Liam

No. I'm not a racist. I said what I said because the subject of the thread turned to focus on Islam. Believe me, when the eventual post starts concerning Christianists, just wait till you see the can of whoop @ss I unload. I have absolutely nothing against Muslims. But I am against extremists -- of all faiths. It's just that the topic at hand happens to be of Islam.

Yet another hate-filled media piece, a veritable hit job on our men and women in uniform: http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=8894...656525&f=00&fg=

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay...

Fine, if you want to define the initial two week campaign to Baghdad as "the war" and all else "the occupation", fine with me. We won the war. We are losing the occupation. The occupation has been so severely botched by the Bush administration that it probably can't be set right without sending hundreds of thousands of US troops into Iraq. In my opinion, there's no point in claiming to have won the war when the occupation after the war is what matters more. I don't understand where this claim of "gleeful mantra on the news" comes from. It is entirely a figment of your imagination. No one is happy about reports of casualties -- not the public and certainly not the media which, for the first time in a long time, is experiencing an extremely high mortality and casualty rate in the theatre of war. If anything, the media has been extremely sympathetic to the soldiers and quite honorable when doing things like listing those who died during the week, portraying the fallen, interviewing their families. If you've got enough backbone to test the veracity of your claim, I'd suggest picking up the latest issue of Newsweek. It does a beautiful job of showing the true costs of this war. I suspect you won't because it will force you to admit (even if only to yourself) that one of your "truths" is anything but. I don't know where you're getting your news, but if you want to see demonically gleeful mantras of death, keep reading right wingers like Ann Coulter.

I did not think you were attacking me -- I read your post as an attempt to suss out my train of thought. I took no offense at what you said. No worries. You're right: I don't like extremists of any stripe, but other faiths seem to have some kind of control over the violence the most extreme members of their kind can unleash. Islam is the only faith I know of that can be manipulated and twisted so that people believe someone who blows up a bus or a market is destined for paradise. Yes, that is an extreme within the faith, but I have never heard leaders or teachers of any other religion advance those kinds of thoughts. Maybe Christianity held those kinds of beliefs during the crusades, but that's ancient history and no longer believed or practiced.

I can only say what I feel... I no longer think this war is winnable and I think it was fought on the cheap and based on unfound bases (whether deliberate or mistaken is a separate debate). But I admire the men and women who don the uniform and do what they're asked to do. I don't support the war, but I honor the troops. I think the aim of the cause is no longer attainable, but I can't blame the rank and file guys in the service. They did their best under almost criminally substandard leadership. If anything, their service was a bright spot in an otherwise shameful period of US history. Yes, I support the troops. But I do not support the war. It is possible to say both and sincerely mean both.

Thanks for stepping in to defend me... I don't think my opnion is unfounded and, yes, I struggle with what I feel inside. I'm sorry, but I have a problem with the extreme elements faith that promises 72 virgins to someone who is a martyr to his faith (yet does not have a central authority, like the papacy, to say that killing children or old women in a suicide bombing is not an honorable thing). I have a problem with the extreme elements of a religion that wants to see me, a gay man, buried under a collapsed wall, crushed by stones, my head beaten in with rocks, my body dismembered. I have no illusions that certain Christianists are more forgiving, but I'd doubt many self-proclaimed "true followers" of Christ would topple a wall on me. Some might, but I'd live in fear for my life if confronted by an mob in an Islamic country. I can't even imagine that something like this could happen in a Christian-domitaed country or even Texas. Consider yourself lucky if you have the luxury of not having this fear. I take issue with the extreme elements of a religion that routinely dehumanizes infidels and that subjugates women, that routinely spurns science and advancement. But most of all, I tend to be mistrustful of a religion whose extreme elements refuse to acknowledge or admit that there is a valid separation between church and state, or that the rules of the mosque are not the rules of the courts, that the law as it applies to the heavenly realm is not the same as that which applies to the earthly realm. I do not attribute these things to all Muslims. Not by a looooong shot. I work among Muslims and have no problem with them. But I take huge issue with the foaming-at-the-mouth Islamists. And I'm not at all cowed by accusations of bigotry when I say that I think Islamists represent a threat to western modernism.

Actually, I think people in the right winger of western politicas are easily misled by their dear leaders and I almost cringed at the potential hypocrisy of what I wrote (we were all misled by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell media show prior to the war). So don't think you're above it all or better or smarter. If anything, a continued obedience to a mindset that has been proven time and again to be deficient is greater evidence of mental slavery than occasionally questioning the veracity of the powers that be.

