Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. Robin Williams is not funny. He was good on One Hour Photo, that’s it

KOAJaps on September 27, 2006 at 4:46 pm

I thought One Hours Photo was too creepy but anyways, I will see The Grudge 2 on Oct. 13.

Minnie Mouse on September 27, 2006 at 4:53 pm

Williams is the pseudo-socialist Court Jester of the Lame-o Left. He stopped being funny ages ago. Now, he’s just another pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-sophisticated Liberal returd.

FreethinkerNY on September 27, 2006 at 5:48 pm

“Mr. Doubtfire” – which, come to think of it, could also be a two-word assessment of John Kerry’s combat record.

Jeremiah on September 27, 2006 at 7:15 pm

“So, it’s just a coincidence that the movie debuts in mid-October of a heated election year, just 3 weeks or so before election day, RIGHT?”
Of course it’s no coincidence. Just as the bogus right-wing documentary “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal” was released in September of ’04.
What else is new?

Avalon on September 27, 2006 at 10:58 pm

The move was filmed partially up here in Toronto and they used property my family owns for filming and all I can say is he was the most open celebrity with the public I have ever seen. We have had many tv shows, and b level movies use us before and the only other actor to talk to people was Christoper Lloyd.
He signed autographs, told jokes, posed for pictures and was generally a nice guy. He even came back later and signed autographs for the staff who were working the first time he came over.
Most common thing he heard “my kids loved you in Mrs. Doubtfire”

bigcrapola on September 28, 2006 at 2:22 am

I like the way Hollywood runs to Canada so they don’t have to pay union scale.

Burt on September 28, 2006 at 4:14 am

he should go back to stand up, oh by the way ,debbie did you collect mork and mindy cards from tops like you did charlies angels and happy days?

PNAMARBLE on September 28, 2006 at 9:05 am

Any movie with Robin Williams is a movie I avoid. Usually he plays the same character in every movie, the rebellious wiser and funnier than thou guy.
Ever notice the liberal comedians are never funny? Williams, Bill Maher, Garafalo, and Franken among others never come across as funny and angry, just angry and mean spirited.
From watching the trailers I am willing to bet I could review this movie without seeing it. Williams the hero becomes a Clinton like president but cooler because he makes fun of the restraints the fuddy duddy conservatives try to place on him. He’ll wear his tard outfit on the poster, nominate Bruce Springsteen for a cabinet post, and say he wish he’d slept with his Monica type character……oooooooooh, how KEWL!!!! He’s a rebel!!!! Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, etc. etc. etc.
Thank you Williams, Michael Moore, Streisand, and all Hollywood. With the elections coming around you will ensure yet another election victory for Republicans with your mean spirited attacks that thrills a small elite but is a turn off to fair minded people who don’t live in hate or be told what to think by rich elitists.

Jeff_W on September 28, 2006 at 9:23 am

An Inconvenient Truth = The World According to Gore

Jeremiah on September 28, 2006 at 9:44 am

Robin Williams is all “smoke and mirrors”; has been since the 70’s. He stole Jonathan Winters act outright, interjected pseudo-hip 70’s “drug” references, and went through the act at a break-neck pace. Morons were fooled into thinking that was funny. It is not, he is not. He’s an irritant, not a comic. Damn good actor though.

Skippy on September 28, 2006 at 1:19 pm

He got his professional start in San Francisco. But is it just me or are a lot of entertainment men from that neck of the woods on the tame side: Williams, Huey Lewis, Tom Hanks….?
Curious to note: he grew up in Bloomfield Hills, MI and Marin County, CA (the latter being what Debbie might call, “John Walker Lindhistan”)
I’d like to see him and Sean Penn co-star in a movie where each plays the other: it would be an interesting stretch for both of them.

