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December 08, 2005

Schultz

A group of sub-human vermin claims to have executed Ron Schultz:

The Islamic Army in Iraq said it had killed "the American security consultant for the Housing Ministry," after the United States failed to respond to its demand of the release of Iraqi prisoners.

A video issued by the group was broadcast Tuesday on Al-Jazeera showing the hostage _ identified as Ronald Schulz, 40, an industrial electrician from Alaska _ sitting with his hands tied behind his back.

The group Thursday blamed President Bush for failing to respond to its demands.

Hell is too good for such scum.

Hope they die among pigs. God bless whatever soldier, Marine or Iraqi who puts a grenade up the perps' asses.

("But for G-d's sake, don't deprive them of sleep, feed them MREs or pantomime flushing their precious fecking Korans!")

Posted by Mitch at December 8, 2005 06:49 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Mitch,

Your anger is understandable, and so your unecessary attempt to somehow politicize this heinous act is understably excused, but you probably should have stopped at Hell is too good for such scum.

Do you rationally think that comparing poor acts done here to evil acts done there excuses the poor acts here? Do you rationally conceive that speaking out against human rights abuses means condoning kidnapping and murder?

I'm sorry for the loss to your home town, I'm sorry for this man's family and friends. The time for mourning excludes no one from shedding tears for the loss and the agrieved.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 8, 2005 05:42 PM

Oh for crying out loud....

Let the man vent! This is horrific. And yeah, they are scum to behead someone who is innocent.
Period.


Posted by: carmelitta at December 8, 2005 06:13 PM

Carmalitta,

I excused it, but it was still a needless attempt to use a tragic event for political opportunism. I said far less than could have, probably should have, been said.

To wit; would you suggest that only those on Mitch's polemic extreme feel the loss in Jamestown? Perhaps his family, or even his friends objected to morally faltering conduct by our own Government, does that mean THEY are to blame, or have less right to mourne?

If Mitch had stopped where he ought, you and I would not be exchanging thoughts.. his words were too strong by half, they were thoughtless of the real loss and need for a community to unite in its sorrow and put aside partisanship. Instead he chose to inject deviciveness where none was needed, nor should exist. His words of anger were excused, but the need to politicize has nothing to do with mourning or venting. It had to do with trying to afix indirect blame or at a minimum, comparitively excuse conduct, when there was no need to, nor was any such interjection appropriate.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 8, 2005 06:54 PM

For eff's sake, PB... have you no sense, judgement, or class?!?!?!

Posted by: Badda-Blogger at December 8, 2005 06:54 PM

PB, you do realize that the "torture" allegations that the Dhimmicrats constantly trot out, especially the stupider ones mitch notes (sleep, koran games, and MREs - wow, I got tortured for six years in the Army too) are "politicizing" things, too, right? i have not seen you condemn any of that, come to think of it.

mitch didn't say it, and probably wont. But I will. this killing, like all the hostage killings, was done with the western media as the audience. they will play this murder as a defeat and an inditement of the administraiton. The media and there sympatizers on the left are actively working on behalf of the terrorists.

It just accelrates the date when this country falls into the civil war that I think is inevitable. Part of me hopes that I am long gone by then. Part of me hopes I'm still young ehough to fight it my self.

Posted by: treadhead at December 8, 2005 07:05 PM

PB

You really should get out more among humans and mingle. It'll come back to you...

Posted by: carmelitta at December 8, 2005 08:13 PM

Badda,

I didn't endeavor to politicize this..so the class concern lives in your mirror, and Mitch's.

Carmalitta,

Since when did insult substitute for communication, if you weree concerned about either class or conduct, your posts leave each unadorned.

Treadhead, it is just such a civil war that I and others try to avoid, and you seek to hasten with your hate speech. Blaming the Democrats for the death of Mr. Schultz is as base and low as it gets. I assume you'd have no objection to putting a gun to my daughter's head and blowing it off simply for not agreeing with you since you so clearly wish to do precisely such to me.

And you all call me the extremists.

You see, I do not here write in some vain attempt to educate or even chasten you (or Mitch). Clearly Treadhead, you are beyond help, precisely because you desire to be so, but rather, to show others that there are those who seek discourse, rather than hate and violence, by simply allowing you to point out to the rest of the world your violent, immature, and vile views.

