Iraq war plan (comedy thread)

K

Kal-el

0
I have a plan for the current war situation: all those who agree with Bush will immediately be sent to either Iraq, Afghanistan, or to the next country we decide to pre-empitivley strike. Deployments will occur as follows:

1. The 1st group to go will be any Bush supporter who believes that Saddam Hussein had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11.

2. The 2nd deployment will consist of all those right-wingers who believe that Hussein had WMDs and/or was planning a nuclear assault on the US.

3. The 3rd group sent over will include anyone who cannot give a relevant, intelligent answer to, "Name 1 thing, other than the tax break, that Bush has done that has been good for the citizens, environment, or reputation of the US."

That should take care of the problem of not having enough troops to conduct our "war on terror."

Please note, however, that any member of the military currently serving overseas against their wishes or beleifs will immediately be brought home to their families. This should not be a problem, because 51% of the country will be replacing them.

Also, I think we should allow any Afghan or Iraqi who truly wants freedom to be brought here to live, where they can be truly free. And all those "freedom haters", and Bush says that their are so many of those, can stay over there so the occupation will have someone to fight. Since we've already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan citizens and their children, the least we can do is to give the survivors the option to experience the freedom that Bush & Co. insist they want, without having to worry about getting blown up or beheaded.

Of course, that means that we'll have to send our current president and most of his administration, along with most of congress over there too. That should make their jobs alot easier, since they'll be closer to the action and can rule, hands-on. But not to worry, I'm sure we can find adequate replacements. We just might be able to find people who actually read documents, refuse to be bribed or coerced, tell the truth to the American people, and uphold the Constitution. Or if that dosen't work, there will be an abundant pool of money-grubbing, back-stabbing, butt-kissing, ladder-climbing individuals to chose from.

We'll need to have regular communication with those we send over, so we'll have to send the media over, too. I believe the staff of mainstream media at Fox, CNN, the New York Post, CBS, etc. should all go, so that they can continue to propagate, I mean cover, progress of the terror war. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reily are such great patriots, and what better way to serve their leader and their country!

I believe this plan offers viable solutions to many of the problems currently plaguing the nation. I would like to thank, in advance, all those patriots who will be leaving us soon. We'll miss you. Write often, but please, spare us the photographs.
 
Any member of the millitary serving against their wish or belief...

I know this is a joke, but that statement reveals a lot about the way you think. Going to war, and fighting kind of comes with the job.

There are Iraqi citizens in the US and they support the war.

Do you rmember when CNN was called 'Clinton News Network'? It's not called that because they are conservative.
 
originally posted by LambadaCalc:
Any member of the millitary serving against their wish or belief...

I know this is a joke, but that statement reveals a lot about the way you think. Going to war, and fighting kind of comes with the job.

There are Iraqi citizens in the US and they support the war.

Do you rmember when CNN was called 'Clinton News Network'? It's not called that because they are conservative.
Click to expand...

I did'nt mean any offense towards anyone. I can't help if some Iraqi citizens are misinformed or whatever. CNN is'nt exactly too "left-wing oriented" nowadays, hence I mentioned them earlier.
 
CNN was called that by guess who? Oh yeah, right-wing commentators like Rush and Hannity. Here's a thought, somebody show me some evidence of how CNN is liberal? Or it seems, people may, gasp, just be repeating what they heard. On the contrary, I'd see CNN does a great service to Bush and his people. They rarely cover negative aspects of the administration, including huge and humiliating scandals like the Joe Wilson/Novak intelligence leak from the Bush team, Dick Cheney's profane outbust, ect. Those slide by quick and easy on all of cable news, where as in the Clinton days any little scandal or slip-up started an endless and brutal news cycle. I've even heard Joe Scarbrough admit that the media was universally harder on Clinton.

Now, I think what Kal-el might have meant about men and women who don't want to be there - how about the tens of thousands of troops that have finished their time in the military or contracted stay in Iraq, and are being forced to stay through adminstrative tricks. Yes, that's right - and you can do a little leg work and look it up online - many of our people over there very badly want to come home and have fulfilled the obligation they signed up for and then some but are still there. Let's put it this way, if you signed up for a four year tour with the reserves, and ended up doing a fifth year, in Iraq, against your will after you expected to be honorably released from your national service, would you be happy? Probably not. These people have families and lives, and right now uncle sam is fucking them pretty badly.