Jeremiah on September 28, 2006 at 2:33 pm

Okay, back up for just a moment. The “allegations” of electronic voter fraud and not just whining. Those machines have VERY serious security problems that are now known to the entire world. There are a lot of very sketchy connections with the company also:
Aug.28 2003 Cleveland Plain Dealer article quoted Walden O’Dell that he is committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to GW Bush in 2004
O’Dell is chairmain of the board for Diebold, maker of the voting machines
O’Dell is a member of the Rangers and the Pioneers, major contributor to the Bush election campaign
O’Dell hangs out at the Bush ranch in TX sometimes
Diebold secured big contracts under Bush’s “Help America Vote Act” which provides $3.9 billion to help states move over to electronic voting
HAV Act also provided funding for computerized voter rolls, including removal of “ineligable” voters, modeled on the operation carried out by Database Technologies and its parent company, ChoicePoint, in the 2000 election under a multi-million dollar contract signed by the Florida Secretary of State (this resulted in tens of thousands of voters, mostly black and hispanic, being improperly removed from Florida’s voting rolls–very much in the favor of GW Bush in that election).
So please, Debbie, let’s try to be realistic here. This “whining” as you put it is perfectly understandable. If a Democrat had won the election using the same under-handed tactics, you would be (rightfully) whining about it now instead, and unfortunately many left-wingers would be calling you a whiner just as you’re doing now.
The other major point I’d like to bring up here is that I find it sort of amusing that conservatives are complaining about a fictional movie that is making a reference to some political issues. It’s amusing because of the recent events of the “Path to 9/11”. I don’t know what your thoughts on that show are, Debbie, because I just found your website a couple days ago.. but that is a television show that is clearly trying to rewrite history in the minds of Americans. This Robin Williams movie may have some undertone of politics that they would like to get across to the viewers, but I can guarantee that they’re not trying to pass anything off as fact. I haven’t seen it, of course, but you can tell by what we know about it. Path to 9/11 is using real names, and real events, and purposedly changing the facts in a way that happens (coincidentally?) to support the Bush Administration’s agenda and tries to make them look better at the expense of other people. But that’s not even the worst part about this show. They even made a deal with Scholastic to release Path to 9/11 to schools as educational material.
I can’t imagine how anyone can complain about Robin Williams movie after this has happened. At least, not on the political level. If you don’t like Robin Williams’ humor (I used to, but not so much anymore.. but not for any political reasons) then don’t watch the movie. But please don’t bitch about the politics of it.

bonobo on September 28, 2006 at 4:39 pm

“Ever notice the liberal comedians are never funny? Williams, Bill Maher, Garafalo, and Franken among others never come across as funny and angry, just angry and mean spirited.”
No, I never really noticed that. Especially not about Robin Williams! Maybe you don’t agree with him on the issues, but I really can’t understand how you think he is angry and mean-spirited. I guess I can sort of see it about the others, but honestly I would never call Franken or Bill Maher angry or mean-spirited. But I feel like Dennis Miller has sort of gone in that direction now though, and I’m not quite sure why. He used to do his whole rant thing on HBO, and it was funny, but now he’s gotten really cynical and angry in a way that doesn’t seem at all funny. I don’t really get it, and I’m not sure why he became like that now.

bonobo on September 28, 2006 at 4:43 pm

Voter fraud, alleged and actual, is *such* a two-way street. How about the 1960 presidential election, which Republicans didn’t contest (in which the Daley machine is widely believed to have delivered Ill. to JFK)? Lyndon Johnson’s first Senate victory (documented in Robert Caro’s bio)?
But the strongest point in favor of accepting the results of the ’00 and ’04 elections are the concessions of the Democratic candidates themselves. If those men really were wronged, then they seem to fight the same way they fight terrorism — by shutting up and taking it, mostly.

Jeremiah on September 28, 2006 at 5:05 pm

I won’t argue against your two-way street statement. If given the opportunity, I don’t doubt that either party would deliberately defraud the election process again to ensure a victory if they thought they wouldn’t get caught. That said, if they do get caught then I think they should be held accountable for their actions, and that’s something we’re not seeing happen right now.
I’m not sure that our President’s method of fighting terrorism is really any better than his competitor’s though. I’m sure you have also seen recently that the US intelligence agencies all unanimously claim that we (and the rest of the world) are now LESS safe as a result of our government’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.

bonobo on September 28, 2006 at 5:38 pm

Bonobo:
You’re smart, logical and polite. You should be banned by Saturday.

Avalon on September 28, 2006 at 6:17 pm

Robin William is a crack Addict

KOAJaps on September 28, 2006 at 6:49 pm

bonobo: That statement, a kind of olive branch extended, can only be accepted in a non-partisan manner. But as your 2d paragraph shows, you, too, are partisan.
Avalon: And I’m not smart, logical, and polite?!
-Jeremiah (aka, “Chopped Liver”)

Jeremiah on September 28, 2006 at 7:06 pm

Even fox news did a breif segment on how incredibly easy it is to rig the diebold machines. If anyone wants I can post a link to the youtube video.

Descent on September 28, 2006 at 7:21 pm

Jeremiah,
Actually, I don’t think I am partisan. I’m of the opinion that the Republican party and the Democrat party are essentially the same thing. Their differences are pretty superficial and insignificant. I do tend to prefer Clinton over Bush, but I still disagree with a lot of US policy that occurs regardless of who controls the White House.
My previous statement really isn’t a partisan statement. All the intelligence agencies of the US are telling us that things are now less safe as a result of the Iraq invasion and occupation. That doesn’t prove anything about the abilities of the Democratic party, it only proves one particular failure of our President.
Look, Clinton failed in things too. But it seems that the current climate in the US is that if you point out a failing of the Bush administration then you get labeled as anti-American, or at the very least partisan. Everyone who is hardcore pro-Bush seems to try to prevent any reasonable discourse. Why pretend that everything Bush’s administration touches turns to gold? His crap smells just like anyone else’s.