I chastized Mitch mildly for attempting to use a tragic death to his political advantage, and you all reply with comments like "actively working on behalf of the terrorists" and "I hope I'm young enough to fight it myself". Apparently, even dissent is worth death in your world.

You all are a scary, insane lot, Tread, shall I stop by and hand you the gun? Badda, where is your complaint of classlessness now?

BTW Badda, I am not attempting to lump you in with Tread, if that was not clear, my apology. I would ask you to consider though whether Mitch shows equal class by using the death of someone from his town for his own aims, more, or less.

If he had made this comment publicly, in his home town, some I suppose would have cheered him, but I suspect strongly that most, the vast majority most likely, would have thought it base and cheap, devaluing a genuine desire to laud the fallen, for his own gain. So consider whether the class you seek is the class presented.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 8, 2005 08:41 PM

PB,

Y'know, sometimes it just isn't all about you.

Posted by: mike at December 8, 2005 08:54 PM

"I chastized Mitch mildly for attempting to use a tragic death to his political advantage..."

Then explain the actions of your leftist fellow travellers such as Cindy Shehan, Howard Dean, and even yourself. You have done far more to politicize tragic deaths of soldiers involved in war than Mitch has. You treat them as either less than human, or as incompetent to make decisions for themselves. They believe in their mission, even if you don't.

Frankly, I'm more with Mitch on this. When we lost kin in 9/11 (vaporized in the first tower -- they've never even found any remains) my first impulse was to put all the leftist twaddle from the Reagan era to the test: I told my wife I wanted to see if all those nukes we had built really would just make the rubble bounce higher. The feeling passed, but saying it made me feel better, and if Mitch wants to say how he feels, more power to him in these times of trouble.

Posted by: nerdbert at December 8, 2005 09:21 PM

PB
You blunder in and start pontificating over political correctness when people are clearly feeling grief and you going to preach to me or anyone else about appropriateness?
Puleeese.
Thats enough piffle alright? You are clearly a superior being. Intellectually and emotionally.
Good for you.


Posted by: carmelitta at December 8, 2005 09:22 PM

Never said it was Mike.. in fact, it has never been, even once.

If it were about me, I'd not even post. Mitch's writing is nearly witless, but its simplistic, blaming nature attracts some who first seek to find a reason to blame others than look for reason, and others merely for curiousity.

I would rather that we live in a society where ideas can be exchanged without needing to demonize an entire ethic, an entire people, simply because they feel compassion, seek to understand cause.

I would prefer we talk, we listen. Mitch aspouses not even acknowledging other points, that's not conversation, it's diatribe. Mitch blames always, takes blame, never. I laugh when I'm called a hypocrite, because this entire blog is hypocrisy enshrined.

In this case though, Mitch, in honor to his "friend" didn't even wait a day before injecting invective. It's crass and crude.

However, because the point Tread tried to make is so important, I think it's worth spending the time to address the idea that somehow "the left" or "bozo the clown" or any other boogey-man Tread wants to blame for his anger at the world (and Mitch too as he recently blamed the left for Vietnam's/SE Asia's collapse), because those people who read this page might actually care to consider a few things.

Tread (et.al.) - when terrorists behead someone, do you suppose it is ONLY the left that is left aghast? Is it only the left that wonders if this is worth the price?

During Vietnam, television brought home the ugly, gorey, reality of war. It wasn't like the films made about WWII we grew up on, it was instead brutal. It was important that free-minded people decide whether such a price was the right price to pay to prevent communism from taking over Vietnam, and through the power vacuum, Laos, and eventually Cambodia.

Whether that struggle was winnable was really less about our national will, and more about the long-term will of the Vietnamese to object to our occupation. Even if Linebacker II had succeeded in getting North Vietnam to succumb, in the long-term, the Vietnamese were not willing to abide occupation.

But do you (Tread et.al.) really think that if we'd only been willing to kill a few hundred more thousand Vietnamese we'd have won, even so, at what price? Our own national honor? Is there a limit to which a country should not extend itself to impose it's own view of liberty? Whether or not you agree, Vietnam under the US was hardly fully democratic, and was more a trade buffer than any real concern about Domino Theory. The ultimate question though is, do you really think it was only those on the left who saw the carnage as no longer justifiable? Do you think keeping them ignorant of the carnage is wise? Finally, do you really think that if we simply turn a blind eye, "do what it takes", that the soldiers, and the nation, will shed such scars in our lifetime?

