2003 All Over Again

Remember the run up to the Iraq war? The Bush Administration made the case to invade based on a bunch of what ifs. Now the Democratic Party and its standardbearer Hillary Clinton is theorizing that Russia may have been behind hacks of the Democratic National Committee and seems willing to provoke a possible new cold war with our former rival. The logic seems very familiar.

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  • Clearly. But it’s more than a new «cold war» that Ms Clinton e consiglieri seem determined to risk – rather a hot shooting war with thermonuclear weapons. Fortunately, it will be brief….

    Henri

  • We have always been at war with Oceania Eastasia Eurasia. Clearly. [let’s see if the html strikeout tags work?]

  • Hillary has always had a loose relationship with the facts.

    She calls out the Russians over anything that comes to her addled brain.

    There was no Soviet involvement in Vietnam, but that was not reason enough for the US to stop trying to justify their invasion decades ago by blaming the USSR, so there is an American tradition for Hillary to uphold.

    And George H.W. Bush celebrated the end of the Vietnam Syndrome in 1991, getting Americans to cheer slaughter once again.

    Americans are notorious for their short memories.

    “Memory is the enemy of totalitarianism.”—Albert Camus

    “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” — Milan Kundera

    BOHICA!

    • «And George H.W. Bush celebrated the end of the Vietnam Syndrome in 1991, getting Americans to cheer slaughter once again.» My understanding, Glenn, is that Saint Reagan, of late lamented memory, managed to overcome the so-called «Vietnam syndrome» by successfully carrying out an invasion of that threat to world peace, Grenada, some eight years before George Herbert Walker Bush did deaj vu all over again in Iraq….

      Henri

      • On Feb. 28, 1991, just hours after the fighting stopped, Bush gave the public a fleeting glimpse of his secret agenda when he celebrated the ground war victory by blurting out the seemingly incongruous declaration, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.”

        https://consortiumnews.com/2011/022811.html

      • After Reagan proved the Vietnam syndrome was over by his decisive victory over the existential threat of Grenada, and Bush, sr proved the Vietnam syndrome was over by his decisive victory over the existential threat of Panama, Ben Sergeant of the Austin American Statesman drew a cartoon showing Uncle Sam in his trophy room with his elephant gun and his trophies: two mouse heads.

        Mike Royko wrote that Iraq would not be like Grenada and Panama, but it would be another Vietnam after which we’d all talk about the Iraq syndrome. But Bush, sr led the US military to victory in just 100 hours, and figured this was the last nail in the coffin of the Vietnam syndrome!

        After Vietnam, we had Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya.

        All Hillary’s advisers assure her that the Soviet military collapsed with the Soviet Union, and the Russian military is far less capable than the Libyan military, and regime change in Russia will be easier than regime change in Libya, and can be accomplished without risking a single life.

        And most Americans believe what Hillary’s advisers say: Putin is smart enough that, after Hillary gives her ultimatum her first day in office, Putin knows he must resign along with his entire government to be replaced with a democratic government appointed by President Clinton. If Putin does not agree to all of Hillary’s commands, the war that will follow will be entirely his fault, since Hillary says she only wants peace (and regime change in Russia and Syria).

      • «Putin is smart enough that, after Hillary gives her ultimatum her first day in office, Putin knows he must resign along with his entire government to be replaced with a democratic government appointed by President Clinton.» Ain’t democracy grand ? I understand that dear Mikheil Saakashvilli is not finding his current tenure as governor of Odessa Oblast quite as pleasant (lucrative ?) as he had hoped ; perhaps he’d be available to shoulder the burden of being Ms Clinton’s first appointee to the post of Russian president ?…

        Henri

  • alex_the_tired
    October 24, 2016 10:36 AM

    I noticed something from the cartoon.
    When you look at the nicknames and diminutives for the presidents, you have, on the Democratic side FDR, JFK and LBJ. All three had some pretty progressive chops (yes, there were also great flaws with each one). They are remembered for ACTUALLY coming through with real progressive things.

    FDR. — All the federal programs that started the country out of the Depression.
    JFK. — The moon missions. Scientifically important, but mostly, a clear, nonviolent way to win the Cold War.
    LBJ. — Civil Rights.