I disagree. Hear me out, please. I am fairly liberal in certain ways by US standards, probably centrist by Canadian standards. I don't think followers of Islam are evil. I don't think they shoud be villified or denied their rich religious heritage. That alone should set me apart from a 30's Nazi. I would hope. However, there is something about certain apsects Islam that allows a sinister mindset to take hold. I'm not entirely convinced it is geopolitical (i.e., peoples' gravitating to Hezbollah because they stand up to Israel) and I'm not entirely convinced it's social (i.e., the tradition whereby women in certain countries wear black shrouds from head to toe). But there is something anachronistic about Islam, something regressive, something easily manipulated by charlatans -- much more so than any other religion. There is something aggressive and angry and unforgiving about it. I'll admit to my own ignorance and biases, but I can't help but conjure up images of Shia pilgrims whipping themselves to the point of bleeding or mobs of angry, head-slapping Saudis when someone published political cartoons. I don't think purging of Islam is in any way justified, but I also think keeping a mindful eye on the situation is a prudent measure.

With the recent photos of the woman in a head scarf, claiming to apologize for being in Iranian waters (and urging abandonment of Iraq), it makes me wonder what it is about totalitarian states that makes them so blind to their own ham handed approaches to such things. It's reminiscent of Saddam patting that little boy (among a group of British abductees prior to Gulf War 1) on the head -- almost like these despotic regimes don't understand that people in free societies can see right through such forms of media manipulation. Are the residents and usual consumers of Iranian news so propagandized that they wouldn't see that British military personnel wouldn't voluntarily don head scarves and apologize on behalf of their nation? And are the purveyors of such cr*p so sure of themselves that they think we in the west can be so easily misled?

Army Guy: I'm not even Canadian, but think that was a really good post!

But could he get elected today? No chance.

My understanding of the ban is that only non-degradable plastic is banned. Bio-degradable plastic bags and paper will still be available. I think the ban is a good step, even though a small one. Plastic production requires petroleum and the ban on these bags in San Francisco alone is, I believe, estimated to save 450,000 gallons (maybe barrels?) of petroleum annually. A drop in the bucket in terms of oil, but when you add in the permanent polution of discarded bags littering the sides of roads or tangled up in trees or blowing round and round and round in the wind tunnels of a city, the ban makes a little more sense. I'm not averse to environmental issues, but like most consumers I probably don't think to much about it. I see the ban as being good for someone like me who is pro-environment but lazy about it. (My town instituted mandatory recycling about 10 years ago and I thought it was a great move. Great for me, who would probably just throw everything away. Now, my town recycles close to 50% of its trash by ton. Not bad for a mandated change.) So what do I care if the plastic they use at the grocery store is bio-degradable? Fine. It doesn't impact my choices in any way and it only does good.

I didn't, either. I can't say I agreed with all his policies, but I could see he was a smart and affable guy. Heck, even Newt Gingrich liked being in his company. And I was never a big Hillary fan (then or now), but I recoiled at all the proverbial acid-thrown-in-the-face attacks that the GOP mastered during the Clinton years. Denying that any of that stuff happened is pure white washing of the truth, if you ask me.

You must be joking. For the record, I have never seen nor heard a liberal "musing" "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?" but I heard plenty of that and worse from right wingers during the Clinton years. Remember all the right winger talk that Bill and Hillary personally authorized a hit on Vince Foster? Does that qualify as civilzed parlour chat to you? Maybe in Republican households it is, but I actually try to elevate conversations around my kids. When you consider the 24/7 demonization of Hillary while she was first lady into the mix, it's clear that today's Bush Haters are minor league compared to the professional attack machine right wingers can and did mobilize from 1992 through 2005 (when Bush's post-Katrina debacle finally caused so many GOP and Bush apologists to recognize the hollowness of all their blather). And gleeful bodycount? Preposterous! This is an administration that is trying to hide from the public the very fact that we're at war at all. No flag-draped coffin photos, no interviews unless the media is embedded (i.e., "protected and traveling") with a particular military unit, absolutely no truthful coverage of the war in the media or honesty about if from the White House and absolutely no ask of sacrifice among the general population. Unlike Vietnam, when the US ultimately pulls out of Iraq and the country implodes, the American public won't have learned anything from this war (and will be doomed to repeat its mistakes) because this administration has kept the public so insulated from the horror of this war and the administration's mistakes that the American public is almost oblivious to it. There is no glleful bodycount when the public isn't even aware of the day-in, day-out trials of the battle. I seriously have to wonder what alternate universe some of these kamikazes-for-Bush zealots inhabit.