You appear only to see the near term challenge of Islamic extremism. There will be other extremists. National character is not so easily won, but it is cheaply lost. Mitch incorrectly blames the left for the killing fields of Cambodia (in his apparent ignorance) since in fact the communists were reviled by the Khmer Rouge (a group borne of the attempt to stave off communism) and in the end it was the communists who ended the reign of the Khmer. He fails to grasp that the nation shuddered at the visage of death it saw in Vietnam, our own as well as the indiginous people, and instead he seeks to blame because he WANTS to blame. There were republicans, democrats, left, right, old, young, who objected, because we agreed that there are limits to the conduct this nation should engage in. The real monsters, unfortunately, were those who believe no limits should exist.

And now we are repeating the same chorus. Mitch again seeks to absolve his warcry by blaming the left, rather than the hateful terrorists, as does Tread. They seek to claim that only the left would be shocked. I'd like to give more credit to most on the right, I suspect they are appalled at the barbarity. Clearly the terrorists do what they do for "coverage", and because Bin Laden believes that the lesson of Vietnam is that we have no stomach for war, rather than learn from WWII that we have sufficient enough, if the cause is right.

Instead of addressing the inadequacies of our cause and correcting them, since we are now in fact committed, people like Mitch only hurt our ability to succeed - no, they don't cause the conflict - but because the refuse to grasp that the nation must feel justified, and are so embittered that they must find someone to blame - they make a difficult task more difficult by insisting on disunion rather than working to find a moral course. I have said I think a timeline for withdrawal is valid, not because we should publicize our "concrete" exit date, but more because this President, to remain legitimate, needs to set some goals to which he can be held accountable. Mitch's response, beyond trying to trivialize torture, is to suggest that I, or anyone else, who would do so, is a traitor. Where will the nation go when normally decent people no longer talk. With the extremists, like Tread, it appears they will pick-up a gun. I instead hope that we will seek a better path, that strident, hate-based voices like Mitch, will be seen as repulsive, for if we are to succeed in convincing the world we mean well, we must act well. There is no room to occassionally beat to death an old man, kidnap innocent citizens of other countries and then attempt to cover it up. We must show that we TRULY intend to allow Iraq to be what it will be, without giving us a springboard to intimidate the rest of the Middle East. Vietnam taught us that others like self-determination every bit as much as we do, and some others (China/North Vietnam) are just as willing to die to exploit that desire. The only thing which will separate us, is if we are not only better than evil, but if we are good. Excusing conduct which will offend everyone, blaming only one side, when it is the national will which is lost, is merely self-seeking egoism.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 8, 2005 09:37 PM

PB,

You follow up your assertion that it's "never been, even once" about your own ego with three consecutive paragraphs which begin with "If it were me, I'd..." "I would rather" and "I would prefer". You've become Mitch's own, personal Steven Platzer.

You have attempted to highjack a person's emotions with your sniping in this post. Mitch is allowed to express his feelings only as you see fit. That is, to me, about as low as you can get.

Posted by: mike at December 8, 2005 09:57 PM

PB's posts on this thread have to be the biggest loads of shit he's written so far...and that's saying a LOT.

Sanctimonius, shallow ass.

Posted by: Colleen at December 8, 2005 10:46 PM

I know y'all think I'm a liberal pinko weenie, but even I think that pb is full of it. He should learn when to shut up.

Posted by: peter at December 8, 2005 11:17 PM

Mike,

He was hardly venting his spleen, alone, and you asiduously look only to justify him.

Let's see..(But for God's sake, don't deprive them of sleep), no, invoking God isn't sanctimony. If the best response is merely insult, well I guess that deals with shallow.

Unlike Mitch, many who look to oppose his hate-filled blather actually do accept thier own mistakes, admit the flaws of those they support.

You want to call me Mitch's equivialant (a charicature), fine, and then I'll ask you to look in a mirror and consider, do you desire real conversation, real consideration of fact, or merely self-fulfilling preaching. If the latter, consider your definition of sanctimony or shallowness. Based on your replies, it certainly doesn't seem that you desire real discourse.

