<p>I never said that Originaloog was incorrect – I simply supplied additional information regarding John McCain’s sons.</p>
<p>Many Americans have a stake in what happens in Iraq. H and I were at a gathering a couple of weeks ago where several of the men have already served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and others will likely be sent. Others have kids either there or about to be deployed. Iraq is not an abstract concept to many of us.</p>
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<p>But if William Kristol told you to beat on your house with a sledgehammer till the value increased, you probably wouldn’t do it. </p>
<p>In the states that have sent the most per capita to Iraq, the general mood is against ongoing occupation and in favor of accountability. States like Arizona and Texas, which send very few per capita to Iraq, pro-occupation, anti-benchmark sentiment is high. Let them send as many as Vermont, and see how quick it fades.</p>
<p>The question is whether the families of those young men, about to be deployed, believe in this mission. It would sure break my heart if I thought I was sending my son off into harm’s way, believing that the administration had lied about our purpose there. </p>
<p>I suppose the military families simply have to believe in the mission. How could they bear to believe that their children’s lives were at stake otherwise?</p>
<p>sjmom, as soon as Sen McCain’s son is deployed I will be proud to include him with the exclusive group of Congressmen who have children serving. And while I have been disappointed with Sen McCain’s politics in recent years, I will always unqualified respect for his service to our country.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to point out that in Sen. McCain’s mind, his son will not be fighting in the same Iraq that Sen. Webb’s son is. </p>
<p>As far as Sen. McCain is concerned, his son will be serving in a place where it’s so safe that General Petraeus rides around outside the Green Zone every day in an unarmored Humvee! Where the market where 21 people got killed immediately after his heavily guarded photo op there is as safe as a market here.</p>
<p>Sen. Webb’s son on the other hand is serving in the real Iraq, not a storybook fantasy.</p>
<p>I respect Sen. McCain for what he did as a POW, but he’s totally out of touch with reality in Iraq. So I don’t believe it’s possible for him to really understand what his son will be facing the way combat veteran Webb does.</p>
<p>Just like a market in Indiana! (Indiana has become a very dangerous place these days…oh, wait, that’s Blacksburg…)</p>
<p>I feel for the families who have their children going off to occupy a country that doesn’t want them, and end up being shot (as sacrifices) so that we don’t have to be shot at here. I’m not sure whether I’m more ashamed that they are being sent off as sacrifices, or that our democratically elected (a-hem) government has to lie about it.</p>
<p>The head of Fox (Murdoch) came right out and said that the network tried to shape the debate on Iraq in favor of the President’s policies. To no one’s surprise, Fox gives only half the coverage to Iraq of other networks. And surveys have found Fox viewers to be the least well informed, and to have more mistaken impressions about Iraq than viewers of other networks.</p>
<p>It’s crystal clear: Fox knows that the better Americans understand the occupation and what it’s doing to our national security, the less likely they are to want to perpetuate it.</p>
<p>I am stunned by the (a-hem) educated thinkers here. Perhaps you should talk to some of the “hostile, aggressive occupiers” or their families. “Hostile, aggressive occupiers” sounds like a nice label to use instead of using critical thinking, at least to me. Mini, I am going to challenge you to use something else rather than that phrase you can classify over a 100,000 people with. </p>
<p>Servicemember’s families often have the best idea of what is happening on the ground, because their sons, daughters, husbands, and wives tell them. If you think that I have to believe Iraq is going to work out perfectly because I might work there, you are wrong. I don’t have to put blind faith in my government to work for it. That would be idiotic.</p>
<p>While I can definitely find fault in Fox News’ reporting strategy, I also am disgusted at the media in general. The “if it bleeds, it leads” reporting by all the major networks gives a sensationalized and often negative slant. They are in it for the money and the ratings first and presenting an accurate image second.</p>
<p>If I have offended anyone too much, I offer my apologies, but I was amazed at some of the things I head on this thread.</p>
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<p>That may be true, but it’s a completely separate problem from what Fox is doing. Fox is deliberately downplaying the war in the hopes that people will be uninfomed enough to think that increasing global terrorism and overstretching our military are good things. And in some quarters it’s working!</p>
<p>Other networks have been complicit in stenography–repeating the AEI and administration’s often baseless claims without fact-checking said claims–but there’s a vast gulf between their neglect of duty and Fox’s deliberate perversion of it.</p>
<p>Yes, Lieberman might be an independant, but for all intensive purposes he is a democrat. The only reason he switched parties is cuz he didn’t get nominated as a D so to hold his seat he switched to I. That’s like saying the senator from vermont (bernie sanders??) is an independant…sure, he technically is, but for all purposes he is a democrat. </p>
<p>Iraq isn’t in our best national interest? According to who?? You? I happen to believe it is in our best national interests…contending that had terrorism been taking seriously before 9/11 the attacks on the wtc would never have happened. All the fuss about 3,700k dead in four years yet nobody seems to remember the 3k that died in one day…because we DIDN’T take terrorism seriously and DIDN’T find an offensive war…yes that means preemptive. </p>
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<p>And this is different from what daily kos is doing? Or Ted Kennedy? Everyone has a bias…even cnn/abc/msnbc. To think that these groups/people aren’t twisting the news to conform to their opinions is just as crazy as thinking fox isn’t doing it. </p>
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<p>Wow…now you can read minds? Very impressive…</p>