"We" being Canada, or "we" being whatever country you're from? I'm from the US and I think the UN has value, but it has shown itself to be largely lethargic in responding to true military crises (Darfur, Kosovo, Somalia). And I also think the Iraq war has shown that it is willing to pass resolutions it has no intent of ever enforcing. I think its humantiarian work is decent, but its record of placing on human rights panels some of the worst abusers of human rights is simply ridiculous. Perhaps it should scale back and do what it does best like organize food and medicine distribution, build schools, etc.

Like I said...deflecting. Thank you for proving my point. I'm not at all deflecting. I think you raise an interesting discussion topic and something I'd be happy to discuss (in another thread). The reason for my initial response was that you did absolutely nothing to connect the issues of content management in the Canadian media with the original point of the post, which was a growing dislike of American people (not the US government, not US institutions -- like media organizations). If you make the connection, then your point is on topic.

I think Bush will be for Democrats what Carter was for Republicans: an effective punching bag whose "legacy" they will be able to pull out and punch around for at least a decade. The biggest two differences is that: 1) Carter was actually a very smart guy, and 2) he has character that shone through once the weight of the office was lifted from him. He hasn't been a perfect ex-president and he isn't universally loved, but most Democrats and quite a number of Republicans know he is a good man at heart. I can't imagine Bush's reputation can be rehabilitated even enough so that Republicans will ever want his name mentioned in public again.

OK, it's a friggin movie. Lighten up everyone. Cripes amighty...

Well, it could be the uninterrupted state of chronic warfare it's been in since about the time of the rise of Babylon on...but of course that's not the answer your smarmy question is looking for, is it? Clearly it isn't. But if the answer was so self evident to all of us poor clods outside the intelligence community in Washington DC, why didn't "the decider", who's got all kinds of information and advice at his fingertips, know this? It's kind of like someone who knows that a closet has been stuffed to the gills yet decides to pull the door open only to act shocked (shocked!) when a lifetime of amassed junk falls out all over the floor. In that case, it is not unfair to primarily blame the guy who knowingly opened the door.

I think any quiet on the Baghdad front has more to do with insurgents' keeping their powder dry than military success on our part. As soon as the military moves on a bit, the bombs will flare again. Or the insurgents will tire of keeping a low profile and will lash out elsewhere. The "surge" is a prime case of too little, too late. Bush should have used 150,000 to topple Baghda, but have 350,000 waiting in Kuwait to deploy and keep the peace. Once they de-Baathified the country, the end of the war die was cast in our enemy's favor. And that was about a year before anyone heard of Cindy Sheehan.

A soldier can only tell you what he sees with his own eyes. I'll agree that he might have expertise regarding the events that take place in his immediate vicinity. However, 99.9999% of Iraq is not within his immediate vicinity. If he is in Ramadi and a van filled with school children runs over an IED in Ramadi, he'll know about it. If that same van ran over an IED in Fallujah, the soldier in Ramadi is unlikely to know much, if anything, about it. The pamphlet claimed that 20,000 kids were killed as a result of the war. It did not say targeted and/or killed by US soldiers. Frankly, I'd be surprised if the death toll of children over the past four years of war (from *all* sources, gun fire, aerial bombing, IEDs, accidental deaths, terrorists, disease, malnourishment, ruptured healthcare systems, etc.) was that low. That would be surprising to me. Anyone who claims outright that 20,000 childrens' deaths are not possible -- even if that person is Soldier Ray -- he's simply got his mind closed to the scale of the catastrophe of war.

And you should stop trying to deflect biting comment that is most definitely on topic but not to your liking. Most Canadians are non-Americans the last time I checked, and Ottawa has seen fit to officially try and stop Americans and their media from dominating culture north of the border. 1. Not deflecting 2. Didn't find your commentary at all biting 3. Not at all against my liking 4. But still off topic. If you had connected the dots between Canadian media content managment and anti-Americanism in your initial post, then, it's on topic. But you didn't do that. If you want to talk about TV content restrictions without establishing anti-americanism as its basis, start a thread on that topic. Just a friendly suggestion. Thanks to moderateamerican and Remiel for getting back on topic.

You should start a thread on that issue, I'm sure it will be a lively discussion, because it is off topic to the original post concerning non-Americans' attitudes.

Yeah you are, you're justifying an aggression against one people because of the acts of another. Isn't that kind of like the arguments you reject vis a vis the Iraq war: Al Qaeda attacked on 9/11, therefore, attack Iraq?