I know you really meant you felt it was sanctimonious to point out that Mitch is classless for using the death of his acquaintance to advance his political agenda, but you know, I guess I think that's just not really very respectful conduct.

By the way Peter, which part regarding Vietnam and Iraq was it that you felt, as a lefty-pinko, I should have shut up about, the fact that it spoke to national will, or that Iraq suffers the same problem of image vs. cost? Perhaps it was the part about the fact that this question is really about understanding it's us as a people that has to be addressed, rather than, as Mitch did, striving to find a reason to be devisive?

I don't mind the insults, if those on the right can't do better, then the point seems made. Mike/Colleen seem interested only in those, rather than answering the question of whether a country is bound to behave not just better than it's enemy, but as well as reason permits. It's a simple concept really, but dang hard apparently to live up to because for some folks, apparently, winning is the only thing that matters, hang the truth, hang any dissenters, hang the country for that matter.

Here's a bone for you, if adherence to the law will result in a greater harm than disobeying the law, it should be disobeyed.

So Colleen, it had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with political correctness - a concept I deplore. The fact is I, and others, understand that there might in fact be a reason for something pretty vile, if the harm done by not acting is greater than the harm of the act, it's even supported in law.

The issue is that torture is ineffective and even more mild torture, like causing hypothermia or water-boarding destroys the identity of the soldiers, saps national will, and in the end is a greater evil than the evil it prevents, because it prevents nothing - it is useless other than to inflict pain. So it has nothing to do with what the "other guy" will do, you don't stand in front of God and say, "Yeah, well, he killed people, I only beat them senseless." You are judged by YOUR acts, and the soldiers involved don't wash those scars off, the nation doesn't absolve them with hate filled words claiming the devil (bin laden) made them do it. If that's what you consider sanctimony, apparently basic Christian ethic is sanctimony to you.

In the end, tollerating torture, passively, or through proxy as Mitch does here, hurts our ability to succeed, but if it helps you sleep better to shirk the equal responsibility you share in this country's problems, sweet dreams.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 9, 2005 01:47 AM

Nerdbert,

I apologize, I didn't see your post.

At no point in time have I glorified or trivialized the death of US (or any) troops. Cindy Sheehan is a mother doing her best to speak her mind that she feels her son died in vain. Is she right, time will tell. Also, I certainly have never said anything implying they were less than human or incapable of making their own decisions. I guess I'd like to understand where that comes from. I've never heard ANYTHING from Sheehan that comes close to it either, for doing so would be suggesting her own son was either witless or subhuman.

I have a friend who lost a brother and a father in law on 9/11, unbelievably, he lost a cousin in the Discovery break-up, he seemed able to understand killing innocent people would not bring back his loved ones Nerd, I'm sorry for your loss, and I mean that most sincerely, but Mitch's words here at the last were a naked attempt to justify immorality. I had a friend, on 9/11 who said "I hope the US will have the balls to nuke someone", my response was "what will killing 100,000 innocent people prove?"

If Mitch chooses to clutter up space with carp about torture, a completely unrelated topic, it looks like opportunism, and it gets called it.

My first post said what I felt, up to the die with Pigs, it was all good - a little over the top, but undertandable (the grenade up the a$$ thing), but chosing to twist that to justifying your world view on torture, pathetic, especially when there may very well be those who disagree with Mitch who knew this man FAR better than he, and in no way deserve blame or ridicule for his death.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 9, 2005 02:48 AM

Keep digging, PB... you're really improving your image.

("A little over the top," indeed.)

Posted by: Badda-Blogger at December 9, 2005 06:27 AM

Yes, PB, my first comment was over the top. Most of your response is duly noted.

However, I didn't politicize it. I don't believe that sleep deprivation or MREs or yanking Korans around (especially given that there is no evidence that any have ever been intentionally destroyed) qualify as torture; if so, then every American jail and police department should be investigated.

Question: What will Howard Dean and John Kerry have to say about this? Because heaven knows they had plenty to say about the tempest-in-a-teapot-that-was-prosecuted-to-the-full-extent-of-the-law-anyway at Abu Ghraib...

Posted by: mitch at December 9, 2005 06:27 AM

I hope the vilify the culprits for the scum they are and Kerry volunteers to ram a grenade up their collective asses. I won't hold my breath.