This post calls attention to one of my biggest problems with the pro-war arguments you here everywhere now. Do people really believe this was a pressing, urgent action? That we wouldn't be safe right now and may have already fallen disaster is Hussien was still in power? That we're really better off now that we're occupying Iraq at enormous expense and great loss of life? This is really the best way to combat international terrorism and the cultural antagonism with the Arab world? This is the best thing all those people's lives and all that money could go to?
 
Let me see if I get this right, we are in a "global war on terror" yet why did we launch an offensive against a TOTALLY SOVERIGN nation?
 
If you watched the last election all CNN did was talk about how well Kerry was doing and projecting Kerry as the winner prematurely in several polls. They were practically immersed in Kerry camps. At any point when they announced a win for BUsh all you could hear were boos, the opposite for Kerry.
 
LambdaCalc said:
Any member of the millitary serving against their wish or belief...

I know this is a joke, but that statement reveals a lot about the way you think. Going to war, and fighting kind of comes with the job.

There are Iraqi citizens in the US and they support the war.

Do you rmember when CNN was called 'Clinton News Network'? It's not called that because they are conservative.
Click to expand...

You show me a picture of Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch and I'll show you someone who give a rat's ass about politics. If the politics happen to be what's good for their business then that's which side they are. Murdoch doesn't give two shits about the news or the truth in particular. He's about profit. Think about it. Coporate owned media...Hydromaxmm....corporate Vice President...Cabinet Members....um oh yeah that means what we are suppsed to know will be what is decided to be shown. And if a President and administration is doing as much as he is for the rich and super rich like Bush is I'm thinking it's in the best interest for those corporate filters to appease the administration.
 
That's a piss poor argument. Is Hollywood in the business of making money? Yes. Is Hollywood full of liberals? Yes, even poor Star Wars contained referneces to the current administration, and it was blatantly obvious Lucas was comparing Anakin to Bush.
 
Sorry guy, but are you suggesting that you heard booing from CNN people when it was clear that Kerry lost Ohio? Or that you somehow counted up the hours of new media coverage on that channel for Kerry vs. Bush coverage? Are you saying that CNN falsely projected Kerry for a win to try and sway the election (CNN, like all reputable news agencies, mostly uses thrid party pollers such as gallup who stake their reputation neutrality)? Are you aware that there are media watchdog groups and people who actually professionally analyze and search for these types of things, and they would laugh at such claims? I'm not being trite at all when I ask you this, do you really believe these things? And if so, based on what evidence? What you offered before was just some vague impression you seem to have about the election coverage. Frankly that doesn't impress me much.

Here's food for thought: Anne Coultier, who is a certifiable nutball, just appeared on the cover of Time magazine and had a rather flattering story run about her career. It ignored her many contradictions, bizarre claims (such as "women probably shouldn't be allowed to vote") and the numerous instances of her just flat out making shit up and falsey citing it in her books and articles. But what's this, Time and CNN are owned by the same company and are partnered organizations. I'm telling you, turn off that talk radio, go pick up some real newspapers. You don't need a dose of opinion with the news to understand what's going on.
 
It's not talk radio it's common sense. Like I said, if you watched CNN is blatanlty obvious. Are you suggesting Florida was not called early in 2000?

The BBC, NPR, Drudge, Limbaugh...are all good sources. If you suggest I read tripe like movon.org, I'll have to laugh.
 
Moveon.org is a political action group that clearly announces its agenda and mission statement. Look, I'm not trying to get into a big thing with you, but you're really not demonstrating to me that you have a real full grasp of media, politics, or anything else we're discussing. Nobody in their right mind looks to moveon.org as a primary news source. Comparing Limaugh and the BBC is pure insanity. As I've attempted to point out, Limbaugh is entertainment, nothing more. It's not a legit news souce (try using Limaugh references in an academic paper and see what the prof has to say). Talk radio show like that are simply opinionist waxing.

As for CNN, I see you're really jsut repeating something you probably heard and don't have anything credible to back up the claim. the 2000 election was predicted as a Gore win early on by every single major news network, not just cable news. That's because based on the order of the counties reporting a percentage tally, Gore was easily sweeping the state. Due to the political uniformity of certain counties, this was misleading, hence the error.