bonobo on September 28, 2006 at 9:21 pm

That the GOP & DP are “essentially the same” is a good thing – in the way MLB’s American and National Leagues are essentially the same (compared to third parties which like the minor leagues are in a far inferior category). I wish they were *more* alike in some ways. I believe in a 2-, not 3 or 4 or 7-party system. If you’re cynical about the GOP & DP and/or a 3rd party hopeful, we should probably hash out that difference.
I’m skeptical whether reports (or leaks) from intelligence agencies are the most reliable indicator of our national safety. If there’s a neoconservative consensus, I believe it’s that the militant Islamic threat has been growing with force since the 1979 Iranian anti-American revolution and the 1980s Taliban anti-Soviet victory . If things are less safe now, it’s my opinion that that is not a result of the Iraq liberation and rebuilding [note the word choice], and merely happens to be contemporary with it. (This isn’t trying to shout you down, just airing a p.o.v.) Many movement conservatives will be the first to complain of our lack of safety (keep reading here, or Michelle Malkin’s site, or see Rep. Tom Tancredo’s (R-CO) web site).
Full disclosure: I voted for Kerry in 04. It was my first mainstream vote for president since the 80s when I started voting. On election day I didn’t even GOTV for him and the shine-boy Veep candidate; I stood in rush hour traffic with a sign that read, “Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida: The Axis of Democracy.” Can you get more non-partisan than that? In the primaries I gave money and time to Gen. Wes Clark. I met him, too, and remain impressed by him. However, I’ve become more persuaded by neoconservative arguments more persuasive than any liberal ones, about Iraq, voting, and lots of things. (btw, Ann Coulter, despite her reputation for hype, has several punchy but also methodical articles about the 2000 election recount in her book, How to Talk to a Liberal.) What’s the point? The point is: I hope you pursue your concerns with diligence and see where they take you. You might develop, or shift, allegiances, as I have.
Here’s an example of a leading liberal being engaged by two neocons (Peter Beinart w/ David Horowitz & Jamie Glazov):
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23176
So spirited, lengthy debate does sometimes occur.
Lastly — because Debbie’ll probably pounce on this if I don’t pre-empt her 🙂 — I’m sure many of her archived articles at this site will illustrate the points I’ve been trying to make.
It’s been real.

Jeremiah on September 29, 2006 at 1:56 am

btw, The latest 2 posts (9/25, 9/26) at this blog, RightinaLeftWorld, speak to your concerns. The guy’s a Vietnam Vet, Bush supporter, and makes his points patiently and methodically:
http://rightinaleftworld.blogspot.com/

Jeremiah on September 29, 2006 at 2:05 am

“That the GOP & DP are “essentially the same” is a good thing – in the way MLB’s American and National Leagues are essentially the same (compared to third parties which like the minor leagues are in a far inferior category). I wish they were *more* alike in some ways. I believe in a 2-, not 3 or 4 or 7-party system. If you’re cynical about the GOP & DP and/or a 3rd party hopeful, we should probably hash out that difference.”
How can you say having one political party is a good thing? If they’re “essentially the same” then they might as well be one party, which is a step further away from democracy and a step towards some type of authoritarian government.
Having options is what democracy is all about. The US isn’t really a true democracy, but we like to say we are. But if you’re saying you want as few options as possible, that’s implying that you disagree with the democratic process to some extent.
We should have more political parties. We should have 7, or 8, or 12. Whatever. I mean, technically we do actually have more parties but because of the election system we use it constrains everything to two parties. If we had a sane democratic process for electing our government (and yes, I realize there’s a historical reason for why it works the way it does–I just think it’s time we change that) and had several political parties to choose from, we might actually get candidates who pose issues that PEOPLE care about, not just stuff that business cares about. That would make this a much more democratic country, and I can’t even conceive of why you might think moving even further in a democratic direction could be a bad thing.

bonobo on September 29, 2006 at 1:45 pm

Bonobo, as a latecomer to this discussion, forgive me if I don’t address everything you and Jeremiah have been discussing. So, to jump in here, you are right, we are not a “true democracy.” We are a Representative Republic, or, as some prefer, a representative democracy.
Enough on that, I’m more in agreement than disagreement there.
As to parties, ordinarily I agree that we need more parties representing us. In actuality, we do have several smaller parties that haven’t achieved the status of either the Democrats or Republicans. Currently, there are some 36 parties that have endorsed candidates or fielded one and another 15 political parties that have neither endorsed nor fielded a candidate.
But, we currently and for quite some time now, have only two major parties. Hence, we see much bi-partisan bickering and gridlock as party interests are placed above the interests of the country. Ideally, a third party would be great to break the gridlock.
However, even though this is what I would prefer, currently it must be secondary as we are actively engaged in war.
That the leadership of the Democratic Party has chosen to politicize this war for political gain is abominable to me. That they would withdraw troops once again before the mission is complete, leaving us more prone to attack than ever before, I find reprehensible. Fighting this war is no time for partisanship. So, party interests must be placed on the back burner until such time as we see these terrorists minimized sufficiently that they no longer pose such a major threat to us and our way of life.
As happened in WW2, Democrats and Republicans should be coming together and working with the president. No one man has all the answers and ideas and from what I see, Bush is willing to listen, but the ultimate decision is his and his alone, by our constitution, as I know it.
Maybe in some areas, both parties are very similar. But, when it comes to prosecuting this war and protecting the American people, there is a day and night difference overall, save a few individual Republicans that seem to lean more towards the Democrats.
Dividing the country and blaming it on the other party while finger pointing in every direction is not what the country needs. Maybe too many forget that when they point their finger at someone else, they have 3 pointing back at themselves.
So, while I agree having at least three parties would be good (I can’t say having all 51 equal would be that good), for the time being, I feel that it is not the proper direction. Afterwards, yes. But, not at this time.