Dean opposed the war in the first place. He's a smart man, but a pompous ass.

If Abu Graib had been an isolated incident, with the techniques unique, I would agree, but it wasn't. The same techniques showed up in Afghanistan and Guantanamo to closely aligned to be coincidence. Whether you consider hypothermiating someone torture won't really count, the world does, so will the soldiers who did it. I understand you didn't say it, but by waiving a hand at one, the public will waive off the other. Lastly, even appearing to desecrate the Quran will create enemies, witness Pakistan and Afghanistan. It may not be torture, it IS manifestly stupid.

But your post was about Kerry or Dean. I don't mind attacking them, they have plenty to improve upon, will you say the same for Bush? For Kerry, his I voted for it, then against it, cost him the election. He couldn't decide because he was such a political animal, he no longer knew which set of spots to don.


Question back: It was Bush who recently changed his administration's position on torture through Condi Rice. Was his first position, allowing the CIA to do so, or his second forbidding everyone, the right one? Considering he changed his position without actually acknowledging that he had, do you consider it deceptive. Clearly he understood he could trot out the cock-in-bull story the US public apparently accepted. For the reasons noted above, the world simply doesn't buy "it's okay if I'm slightly better than the bad guy."

PB

Posted by: pb at December 9, 2005 07:57 AM

Colleen: "PB's posts on this thread have to be the biggest loads of shit he's written so far...and that's saying a LOT.

Sanctimonius, shallow ass."

Colleen's just in a bad mood cause she got a wake-up call from the wacky morning DJs on her Canadian Mennonite station.


Posted by: angryclown at December 9, 2005 08:19 AM

Notice that Mitch, the allegedly injured party on this thread, seems to be the only one not acting like a rabid dog straining at the leash to tear pb apart.

Posted by: angryclown at December 9, 2005 08:46 AM

Mitch,
No one is arguing against cruelty for the perps. The argument that my side has is that we tend not to have a direct idea of who, or how to get to them. Torturing others, some who are innocent, seems not to be working well. For anyone.

Posted by: Eric at December 9, 2005 10:16 AM

PB says:

"Mitch incorrectly blames the left for the killing fields of Cambodia (in his apparent ignorance) since in fact the communists were reviled by the Khmer Rouge (a group borne of the attempt to stave off communism) and in the end it was the communists who ended the reign of the Khmer."

While it is true that it was the Vietnamese communists who ended the reign of the Khmer Rouge, it's quite simply wrong to say that the communists were reviled by the Khmer Rouge. Here's a few facts about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge that PB never let get in the way of his argument. (from the Pol Pot killer file--link: http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pot.html):


1946 - While serving with the anti-French resistance under Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, he [Pol Pot] joins the outlawed Indochinese Communist Party.

1949 - Pol Pot wins a government scholarship to study radio electronics in Paris. He fails to obtain a degree but becomes enthralled by writings on Marxism and revolutionary socialism and forges bonds with other likeminded young Cambodians studying in the metropolis, including Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Khieu Ponnary and Song Sen. The members of this so-called 'Paris student group' are destined to become the leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

While in Paris Pol Pot also joins the French Communist Party and helps transform the Association of Khmer Students into a platform for nationalist and leftist ideas, openly challenging the Sihanouk government.

1953 - After having his scholarship revoked Pol Pot returns to Cambodia and throws himself into work for the KPRP, first in the Kampong Cham province northwest of Phnom Penh and then in the capital itself. He also travels to the east of the country to meet with the Vietnamese communists.

1970 The Khmer Rouge receive military aid and training from the North Vietnamese and support from China and are quickly transformed into an effective fighting force, expanding from a small guerilla outfit of less than 5,000 to an army of 100,000 in a matter of months.

1975 - Now in control of most the Cambodian countryside, the Khmer Rouge surround and isolate the capital Phnom Penh, which has swollen with refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge and the US bombers. The noose steadily tightens. On April 17 Phnom Penh falls. Within days the city's entire population of over two million is marched into the countryside at gunpoint.

Pol Pot declares 'Year Zero' and directs a ruthless program to "purify" Cambodian society of capitalism, Western culture, religion and all foreign influences in favour of an isolated and totally self-sufficient MAOIST agrarian state. No opposition is tolerated.

