Credibility counts. You can’t threaten someone with violence without carrying it out.
Credibility Counts
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Simply unbelievable. It’s one thing to make mistakes in what you say or get caught in a lie, but simply unbelievable that you will kill people to avoid appearing to do either…
A school yard shove is not the same as using chemical weapons. The appropriate response to the one is not the appropriate response to the other.
I am 99% against our leaders and their policies. I do take some pride though, in being open to arguments and evidence. In this particular instance, Obama has made the case, and I am with him.
While we’re at it, a better analogy would have been for Sasha to witness the bully pushing someone else. Or, for that matter, for Sasha to have been told that the bully had pushed someone else, but without proof.
How has Obama made his case? First and foremost, the American people have seen zero evidence, much less proof, that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. It may have been the rebels. Second, why is it America’s job to police these things? Chemical weapons are against international law, so it seems to me it’s up to the UN. Considering that the US uses chemical weapons (white phosphorus, napalm, depleted uranium, tear gas, etc., including against its own people like OWS demonstrators), the US is hardly in a moral position to enforce this stricture.
This is funny, Ted…yes, it’s so obvious to me that there’s absolutely no reason for the US to do anything in Syria
The blue collar crowd, what remains of it, is susceptible to presentations of style absent substance.
Blue collar support for Reagan by the Reagan Democrats makes my case.
The blue collar vote for Republicans and a speedy extiguishment of worker rights was favored over the slower extiguishment of worker rights offered by Democrats, when both would have been rejected by those dealing with the substantial issues involved.
First comes ignorance and then the fall.
Ted, I respect your work. I look to you as a thought leader. I don’t take any joy in fighting with you. It’s obvious that I am the odd man out here, so I’ll just say this, and then I’ll get out of yall’s hair.
The case was presented by Obama in his Rose Garden speech, and yesterday by SecState Kerry at the senate hearing. I watched both in their entirety. All of the issues you raise were addressed, and persuasively so.
@ Ted Rall –
You make some overwhelmingly convincing arguments. International law should be enforced internationally. Why does the United States inevitably run to the forefront of controversial actions that take place in foreign countries, with no direct effect upon the U.S. or its citizens? There is only one answer to that: MONEY!
The U.S. has within the last decade engaged in actions that have been internationally condemned, such as torture, illegal invasions, etc. This, together with the use of chemicals against U.S. citizens indicates that the U.S. government believes that it can violate international treaties and commonly-accepted laws with impunity. So far, it has succeeded in doing so. Eventually, the responsible parties must pay the piper. At least, I hope that criminal element of the U.S. government will eventually be “brought to justice”!
As you wrote:”… the US is hardly in a moral position to enforce this stricture.”
Hahahahaha. Best comic in months Ted!
The “logic” goes something like this: “Where does that bastard Assad get off killing his OWN people. He needs to be sent the message that only WE are allowed to kill HIS people … directly OR with the help of hired international, all-star terrorists.”
aaron,
I’ve read many of your comments and I respect a lot of what you say. But I think on this one, you’re just plain wrong.
“The case was presented by Obama in his Rose Garden speech, and yesterday by SecState Kerry at the senate hearing. I watched both in their entirety. All of the issues you raise were addressed, and persuasively so.”
It’s EASY to be persuasive when you lie through your teeth.
I surely hope you don’t just “get out of everyone’s hair.” We need good debates about deep issues, not just the automatic down-shouting of everything we disagree with.
Good one, Falco – you should be writing for Stephen Colbert! :^)
By the way, where is the solid, irrefutable evidence or proof that it was Assad’s forces that launched the gas attack? And what in the world would a limited, narrow strike do anyway – except shore up Obomber’s credibility? Obomber needs to think before talks himself into these corners. His credibility is not worth the lives of more innocent people. Does anyone stop to consider that both sides in Syria are bad people, and that we shouldn’t take sides at all? Why doesn’t someone bomb the rebels just to stop the conflict if they “care” so much? It’s all about money, power and religion. It has never been about the 100,000+ killed so far or the technique of killing. Why can’t our government get this worked up about the poverty and inequality within our own country?- Why do we have to focus on crazy people killing each other 1000’s of miles away?
To rikster:
Thanks.
To be clear, I do NOT believe, nor has it in any way been proven, that Assad is responsible for the Damascus gas attack.
We are simply in the standard, US boilerplate “run-up to a war” that has been intended for some time and for reasons we may never learn, it is Syria’s time.
*@ falco -*
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“We are simply in the standard, US boilerplate ‘run-up to a war’ that has been intended for some time and for reasons we may never learn, it is Syria’s time.”
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General Wesley Clark had something to say about that: “… seven countries in five years….”
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http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=37869
Mr Obama’s case, aaronwilliams 135, seems to be the following :
«The world set a red line when governments representing 98 per cent of the world’s population said the use of chemical weapons is abhorrent.» (I presume he was here speaking of the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925 and which entered into force on 8 February 1928, i e, at a time during which most of the population of the world was ruled by foreign powers so it’s a bit difficult to know just where he gets that figure «98 per cent of the world’s population» – I suspect he and his advisers made it up of whole cloth, as heads of the US government are wont to do.)
Given, on the other hand, that the UNO Charter has specific rules as to how questions of war and peace are to be resolved and that 193 of the world’s states, among them the United States, are members and only 3 are not, I suggest Mr Obama’s statement should be corrected to read as follows :
«The world set a red line when governments representing over 99.6 per cent of the world’s population said that only the UNO Security Council can authorise the use of force against a state actor» (Chapters VI and VII, the exception being the right to self-defence noted in Article 51, but not even Messrs Obama and Kerry have gone so far as to suggest that Syria attacked the United States)….
The above constitutes a far stronger case than that actually made by Mr Obama, and it does seem odd that this obvious fact has escaped such a noted Constitutional lawyer, as does yet another obvious fact ; i e, that the UNO Charter constituting, as it does, a Treaty which was «made under the Authority of the United States», is «the supreme Law of the Land», according to Article VI of the US Constitution….
But perhaps you wouldn’t have been «with him» had he made the case above….
Henri
According to General Wesley Clark, the seven countries that the U.S. planned (plans) to take out are these:
1) Iraq
2) Syria
3) Lebanon
4) Libya
5) Somalia
6) Sudan
7) Iran
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Oh, wait! That was supposed to take only five (5) years, starting immediately after the Twin Towers came down.
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“Never mind!” – Roseanne Roseannadanna