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<p>According to Ronald Reagan’s former National Security Advisor. Remember him? The guy who helped win the Cold War for us. His view is shared by a number of his fellow retired combat generals, and have been widely reported–except perhaps on Fox.</p>
<p>The National Intelligence Estimates have made it clear that the occupation of Iraq is increasing global terrorism, reducing worldwide support for the US, and over-stretching our military. These are not good things.</p>
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<p>I don’t need to read minds–I just have to listen to what McCain says he believes about Iraq. He has been very vocal on the subject.</p>
<p>He said he believes that General Petraeus rides around outside the Green Zone everyday in an unarmored Humvee. General Petraeus’ staffers literally laughed out loud about this claim. </p>
<p>If you were following the issues seriously, you would be familiar with the statements McCain has made and not think my references to them were the result of telepathy.</p>
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<p>Sorry to burst your bubble, but Iraq and Saddam Hussein had NOTHING to do with 9-11. Nothing. This is a common misconception that Fox viewers have, and partly explains their otherwise unfathomable support for a cause that is increasing global terrorism. None of the hijackers was Iraqi, and Saddam Hussein was against Al Queda, not a supporter or funder of it.</p>
<p>Meantime, the person responsible for 9-11, Osama bin Ladin, is free to launch another attack on US soil, because the neocons would rather concentrate their efforts on a nation-building adventure than prevent another attack.</p>
<p>“Mini, I am going to challenge you to use something else rather than that phrase you can classify over a 100,000 people with.”</p>
<p>I call it as I see. Hostile, aggressive occupiers, who came into a country that had never attacked them, but already had a million dead, half of them children, killed by Bill Clinton, had a U.N. weapons inspections team infiltrated by CIA spies (according to the inspectors themselves), had a huge, massive lie concocted by Democrats to convince other Democrats that the country should be attacked militarily in order to cover up the genocide (and the country was massively bombed in December 1998), and had these same lies trotted out in 2002. And I’ve watched the Halliburton stock rise. </p>
<p>I prefer hostile, aggressive occupiers to suicide death squads who sacrifice themselves to be shot at so “they” won’t shoot at us here. There are apparently Republicans such as Dick Morris who disagree with my preference. I also prefer it to “unwitting mercenary tools of a murderous corporate capitalism”, though I suspect this is the most accurate of all.</p>
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No he is NOT a Democrat. He was not nominated as a Democrat precisely because of his support for Bush’s war. He was elected with Republican support so that CT would retain senior representation in Congress, with its attendant pork-barrel perks. So please do not cite him as an example of Democratic philosophy, as his position has been very specifically disavowed.</p>
<p>What’s interesting is that the same people who claim that the lack of another 9-11 is proof the president’s policies are working, will make the same claim if there’s another 9-11. They’ll insist that the attack is the fault of the president’s critics and cite the attack as proof that the president’s policies are the way to go. The desire to spin another attack in just this way is the reason that some Republicans are already openly wishing for another 9-11.</p>
<p>It will never occur to them that increasing global terrorism, diverting resources away from stopping terrorism, and allowing the architect of the 9-11 attack to go unpunished played any kind of role.</p>
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<p>Proof? Or just more demonizing of Republicans?</p>
<p>sjmom2329, I shouldn’t have to provide “proof” of what’s been very well-documented and is common knowledge. But I’ll dig up the links for you.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11014.html[/url]”>http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11014.html</a></p>
<p>Head of Arkansas Republican party saying that all we need is another terrorist attack and people will support the president.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20070809_Stu_Bykofsky___To_save_America__we_need_another_9_11.html[/url]”>http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20070809_Stu_Bykofsky___To_save_America__we_need_another_9_11.html</a></p>
<p>Right wing pundit Stu Bykofsky, openly calling for another 9-11.</p>
<p>Fox host John Gibson agreed, calling for “a lot of dead people to wake America up.”</p>
<p>You are using the very same technique that you accuse others of using. Shame on you!</p>
<p>It is always disingenous to make such a broad, generalized, insulting statement and then attribute it to “some Republicans.” By the way, I notice that you have gone back and edited your post to change what you said. Fortunately, I had copied your words precisely, and you cannot deny you typed them.</p>
<p>Finally, I think it’s ridiculous to continue to use the term “neocon” as a pseudonym for the bogey man. What is a neocon? Check this link:
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative</a></p>
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<p>So, I guess I really don’t have a problem with your coninuing use of this word to describe conservatives – works for me. Neocon seems to describe someone who has seen the light regarding the empty promises of liberalism.</p>
<p>Others who are interested in learning more about one person’s journey from liberal to neoconservative may find it interesting to read this link. <a href=“http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/[/url]”>http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/</a></p>
<p>Oh, for heaven’s sake, you really had to reach for those links! I could easily post links to lunatics on the left, but what’s the point?</p>
<p>sjmom – Try this link <a href=“http://www.newamericancentury.org%5B/url%5D”>www.newamericancentury.org</a> These are the neo-cons who are scary. Notice that the names of the people involved are the architects of this war and this administration. They are the unitary executive types (if the president does it, it’s not illegal, according to them). After you read what they say about themselves, google what others say about them. It’s not good. </p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t take wikipedia’s word for much. It’s too easy to ‘correct’ their entries to read whatever your little heart desires.</p>