Lew Waters on September 29, 2006 at 2:31 pm

I forgot to add, thanks Jeremiah for linking to my essays. You do me an honor by that.

Lew Waters on September 29, 2006 at 2:32 pm

Lew pretty much spoke for me (and you’re welcome!) Although I really don’t want to see a national third party.

Jeremiah on September 29, 2006 at 2:41 pm

“However, even though this is what I would prefer, currently it must be secondary as we are actively engaged in war.”
I sort of disagree with using the term “war” here, because that implies, to me at least, that there is something justified in it. But at the very least, I insist that the more precise term is “occupation”.
That the leadership of the Democratic Party has chosen to politicize this war for political gain is abominable to me.”
I do see what you’re saying, and in a legitimate war I think I would agree with you more strongly (although I do agree with that statement on a few levels). I happen to think that the US’s invasion and occupation of Iraq is unjustified and wrong, but I still have a big complaint with the Democrats’ political stance on it: they are (as are most Americans I talk to who are opposed to it) opposed to it for all the wrong reasons. People are primarily concerned with how many American soldiers’ lives are being lost, and to a lesser extent (but a much worse reason) is with how much this “war” is costing us. I am also upset by the loss of American soldiers’ lives, but I’m upset by much more than just that.
The invasion was approved under false pretenses, and it is completely illegal under international law by the Geneva Conventions. We had no justified reasons for invading that country, and we had every reason not to. How many Iraqis have died in the aftermath of the power struggle? Too many. But that is not what most opponents of the occupation (be they Democrat or Republican) are concerned with, and it’s not what most Americans are concerned with. Americans would have been much more content with the Iraq invasion, even under the false pretenses, if it had been executed quickly and effectively. If you look at public approval ratings of things like Grenada, Panama, Libya.. it’s basically positive, because the outcome came quickly at a relatively low cost to the US. Nobody bothers to care what the cost was to the other population. People were in favor of Vietnam initially, until it began to cost us too much.
So, in short.. yeah, I’m very opposed to the Iraq occupation. But it’s not for any sort of reason of partisan squabbling. As far as I’m concerned, they’re all wrong: those in favor of the occupation are wrong, and those who are against the occupation are wrong because they’re against it for the wrong reasons.
“That they would withdraw troops once again before the mission is complete, leaving us more prone to attack than ever before, I find reprehensible. Fighting this war is no time for partisanship”
But we’re already more prone to attack than ever. That is now the biggest accomplishment of the Iraq invasion: the pool of people who hate this country is now getting larger, not smaller. We have accomplished exactly the opposite goal that was originally stated. I guess from a political point of view, I can understand why they would want to capitalize on that (*).
Look, the idea that the Iraq invasion was going to suppress terrorism is founded on one of two ideas: (1) al-Quaeda was operating with support for Iraq, or (2) terrorism is fundamentally organized in a centralized manner, and that center happens to be in Iraq. We all know from very recent news reports that (1) is completely false, and I hope nobody here is going to argue that I’m wrong on that count. (2) seems to me to be pretty ridiculous, but I guess you’re welcome to try to make a case for it. The outcome so far is that hatred and distrust for the US is becoming more common across the globe, and for pretty obvious reasons that I think I’ve already pointed out before. Muslims have this crazy concept that the US is out to get them for no reason, and somehow they got that idea from our invasion of Iraq and our lack of reason for it. I can’t imagine why they would be so afraid of us.
(*) – Getting back to the point of politicizing the “war”, you have to wonder “what do the politicians really want?” Well, you might think they want what’s best for the country. And some of them certainly do, but that’s not really what it’s all about. It’s all about getting power, and keeping power. The Republicans have enormous power now, and they want to do everything they can to keep that power because they can exploit it for their own financial benefit. The Democrats want to undermine the Republicans, and Iraq is a really good way to do that now. They want to undermine them so that they can take back power, because they can exploit it for financial benefit. This is pretty simple. These guys are not doing politics out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re making a career out of it, regardless of whether they belong to the Republican or the Democratic party. This is fundamentally why both parties are the same: they’re essentially the Business Party, with very minor differences that are the result of different sectors of industry that support them.