Interestingly, CNN was particualrly worried about a repeat of this incident again, and was in fact the last election coverage to declare an outcome after all teh other major networks due to their caution falsey projecting a win for anybody and hence swaying the election. The fact that you don't recall this yet seemed to have some sort of mental log over who recieved more favorable election coverage leads me to believe you didn't really watch that much of CNNs election coverage in the first place. Either way I'm not real convinced that you know what you're talking about at this point.
 
Originally posted by LambdaCalc:
Do you rmember when CNN was called 'Clinton News Network'? It's not called that because they are conservative.
Click to expand...

As far as cable channels go, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC mostly report from the Associated Press, and send their own correspondents generally after a story has broken or becomes relevant. Afterwards, as seen mostly with FOX, it's all opinion-based. Nothing wrong or conspiritorial about that- just turn off your tv and do pe.
 
The infotainment and round table toss up discussion shows on FOX and CNN is disturbing. If there is one more split screen multiple guests program on I swear I don't know what I'll do. I wrote a paper on this a year ago. News networks should not play host to people mixing news with opinionated commentary. If it were HBO or something then fine, but if it's supposed to be a news channel? It's not their job to interpret the news. Their job is to report it.
 
I find it disturbing in that so many are obviously letting "infotainment" act as their only means of collecting and interpreting information. Everyone calls it insulting when this is pointed out, but it seems that people line up to listen to media pundits, who simply make a linving at being opinionated, and then adopt these positions, no-questions, based on their previous political persuasions. When a story breaks in the news media so many simply turn to their selected cultural sources to just tell them what they ought to think about it. Just in the discussions I've had on this forum and my everyday experiences I've noticed time and again that many individuals have names, facts, a general knowledge of what happened, and a very definate opinion on issues, but are completely unable to discuss the true implications and processes involved. If you try to take it beyond whatever they heard their friend, or Rush Limbaugh, or whoever makes up their mind for them, said about the topic, they draw a blank. That's not political thought, it's intellectual 'simon says.'
 
You are blathering on about your opinions, and I am blathering on about my opinions so there is really no difference between the academic quality of our posts. If you read my original statement about Limbaugh, you would realize he supplies references for everything he talks about so people can make up their own minds.

Not that I would use Limbaugh as a refernece in a paper, but if you show me a non-liberal poli-sci professor, I'll show you a snow ball in hell.
 
A given instructor's political persuasion should have little impact on their instant recognition of somebody like Rush Limbaugh as a figure in the entertainment, rather than news media or academic spheres. The fact that he's a guy making a buck off slinging partisan opinions to eager and easy audiences seems to be lost in this debate. So far as his references, do we honestly suspect that old Rush believes his listeners will hustle over to their public libraries and lexus nexus portals to rigorously fact check his statements? It is possible to select sources and numbers only beneficial to your point without accurately portraying the entire scope and gravity of a given issue? Is his career more dependent on pleasing an audience that wants to hear him validate their political beliefs, or him being an impartial and carefully scutinizing reporter of facts? These are questions that people who implicitly accept everything that comes out of Limbaugh's mouth, as well as his crackpot and facile reflections, simply refuse to consider. And it's your loss for failing to do so.

Consider this - what if old Rush has an epiphane one evening and decides that the Iraq thing is rubbish. Would he in fact be committing financial suicide if he announced this to the world with his broadcast the next day? Absolutely, he'd be held up for mockery by his fanbase and lose his following and stream of income. Do you think he would perhaps think better of it and maintain his stoic course of blatant opinionist shouting? Well you bet. He can hardly be considered a credible source of reliable information in this case - his success is wholly dependent on his partisan angle. Real news agencies make their names and profits from their authenticity and accuracy - Rush makes his by gratifying an audience of a certain politcal bent. If the New York Times makes an error of little or no consequence, they retract it and apologize. If Rush screws up or otherwise has something totally wrong, even on something major, you're not likely to hear about it. Why? Nobody cares if he's telling the truth in the first place. All this what-to-do about his presentation of 'sources' and go check for yourself nonsense is just a luke warm handout to his fans to enforce his credibility with them, and it seems to be working splendidly by the sound of things.

Also, the overwhelming percentage of all college faculties tend to fall into the liberal category, self-identified at that. This is no secret. Frankly I find the high correlation between the most educated and intelligent segments of the population and a democratic persuasion to be an encouraging thing, but typical spin has made having brains and not being conservative into some kind of awful contradiction. Of course, if college faculties were mostly conservative, it would be a point of pride for the grand old party. Such is the nature of spinning, which again, seems to be lost on some.