1976 - The Khmer Rouge declare the new state of Democratic Kampuchea on 5 January. Sihanouk resigns as head of state on 2 April and is placed under virtual house arrest in Phnom Penh. Pol Pot is made prime minister, although his identity and the identities of other members of the 'Angkar' group are kept secret from non-members. To most inside and out of Cambodia he is a shadowy figure known as 'Brother Number One'. The subordinate leaders of the party are known as 'Brother Number Two', 'Brother Number Three', and so on.

It is not revealed that 'Angkar' is in fact the KAMPUCHEAN COMMUNIST PARTY until September 1977.

1977 - Although almost the entire population is involved in agricultural production, Cambodia experiences food shortages, resulting in many more deaths. Conflicts along the Thai, Laotian and Vietnamese borders escalate. Relations with Vietnam are broken in December. At the same time Vietnam begins to turn away from China towards the Soviet Union.

Pol Pot, meanwhile, makes a state visit to China, which promises ongoing support, including military assistance for any conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam.

Obviously the communists had nothing to with the rise of the Khmer Rouge, right PB? Your ignorance of history is breathtaking.

Posted by: the elder at December 9, 2005 10:42 AM

"At no point in time have I glorified or trivialized the death of US (or any) troops."

I agree that you have been that rare liberal who has some understanding of the troops and supports them, but my point was the the explicit politicalization of the deaths of the troops and other innocents has been done by the left. I don't see how your comment changes that. Sheehan is the perfect example of how a loss has been manipulated by professional leftist handlers into political fodder. She may be struggling as you believe, but she is being professionally managed for maximum political effect.

"If Mitch chooses to clutter up space with carp about torture..."

Sleep deprivation is torture? Nope. MREs? They are pretty good in emergencies, and I've lived for years on college cafeteria fare that was far worse. Flushing Korans? While they may find it psychologicially unsettling it's hardly up there with pulling fingernails and breaking bones. Remember that these folks are at best unlawful combatants and are thus not covered by the rules of warfare. That we grant our enemies the many protections they have while they treat our captives as they do should speak for itself.

So I disagree that those things that Mitch mentioned were torture, with the exception of the grenade ;-). If you define that as torture you've never followed what goes on in a typical prison between the inmates: there are reasons cameras never seem to cover certain areas in a prison. I think that if they really wanted to get info out of the inmates they'd drop them into a Level 4 Federal facility and let the other inmates know why they were there. Frankly, that's the way they tend to break certain criminals they want information out of now and it'd work even better on these guys given their cultural taboos.

Posted by: nerdbert at December 9, 2005 10:44 AM

What I take from all of this is that PB would be among the safest people on earth if he were to tour Iraq and get kidnapped.

Because there's not a blade in the world capable of cutting through the muscles required to keep a head as huge as PB's upright.

Posted by: Ryan at December 9, 2005 11:15 AM

The Elder.. frankly I go from memory, if you remember better good for you, and sorry for the mistake. The reality still is that the NVA ousted the Khmer, and that the Khmer's relationship to the NV was not known - they were glommed onto by the Cambodians to try to stave off falling to the communists.

They weren't capitalists certainly, I never said they were, what I said was that they were a supposed alternative to communism. To be candid, I either didn't know, or forgot that they initially cooperated with the NV, but ultimately, it's woefully simplistic to say that our abandonment of Thieu resulted in the Killing Fields, and thanks for completely ignoring the point. I get accused of being tangential by morons, but you choose to focuse 5 paragraphs on a pretty minor point. The fact is our national will was not going to sustain Vietnam, blaming the Democrats for the Killing Fields is akin to blaming the Republicans for the excesses of Augusto Pinochet. Since when did opposing course faction make you responsible for the vile, putrid conduct of the chaos that results from anarchy? The larger point as well is that the NV DIDN'T engage in the Killing Fields, so it's utterly disengeniuous to suggest that it was logical to assume that the outcome of the fall of SV would be the Killing Fields, and so to ascribe that blame, is also illogical. But hey, waste more time blowing me up for occassionally making mistakes of memory while completing ignoring the underlying logical argument and point. It makes you look very enlightened. I'd bet there isn't a single fact I might recall from memory that you don't already know.