bonobo on September 29, 2006 at 4:23 pm

Bonobo, as I’m sure you have surmised, we disagree on the legitimacy of the ongoing battles in Iraq. Therefore, I see no need to argue back and forth on to your points as both sides have argued them ad nauseum with neither side changing the other’s mind. We will have to agree to disagree on that point.
However, there are a couple other points I will address as they actually support what I was saying:
“People were in favor of Vietnam initially, until it began to cost us too much.”
As in every other war, there were the opposers from the start. In Viet Nam, the opposers, who happened to be more leftists than anything other, received a huge boost in the arm on February 27, 1968, when Walter Cronkite announced about the Tet of ’68 Offensive launched by the North Vietnamese, “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”
Apparently unbeknownst to Mr. Cronkite, the North Vietnamese Forces were soundly defeated. Their forces were decimated and the Viet Cong nearly ceased to exist. General Vo Nguyen Giap, Commanding General of North Vietnamese Forces and Defense Minister, is reported to have been considering negotiating a surrender. Although there was much speculation back on forth on the veracity of his thought (as claimed) relegating it to the status of Urban Legend by the anti-war left but embraced by others, sources have come forward now indicating there is a distinct possibility of it being factual.
On page 38 of the October 2005 edition of VIETNAM magazine, there is an interview with retired North Vietnamese General Nguyen Duc Huy where he is asked, “After the war, Giap told a group of Western reporters that Communist losses in the Tet Offensive [of 1968] were so devastating that if the American forces had kept up that level of Military pressure much longer North Vietnam would have been forced to negotiate a peace on American terms. Do you agree?”
General Huy replied, “If the American army had fought some more, had continued, I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t say what would have happened.”
Along these same lines, we have the August 3, 1995 Wall Street journal account of the interview with Colonel Bui Tin. When asked what was the purpose of the Tet Offensive, he replied, “To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.”
Asked about the results of the Tet Offensive, he said, “Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.”
Obviously, Walter Cronkite was wrong as was the anti-war left of the time. In effect the opposition ended up costing us more than had we fought the war to a finish, which was possible. In American lives, it cost us nearly 40,000 more dead. The Vietnamese loss of life runs into the millions, both before and after our withdrawal and the surrender of Saigon.
I bring in this bit of history because we are being faced with the same opposition today towards Iraq. We have a different enemy and one maybe even more determined to defeat us than was North Viet Nam. Sadly, our defeat would not be just a mere return home to scorn for the troops and embarrassment for the nation, our defeat this time will be either our death or enslavement under the Islamofascists radical perversion of Islam. With them, you submit, or die, no middle ground.
Like Viet Nam, we have the same opposition and undermining of the war effort by Democrats. Whether we agree with the war or not, we are in it, we have troops in harm’s way and our enemy’s will fight us whether we face them there or here. Like you said, “Nobody bothers to care what the cost was to the other population.” This time around, the left is failing to care what it is going to cost OUR population.
“the pool of people who hate this country is now getting larger, not smaller.”
I see this blazoned about often by the left, but never see where their proof is. One thing the left fails to see is that much of the anti-Americanism in the world is due to us abandoning allies when they need us most. Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia, the First Gulf War, Rwanda, the list just grows as we allow our allies to languish and do not support them. We have the reputation of “Paper Tiger” and thanks to the left we earned it.
As a Veteran, seeing politics as usual playing out as our troops are being shot at and dying more than troubles me. Several Democrats have vowed to launch investigation after investigation with the sole goal of impeachment. This is nothing more than childish tit for tat. It would also mire our troops down in a real quagmire, as the President would be unable to properly focus on prosecuting the war. This alone could raise our casualty list considerably and if we just left, as many want us to do, we leave a vacuum that would most likely be filled by the Islamofascists, which would then result in untold death and casualties and enslavement of citizens of both Iraq and Afghanistan. My guess is the number would make the numbers we saw in Southeast Asia in the 1970s and 1980s pale in comparison.
We have others vowing to de-fund the war effort as well raise taxes again. Virtually everything the Democrat Party has vowed to do I see as detrimental to our country and to our troops in harm’s way.
Much like has been revealed by the North Vietnamese, I see fundamentalist Islamofascists seeing they only need to wait us out once more and they achieve victory, at a severe cost both to us and to our fledgling allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like I said, though, this time the cost will not only be bore by those in other countries, but by our citizens as well as the terrorists have shown they can easily breech our shores and their goal is not just to remove us from the Middle East, but to eliminate Western Culture as we know it.
Whether you see the war as legal or not, the Islamofascists see it as their war to eliminate us. They never cared about “legalities” or the Geneva conventions. They only see their goal of world domination, as they have desired for centuries.
The current Democratic Party leadership seems to be prepared to hand it to them, at the detriment of our country and it’s citizens. Politics as usual during wartime is suicidal!
Lew