    Now, let’s look at the Republicans. They don’t tend toward monogram-as-nickname. Reagan was never RWR. George H.W. Bush was never GHWB. His son the veep was never GWB–he was simply W.

    Ever notice Hillary Clinton’s campaign logo? Simply H. And I expect the amount of social justice that comes out of her term in office to be roughly that of what came out of the Cheney administration.

    As an aside, does anyone else have display problems with this site? The three main columns do not align correctly, so I have a bizarre amount of white space. Also, I notice that I frequently get disconnected from the Internet when I leave this site. Anyone else having similar problems?

    • I must confess, alex_the-tired, that I find Ms Clinton’s campaign logo surprisingly apt – it shows «H» moving in a big way to the right. What’s not to like ?…

      With regard to your problems with the site, I must confess that I don’t experience them. Are you viewing it on a standard computer (i e, desktop or laptop) or on a mobile device (smart phone or tablet) ? What operating system are you using ? Which web browser ?…

      Henri

    • “As an aside, does anyone else have display problems with this site?”
      *
      I haven’t had problems as you describe, but for a couple of weeks I was not receiving email notifications of new comments to threads even though I always click “Notify me….” That problem seems to have been fixed.

  • Most of the gocomics comments are that this cartoon is all lies. Bush, jr proved that no Saudi was involved in the attack, that the second largest number of hijackers were Iraqis, and that Saddam was preparing a nuclear arsenal for a second terrorist attack, but with nuclear weapons. It has, of course, been irrefutably proven that Russia was responsible (just read the MSM, they have experts who have ‘proved’ that it was the Russians). Plus, of course, the irrefutable story of the cherry tree proves that the US president cannot tell a lie, and his press officer has said he has proof it was the Russians.

    In the first two debates, Secretary Clinton said (or at least strongly implied) that she’d start regime change her first day in office. In the third debate, she said she’ll start with an ultimatum her first day in office, and if Putin complies with all her demands, we’ll have peace. If not, the war will be entirely Putin’s fault, since she only wants peace, but on fair, honest terms (i.e.,she gets everything she asks for). And, if Putin forces the US to use its military to impose regime change on Russia, the US will win without the slightest risk of the loss of a single life because of the incredible capacity of its military, both offensive and defensive. (And I do mean incredible.)

    • Well, Michael, there’s no doubt but what those Gocomics commentators know very well what they’re talking about ; surely no one would post to so exalted a forum without having done their homework ?…

      «Incredible» is, indeed, the term for the US military – Mr Putin better watch out !…

      Henri

  • Many years ago I read a story in the collection about Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op where he sees a poster selling whiskey in a speakeasy, and asks, ‘How many lies can you count in that poster?’

    To iterate, How many lies can you find in this article?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/bring-syrias-assad-and-his-backers-to-account-now/2016/10/21/554b56ba-97a6-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html?utm_term=.5ab4f05c7dbc

  • Okay, so T-rump is a bloviating cad. He’s rude to (marginal) minorities. He’s nationalistic. He’s invested in criminal activities.

    Billary’s committed treason (and THAT IS email-gate).

    Which is the lesser-evil?

    DanD

    • Donald John Trump hardly seems to be a man for nuances, but perhaps there’s more to him than meets the eye. Presumably those of us who frequent Ted’s forum will find this comparison of Mr Trump’s attitude to the US war on Iraq with that of Ms Clinton of interest….

      Yesterday I had occasion to listen to Swedish Radio’s correspondent in New York, Agneta Furuvik, reporting on attitudes to refugees in the United States. In her report she interviewed one Madeleine Albright, née Marie Jana Korbelová (known as one of Ms Clinton’s mentors), who deplored that they were hardening and stated that «I think what is at stake is very much … kind of … our humanity». Ms Furuvik, naturally enough, took Ms Albright’s profession of humanitarian concerns at face value, and choose neither to confront her with her infamous reply when asked by journalist Leslie Stahl back in 1996 about the deaths of half a million Iraqi children due to US «sanctions», «Is the price worth it ?» «… We think the price is worth it», nor to even mention this exchange later on in the programme…. Our public radio continues to perform its function to inform the populace….

      Henri

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