Ryan, that was funny, and even if completely false, I laughed. Unlike nearly every right-wing poster here, I don't actually consider myself a better human being than the rest of the world's people. I actually subscribe to the teaching of Christ that in the eyes of God, no man, from the meanest prisoner, to the highest King, is more worthy and each has essentially equal value. But still, it was a good line.

What's pretty ironic, is that I get called arrogant for pointing out that Mitch (and the rest o' you yuckelheads) are trying to proclaim yourself better, and you're hypocrites... that just strikes me as funny...You claim to be better, I point out you aren't, and you call me an elitist... wow.. amazing.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 9, 2005 12:30 PM

Mitch - I am so sorry to hear this. My thoughts and prayers are with the Schmeichel family and with the extended Jamestown family.

Posted by: The Lady Logician at December 9, 2005 12:53 PM

Nerdbert,

As I stated, Mitch (mostly) didn't actually bring up things that would be "torture", although in fact sleep deprivation is.

What I said was that by excusing things like faking desecration of the Quran, or even Sleep Dep, and cold cell hypothermia, it also excuses things like restrictive position confinement, pain positions, etc.. that we have ALSO done.

I agree that feeding them MRE's is anything but torture. MRE's are good eats, certainly meeting any standard for reasonable fare. I think, and I could be wrong, that there is something requiring food similar to the guards, but you know, I think that was is small enough in difference to be meaningless.

et.al.

The point of the thread continues to be that allowing torture saps national will and essentially probably already cost us any chance at "victory" (whatever that was going to be).

You want to blame the left for people being rightly offended by torture, then you indict your own side as moral depraved or wilfully ignorant. The left neither forced a withdrawal from Vietnam, nor caused these folks to kill Mr. Schultz, because it is the basic sense of revulsion that was appealed to in both cases. The decensy of the american people was appealed to in Vietnam, and appealed/offended here by scum. The left didn't invent that decency, and it didn't change it. No amount of left propoganda caused folks to suddenly change their ethics from accepting William Cauley Jr's actions to being repulsed by it. The media only served to publicize it, the reactions were their own.

What those on the right who would speak like Treadhead don't want to admit, is that it is the entire people of the US that are to "blame" for being repulsed by Vietnam and the consequential withdrawal. That of course would never be accepted, because it blames too many and suggests the American populace simply doesn't have enough stomach for cruelty. Instead they find a convenient scapegoat, the messenger. They blame the left for bringing attention to acts of barbarity. Apparently if we'd only been more willing to lie to the American people or if only the American people were more willing to accept shooting civilians, we could have won in Vietnam. It's the damned lefties who publicized it are really to blame because they didn't fall in lockstep.

Ah well, it's just another in a series of blame everyone but yourself streams of conciousness from the right. I take my share of the "blame" for being repulsed by the human cost of Vietnam weighed against the benefits. The Khmer Rouge were a monstrosity whose actions no one could have predicted, saying that was a predictable avoidable benefit, is a lie.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 9, 2005 12:54 PM

What's amazing, PB, is how you continually drone on and on - and yes, drone is absolutely the correct word - about how hateful and political Mitch is, and how dumb the rest of us are, and how all you want to do is have an intelligent conversation.

But:
1. You insult someone in nearly every post you spew up here.
2. You lack any ability to keep your posts oriented to the subject at hand.
3. And, somehow, Mitch believing that those who use for-real torture (as opposed to the Abu Ghraib kind) on, and then kill, US citizens should give their lives for their misdeeds is politicizing a death? While Cindy Sheehan, who was against the war from the start, is only a grieving mother? Can you not see your disconnect there?

And you wonder why people can't and don't take you seriously?

Posted by: Steve at December 9, 2005 01:12 PM

"They weren't capitalists certainly, I never said they were, what I said was that they were a supposed alternative to communism. "

In the same sense that the Nazis were an "alternative" to the Soviets.

Aside from being in almost all particulars, including core philosophy, identical.

Posted by: mitch at December 9, 2005 01:27 PM

Well Mitch (and the Elder) since Mitch didn't correct my error in his initial response, and certainly had every reason to do so, I'll make the leap that he didn't know any better either, which is no crime, but then who's knowledge of history would you like to indict? Or maybe just accusing us both of being human is enough for you and you want to stop there.