So far as our posts being equally lacking in academic pedigree, well that I couldn't agree with more. There's hardly a post on this entire site that could claim as much. I do feel, however, that we're batting at slightly different percentages as you have commented that Rush Limbaugh and the BBC news serve are equals in reputation and credibility in the same stroke. One is a univerally respected international news agency that has staked its instutional reputation and livelihood on its impartial reporting of facts and happenings with a minimum of editorial voice or impact. The other is an uneducated, hypocritical, formerly-drug addicted and convicted criminal who makes a living by shallowly reducing issues to partisan bickering and weak arguments designed to placate a simpering audience. Not exactly on in the same.

I can tell you that I attended one of, if not the most conservative college in the nation, and I would have been shamed out of the class had I attempted to quote Rush Limbaugh when presenting a point, by my peers and the instructor.
 
Higher education definitely has its merrits, but as many discover when they enter the 'real' world, what is studied and what is practiced tend to be very different animals. (for a light example, consider the scene in Back to School when Dangefield takes on the business professor concerning the widget factory. )

Whether Rush is infotainment or not is besides the point. You assume that Rush's audience is too stupid to check up on the facts, an assumption most liberals make about non-liberals and society in general. The fact remains that he offers references and resources to everything he talks about so you can make upi your own mind. If you choose to think conservatives are too stupid to check up on the facts, then that's your problem
 
Higher education is about teaching you how to think and developing your mind, not training you for your job (that's vocational school). If you appraoch university as job practice then you're missing out on the greatest benefits, but this is neither here nor there so far as what we're talking about.

Rush being infotainment is very much the point. I don't believe that many of the listeners who follow those types of programs understand that, and there lies a serious error. You miss my point entirely by suggesting that I said Rush fans are too stupid to check his sources. If you read my post, my contention is that they are unlikely to or uninterested in doing so. Figures like Rush operate on a sort of cult of personality - and as I said the big production of citing sources that you can check on your own is in fact just placating the audience into thinking that there's absolutely no way his partisan griping could be misguided or inaccurate in any way.

The stupidity does not lie in the unwillingness to check up on the validity of his sources, (which really hardly matters, sources, statisitics, quotes, can be presented in all manner of ways, and the most pertitnent factor to any presentation is what is left out, leaving the other evidence out of context, a frequent tactic employed by right wing media mongers), but rather in believing that Rush is some sort of benovelent political straight shooter, rather than a profit coveting moron who makes broadly sweeping arguments devoid of balanced reasoning and intelligent commentary (for example, the assertion that you repeated that Iraqi detention centers contained antics no worse than a little fraternal hazing - such as dog attacks, starvation, beatings, and deaths by way of negligence - clearly you never questioned Rush's spin on that subject or thought to check it out for yourself).

Punditry is not news and it's not even political discussion - it's a shallow, weak-minded diatribe on issues designed to placates whatever audience happens to favor the given mouthpiece. To percieve Rush as anything more than an entertainer is foolish, but to let him hand feed you your political opinions is beyond stupid. That's got nothing to do with 'fact-checking' and everything to do with thinking for yourself. When you tune in to Rush and repeat that garbage as dogma, content that you heard a guy say it on the radio and he even played a soundite or quoted a magazine article, you've given up your own mind to some asshole sitting in a booth who makes a living from people's unwillingness to do their own thinking. He may be the smartest of us all in that respect . . .
 
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Left-wing right-wing whatever-wing, they all employee the same tactics when presenting information. The only point I was ever trying to make is that Rush provides references/sources to whatever he talks about. I don't know anyone that takes Rush's word as the gospel truth, and this discussion was never about Rush being infallible or a benevolent creature.

Yes, people should consult numerous sources for information and make up their own mind. That has never been the argument.
 
Well, glad we're not speaking past each other then. I agree, there are huge amounts of spin on both sides, and anybody's given persuasion is going to affect how much of it they'll buy. In the spirit of broadening our understanding, here's a little article I cued up just now on google. There are numerous groups that actually keep a running tally of Rush's distortions and errors (all "cited" and trumpeted as granite solid fact on his radio program) which you can also find with some quick google searching. Most of these groups and websites aren't embittered liberal smear artists - they're people that share my opinion that the Rush Limbaughs of the world degenerate the political discourse in this country and purposefully trade in manipulative and distorted information to cash in on a political trend. Check it out.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1895
 
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