Lew Waters on September 29, 2006 at 8:11 pm

Hi Lew,
I appreciate your perspective. I agree, let’s not go back and forth any more on the legality or the ethical grounds of the occupation. You know my position, and I sort of understand yours I guess.
You might want to re-think whether Islamofascist is really the word you want to be using. I know it’s the latest buzzword that’s being presented, but it’s being used completely in a way completely contrary to its roots. Fascism really implies a strong, centralized organization of authoritarian control, and the Islamic terrorists are not at all centralized.
The problem with this Iraq “war” is that it’s not really fighting terrorism. And how can it? Like I was saying previously, the Iraq invasion could have had an effect on al-Quaeda if al-Quaeda had actually had a strong, central base there. But they didn’t. You don’t see me arguing against the operations in Afghanistan because there was never any question that there was an organizational center to al-Quaeda there, and when our President said we were going there to pursue Osama bin Laden there was no reason for me to doubt that. Intelligence agencies are not coming out now announcing that our operations in Afghanistan have put us in more danger, probably because the troops there are really damaging al-Quaeda.
But look, Afghanistan is not Iraq. There was no big anti-US terrorist organization in Iraq. Intelligence agencies ARE telling us now that we’re promoting Islamic extremism and anti-US attitudes as a result of this invasion of Iraq. You see this blazoned by “the left” and see no proof? The proof is that every US intelligence agency is unanimously telling us this now. The additional danger that they’re reporting is not necessarily coming from Iraq.. it’s coming from other parts of the world with large Muslim populations. That’s why I say you can’t fight a decentralized group of people by invading one country. This invasion just fuels the fear and hatred in other countries.
I have a few Muslim friends who tell me what attitudes are like. They are all very strongly opposed to al-Quaeda and bin Laden and insist that bin Laden and his followers are not true Muslims because their actions speak contrary to Islam. But they’re also confused by US actions because they perceive the US as a Christian nation and they feel that the US’s warmongering attitude (at least in the case of Iraq) is also contrary to Christian values. But they tell me that the attitudes in the Middle East and Persian countries is that the people are now much more opposed to the US because they see the Iraq invasion as unjustified. None of my Muslim friends felt that way about Afghanistan though–they were all very hopeful that the US would get Osama bin Laden.

bonobo on September 29, 2006 at 11:02 pm

“As in every other war, there were the opposers from the start. In Viet Nam, the opposers, who happened to be more leftists than anything other, received a huge boost in the arm on February 27, 1968, when Walter Cronkite announced about the Tet of ’68 Offensive launched by the North Vietnamese”
That seems to basically support what I said about people becoming more opposed to the war once they believed it was costing too much (cost in terms of lives or money). I realize you disapprove of the “leftists” who disagree with the war from the beginning, but I must say that I have much more respect for people who are opposed to the war from the beginning on some sort of ethical grounds than those who decide to oppose the war after they think it is turning against them.
Personally, I’m a lot less interested in the American opposition to the Vietnam war than I am the Vietnamese opposition. Indochina had been ruled by colonialist foreigners for years, and they fought for their own freedom and independence for decades. They had the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, and then the Americans. It’s really a very sad history, I think. But Americans still talk about it only in political terms, where if you sympathize with the Vietnamese then you’re just a leftist liberal anti-American commy. Nobody really gives a shit about the people there who suffered and died (and are still suffering and dying) from what was essentially just a political power struggle.
But your numbers of the deathtoll sounds pretty much in the neighborhood of what I understood as well. I think at the time that we withdrew, there were about 58,000 American soldiers who were killed there (plus an assortment of soldiers from other countries who joined us), and a few million people from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Plus about 10,000 a year died for many years after that as a result of the chemical warfare.