Mitch, if you are in fact well-informed on this, then you also know that much (nearly all) of the research since the war has said that it was the sweeping into the conflict of Laos and Cambodia that brought about their demise. Had we left them out, they probably would not have fallen to communism. I suppose the Elder might have wanted to mention this, but it was not convenient to his argument, was it?

The whole Domino Theory thing you suggested, the stream of collapsed governments leading to the killing fields (an apparently easily forseen outcome - based on?)- anyway, nearly all scholarly discussion considers that BS, Indonesia didn't fall, neither did Malaya, nor Thailand, despite dire (and utterly false) predictions from the right. No, it was only those countries we foolishly brought into the conflict. So who then truly was to blame for Cambodia and Pol Pot - well honestly, Pol Pot, but it is convenient of you to not subscribe to personal accountability isn't it. Given that, I'll say (tongue-in-cheek) indirectly if anyone, it was Dick Nixon. So blame the left.. as I said, any one but the guy in the mirror.

As for ideological similarity, Mitch, when did the North Vietnamese ever kill 60% of their population? On the key point, namely that blaming the left for Pol Pot's massacre is about as big a stretch as saying John Kerry called out troops terrorists, I'm afraid you still have a long way to go. The American people chose to leave Vietnam, Cambodia fell because we brought it into the war, it was probably safe until we did, and doomed after - just like Thailand was safe, and Malaya, but no one expected Pol Pot to start shooting everything everywhere, and blaming the left is shameless, but it is the normal course for the right to find everyone to blame but itself. If we REALLY want to start getting into the causes, let's talk about our arrogant and foolish decision to attempt to institute a democracy on a nation that never wanted us to - where do you begin the causal chain can be pretty subjective. Perhaps I should simply blame Ike for Pol Pot - I mean, you set the example.

PB

Posted by: pb at December 9, 2005 02:28 PM

PB-

Your error was not simply one of "bad memory." You were completely wrong about the Khmer Rouge. They WERE communists. They WERE the KAMPUCHEAN COMMUNIST PARTY. Pol Pot WAS a communist. They would have never come to power and been able to commit the horrible atrocities that occurred in the Killing Fields were in not for the aid and support of the North Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Soviet Union. Last time I checked all three countries were thoroughly COMMUNIST at the time that said aid were given.

You can brush it aside by saying "it was only five paragraphs on a pretty minor point" but in my eyes it completely destroys your credibility. If we can't trust you to get the facts straight on this "minor point" (by the way, only you would devote five paragraphs to a "minor point"--you might want to consider a little editing) , why should we expect anything else you say to be correct?

Posted by: the elder at December 9, 2005 03:31 PM

"As for ideological similarity, Mitch, when did the North Vietnamese ever kill 60% of their population?"

Gosh. PB got me in the old "numbers don't add up exactly" gambit! My whole point is shot!

The point is, Peeb, that whatever they call themselves and whatever ideological twaddle they wrap their approach in, the Khmer Rouge and the CPNVN and for that matter Mao, Saddam, the Soviets and the Nazis were and are all different flavors of the same pathology; the idea that not only can we create a utopia on earth by radical re-"engineering" of society, but that the ends justify the means used in achieving it. To claim that things like different names, and even open combat between different states that practice different flavors of the ideology, makes any real ideological difference is naive at best - the sort of naivety that has become, unfortunately, accepted in the educational sysem. Hitler and Stalin fought each other - but in fact differed from each other only in the details and windowdressing.

PB, you need to read "Modern Times: The History Of The World From The Twenties To The Eighties" by Paul Johnson, the best book I've seen when it comes to explaining the intellectual and moral links between different flavors of totalitarianism.

"On the key point, namely that blaming the left for Pol Pot's massacre is about as big a stretch"

It's not a stretch at all. The left demanded that we abandon the RVN and Cambodia; they were damn proud of achieving it. That millions died in the region, they cared little, but they sure held that "WE got the US out of Vietnam" up and waved it around for all to see.

Can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Posted by: mitch at December 11, 2005 01:16 PM

PB, it has been my experience to note that most liberals are rather ugly in some way according to todays standards. You and many would say,I'm sure, that looks have nothing to do with ones mind set. I, however would strongly disagree with that assumption. So please help me with my ugly=liberal study and tell me if you're ugly. Thank, Kathy

Posted by: Kathy at December 19, 2005 05:01 PM
hi