Sent Items

January 10th, 2005 · No Comments · Travel, Fun & Everything Else

For those of you visiting via links from Greg's place, or via Greg's place by way of Billy's or John & Company's, the posts, in order, that speak to the issues are here and here. I'm working on a wrap-up, but that could be days in coming. Depends on whether I continue in making the context wider and deeper, or just fire away with something direct and to the point. We'll see.

In the meantime, I've popped off a few quips in response to inane NYT and other articles that have been forwarded to me in email. For your general amusement.

You know how bad the situation is when the president's choice for attorney general has to formally pledge not to support torture anymore.

Though I agree that there's no shortage of "tunnel-vision" supporters in Bush's corner, I believe there are far more "myopic-vision" detractors outside that corner who have little to no historical perspective. Though America is not without its embarrassments, it's on the whole a trustworthy country (to whatever extent a nation can be trusted) and one president, regardless of who that is, is not likely to change that very much.

I was also wondering if you were equally or more embarrassed by how the US treated German POWs, especially near the end of the war when thousands of them died of hunger, exposure, and neglect while in US custody. This would have been on Truman's watch. You know, the guy (democrat) who dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, killing over 200,000 civilians. Of course, in fire-bombings of Tokyo during FDR's watch, far more Japanese civilians died than in the atomic bombings.

I'm not condemning either the atomic or fire bombings, but am just pointing out that they are always an element of conflict, regardless of who's in the White House. Just as in the dropping of atomic bombs, torture is an action that requires critical distinctions to be made. Irrational and unjustified as a form of punishment or retribution, it is nonetheless justified to extract information for the purpose of preempting events that are much worse than torture.

Ten former Enron directors have agreed to pay $13 million out of their own pockets as part of a settlement with onetime shareholders.

I'm not defending Enron executives per se (frankly, I've not paid a lot of attention to this "scandal"), but I was just wondering how many investigative stories you read about Clinton's dealings with Enron--such as--when he sent his commerce secretary Ron Brown to Croatia to help negotiate a sweetheart deal between the Croats and Enron?

None? Thought so.

If Iraqi plunges forward with elections that leave one section of the country excluded and embittered, we will all be the losers.

Yep, STOP THE ELECTIONS! It would be an absolute disaster if they improved things for Iraqis. Even worse, it could make Bush a hero in all of this, and the well-being of the Iraqis is certainly not worth THAT!

When I look at watershed events in history, particularly that of Western Civilization, the most important are almost always the makings of one man or a small group of men who press on in spite of all the "intellectuals" admonishing "a careful pace" and the nattering nabobs of negativity, who, pretty much aren't good for anything. They never benefit civilization. By and large, they have never had a big idea in their lives, or the wherewithal to take a risk.

President Bush prides himself on being a pig-headed guy. He is determined to win in Iraq even if he is not winning in Iraq.

Pig headed guys are often the only ones who ever get anything done. I suppose that in the left-liberal world, one goes about undertaking a task only after first asserting that "we'll stick with it so long as everything goes well, and especially, ONLY according to PLAN."

That sort of mindset never invented anything. It never started a business. It never won a war. That sort of mindset is for the weakminded. It's for those who benefit from Western Civilization but had no part in creating it and have no part in advancing it. It's for those whose life is an exercise in treading water.

It's for those who neither know splendor, nor expect it.

George W. Bush's war's so-called pre-emptive war is being enveloped by the foul and unmistakable odor of failure.

Keep your fingers crossed. Bush just might fail in this. You certainly don't want to express any optimism in the matter. After all, Iraqis are just not that important. Better we fail, their hopes of freedom perish, and you all feel good.