bonobo on September 29, 2006 at 11:19 pm

Bonobo, I donít intend to get bogged down discussing the use of the word Islamofascist. Suffice it to say several others use it, including Muslims and justify its use. What is good enough for them is good enough for me. For me, it separates Mainstream Islam from these radical terrorists. I will add, much like other regimes of fascism, it finds democracy, free speech and human rights contemptuous. It is filled with hatred of Jews, atheists, homosexuals, and liberated women. Itís racist in its hatred of the blacks in Sudan, slave trading of black Africans, and hatred of other ethnic minorities in the Islamic world.
Enough on that.
ìthe Iraq invasion could have had an effect on al-Quaeda if al-Quaeda had actually had a strong, central base there.î
I beg to differ. Even the 911 Commission reported there were links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, although not in regard to the 911 attacks. Still, they were there. From Page 134 of the 911 report, we find: ìIn February 1999,Allen proposed flying a U-2 mission over Afghanistan to build a baseline of intelligence outside the areas where the tribals had coverage. Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that
Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National
Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladinís
having met with Iraqi officials, who ìmay have offered him asylum.î Other
intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar,
had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote
Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Husseinís service, and it would be ìvirtually
impossibleî to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.î The report mentions several links between Al Qaeda and Saddamís regime, although not considered as ìoperationalî just yet.
Consider too, we look at this with 20/20 hindsight, something President Bush did not have at the time. Virtually every intelligence agency said there were massive WMDs there. The previous administration declared they were there and Democrats were urging strong actions be taken through out the 1990s. Should Bush have taken the chance they all were wrong because one or two said so, or follow the advice of so many others? Do you think it would have been a good idea to run the risk of those WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists, given so many said they were there? That they werenít found doesnít surprise me either, given a six month long ìrush to war.î Tipping your hand you are coming is never a proper way to maintain a secret.
That is called making a Command Decision and once we make them we have to stick by it, as Bush has done, as Clinton did when he ordered the bombing of an aspirin factory, believing a connection between it and WMDs as well.
Consider too, 12 years and 17 UN resolutions ignored, a corrupt and misused ìoil for foodî program and the refusal of Saddam to submit to inspections or come clean about known WMDs. Given 9/11, he couldnít take the chance and some action needed to be taken, finally.
I applaud you for your support of the operations in Afghanistan, but I hope you realize there are more than a few from your side of the table that oppose even that and feel 911 was our just rewards. I donít see you falling into that category.
ìThe proof is that every US intelligence agency is unanimously telling us this now.î
Again, I beg to differ. Yes, there are those from intelligence saying just that, but there are others saying differently. Intelligence is of a nature of interpretation of gathered material and rarely do all agree as to significance. Still, are you willing to take chances on minimal actions after seeing the horror of 911? Iím not. It also might interest you to know that just this week, the new Al Qaeda leader in Iraq basically admitted to having heavy casualties inside Iraq, some 4,000 in Iraq alone, leading the new leader to issue a call for increased actions from jihadists.
Your friends are correct; most Muslims are opposed to Al Qaeda. But, Al Qaeda doesnít care, they wish all under their rule or dead. There is no middle ground with these Islamofascists, whether they are called Al Qaeda of something else. In fact, I see us fighting a perverted ideology as much, if not more so, than any group.
ìPlus about 10,000 a year died for many years after that as a result of the chemical warfare.î If by this you mean defoliation, that was not chemical warfare. Chemical warfare is when you target your enemies specifically with a chemical. We defoliated to rob the enemy of their hiding areas in the jungles. At the time, it was considered a good idea. In retrospect, it did more harm that initially thought, to both sides. But, it was not chemical warfare, no matter what Peter Arnett reported. He was wrong and proven so.
My reasons for the history of Viet Nam was to show how the failed policy of early withdrawal and lack of support for what we were doing, as well as many lies about our efforts, resulted in the decimation of the people there and a large increase in our own casualties. Given what we know now, there is every likelihood that Giap would have either negotiated some type of surrender or at least ceased fighting as they did. Since they had the support, they kept going in more of harassment role while they rebuilt their forces for the final push south after we left. All the while, agents were feeding the anti-war left propaganda and stirring up even more anti-war sentiment. Yes, they and the Soviet had infiltrated the anti-war movement and kept it stirred up. Please note, once the US pulled out in 1973, the protesting all but stopped. When the North reinitiated hostilities in 1975, leading to fall of Saigon as we refused to honor the Paris Peace Accords and support the South, there were no protests about that, were there? The protests were solely designed to interfere with the US effort and to bring victory to the Communist North.
We are now headed in the same direction, should the current Democrat leadership return to power. Even if you are opposed to our efforts in Iraq, can you imagine what will happen if we up and leave again, before it is done? Yes, many Muslims disagree, but apparently many more agree as the Iraqi Army keeps filling its rolls with new recruits who are taking over operations more and more every day. Instead of an ìoccupation,î it is just as Bush predicted and stated, a gradual return to power of the iraqis, by the iraqis. Do surrounding monarchies oppose it? You bet. If any form of Democracy takes root there, itís only a matter of time before people also desiring to be free threaten their kingdoms.
As we did after WW2, the goal is to give them a fighting chance at enjoying the same freedoms that Japan, Germany and Italy enjoy today and that our forefathers fought, bled and died for us to have.
Lew

Lew Waters on September 30, 2006 at 3:53 am

“The protests were solely designed to interfere with the US effort and to bring victory to the Communist North.”
The protests were not about trying to make America lose, they were about trying to get America to do the right thing and stay out of a conflict that was none of our business. The conflict over there before our arrival is similar to what you said about Bush’s prediction and goal for Iraq: the Vietnamese people were trying to get power returned to themselves. The difference is that, if you are correct then America is going to Iraq to liberate the people from Saddam’s regime, but in Vietnam the people were already trying to liberate themselves from Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime and the US came along to save his ass (only to oust him years later in a coup). I’m not sure how much of that information the anti-War demonstrators knew at the time, but I think they at least knew enough to realize that it should not have been our concern.
I need to read the rest of your message more, and I will try to write more when I have more time later. Thanks!

