard folks...<<<
It depends on the circumstances you’re in. There aren’t many catcalls when state and national legislatures open with a prayer everyday. There weren’t protests during the post 9/11 remembrance observances. There aren’t protest lines in front of churches on Sunday mornings. Christianity and churches are alive and well. Most are fairly public and don’t really have much problem with the community. I’ve got a church on my block, and I find better things to do than mock people as they head in for worship.
>>>Let me finish up here with a last comment about Pat Robertson. So what if he wants a couple of Supreme Court Justices to stand down? He isn't calling for assasination, murder, kidnapping, or death by hijacked airline jets is he? No, he's calling for prayer to God to have these men feel that maybe they need to retire. It's his opinion. He's entitled to have one folks- that's what America's all about. And he's free to call upon God for his prayer requests- that's what He's there for. And God will ultimately decide what to do about Robertson's prayer- either move the hearts of the judges, or Pat Robertson's heart- that's for Him to decide. <<<
It’s one thing to do that in his own house. It’s another to do it on broadcast television. Then it becomes more than an opinion—it becomes a call to action. I’d love to remind him of the Pharisees praying on street corners and what Jesus had to say about them.
Whether you want it or not, the man is the media leader of protestant Christianity. Anything he says or does on his television show (broadcast in nearly all major markets and twice daily on ABC/Family basic cable channel) is more than a personal opinion.