bonobo on September 30, 2006 at 1:20 pm

ìThe protests were not about trying to make America lose, they were about trying to get America to do the right thing and stay out of a conflict that was none of our business.î
Okay, since I wrote that late, I did not adequately express my thought. As I expressed it, you are partly right. Iím sure many protesters do feel as you say. However, what I failed to explain was that top leadership of protests, the ones that instigated and you never saw, were the ones that wanted America to lose. Many of them are still around today trying to relive their glory days of the 1960s and still trying to move America left towards Socialism.
As to ìdo the right thing and stay out of a conflict that was none of our business,î I completely disagree.
Viet Namís struggles between North and South date as far back as 207 BC. Without addressing the lengthy history of that time, Iíll just say that the French became involved in the ongoing fighting in the 1700s and installed Colonial Rule. Other than the years under Japanese occupation, the French pretty much ruled Viet Nam. After the massive defeat the French suffered in Diem Bin Phu, they decided enough and began withdrawing after a cease-fire was signed in Geneva.
Elections mandated between the North and South in the cease-fire were to take place within two years, but never did. Ho Chi Minh, already a staunch Communist, had been installed as leader in the North while Bo Dai was installed in the South. Diem was brought back by emperor Bo Dai as Prime Minister and through strong-arm tactics, became the ìelectedî President in 1955, defeating Bo Dai. Diem proved he wasnít going to be a ìpuppetî ruler, doing things his way.
Several reasons have been given for the elections not taking place. One was the massive influx of refugees, some 850,000, from the North to the South after Communist rule was installed. The South, which had not signed the Geneva Accords, did not feel the Communists in the North would allow fair elections. In January 1957, the International Control Commission (ICC), comprising observers from India, Poland, and Canada, agreed with this perception, reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement.
The U.S. aligned itself with South Viet Nam under Diem in a continuance of our opposition to the spread of Communism. Diem was neither a puppet of the US nor a very fair leader. We protected him from assassination attempts up until the time he, being part of the minority Catholic ruling class, began oppressing the majority Buddhists, resulting in the now famous scenes of Buddhist Monks setting themselves on fire. Through the CIA, Kennedy decided to stop protecting Diem and allowed the CIA to encourage a coup de tat to oust Diem from power. He did not expect Diem and his brother to be assassinated.
Americaís entire involvement was designed to stop the spread of Communism, as he majority of South Vietnamese indicated. Viet Minh, later the Viet Cong, originally opposed to the French, became aligned with the Northern Communists in a shaky alliance with the Viet Cong eventually being decimated and made largely ineffective in the Tet of í68 offensive. Viet Cong wished to be the ruling party in he South, the North wished to make all of Viet Nam Communists. Viet Cong were actually very small in number compared to the South Vietnamese Army and could never achieved their goal by themselves. They were sort of parallel, but with different goals.
Our concern was the first bolster the French Forces, supporting them but staying out of the fight, to counter strong opposition they were receiving from the French Communist Party. After they left, our concern became preventing a Communist take over of the country, enslaving the peoples. A look at massive deaths and slipping into Communism by surrounding countries, as well as the massive ìBoat Peopleî evacuation of the late 1970s and early 1980s bears witness to what we were trying to prevent.
If you have the chance, I urge you to seek out some of the Vietnamese ìBoat Peopleî that made it to our shores and ask them about it all. Who better knows than they?
It was never a civil war, as portrayed by mostly Communist supporters and sympathizers. It was outright aggression by Communist forces that cost us 58,000 souls and untold millions more from them and the South Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and more.
Preventing the spread of oppressive Communism was as much our concern as is standing up to radical Islam terrorists today that desires world domination under their perverted view. Like WW2, we are going to have to fight them wherever they may be or wherever their support may come from.
A suggested book to read. ìUnheralded Victoryî by Mark W. Woodruff. It has one of the best backgrounds to the Viet Nam conflict I have ever read. He also details most all of the major battles. I donít necessarily agree with all of his conclusions afterwards, but his research into the history of it all is meticulous.
As to the knowledge of war protesters, Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc says, ìAs a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements throughout Europe. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and built a credibility gap between America and European public opinion through our disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once told me, ëour most significant success.íî

Lew Waters on October 1, 2006 at 2:08 am

That last comment deserves to be a post in itself.

Jeremiah on October 1, 2006 at 6:54 pm

“Ever notice the liberal comedians are never funny? Williams, Bill Maher, Garafalo, and Franken among others never come across as funny and angry, just angry and mean spirited.”
Posted by: bonobo at September 28, 2006 04:43 PM
You forgot the other liberal, Howard Stern and that fucker is funny!

KOAJaps on October 2, 2006 at 7:56 pm