GOP Brownshirts

[anatta]

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But when Kerry used the phrase "global test" in reference to the ability to prove to the U.S. electorate and the world that the war is justified, the GOP jumped on it to falsely claim it amounts to giving other countries a veto, even after Kerry said the exact opposite. To the extent the GOP disagrees with Kerry's real position, it means: "we should sometimes wage war for no good reason."

Up = Down, another brownshirt equation

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Of course you are right. All this global test bullshit is the BIG LIE which the right constantly tells. The left tells little lies like, $200 billion spent. Right tells big lies, "the vast majority of our tax cut went to the middle class".

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To the extent the GOP disagrees with Kerry's real position, it means: "we should sometimes wage war for no good reason.

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You really nailed it with this one.

[andyfox]

"We are engaged in a war against terror that . . . involves a global infrastructure of insidious individuals. We have seen the work they do, in Russia and elsewhere, against innocent lives in the most bestial fashion possible. To fight that war . . . it is not sufficient to react after the fact. You have got to preemptively move . . ."

This is the Bush Doctrine in all its simplicity. It sounds so much to me like our anti-Communist doctrine of the early Cold War. It sees no gray, only black and white. It will lead to exactly what Walter Lippman predicted our Cold War blindess would lead : subversion of our principles, with attendant disasters for people in other countries whose governments are branded as not with us and therefore against us.

It is not because the thinking behind the doctrine is completely wrong. It is because it refuses to see other issues. Mao and Ho were Communists, but their success had absolutely nothing to do with an international Communist conspiracy. There may have been Communists in the United States during the 1950s, and maybe even some in positions of responsibility, but they had nothing to do with us "losing" China (as if a country could belong to us and thus be "lost").

Note that Keyes sees the Russian situation as part of a global network of insidious individuals with no mention of the Chechnyan context. The war on terrorism cannot be won without immense suffering caused by us if we insist on seeing every issue within the prism of that war alone.

[Chris Alger]

Every faction in the Middle East (as with most of the world) has used and relied on terrorism to accomplish political goals, including the ones supported by the U.S. (the IDF has killed more civilians than all Palestinian terrorists in history, and continues to do so at the rate of one or two every day). So there's no "war on terrorism" being waged by the U.S. At most, there's a war on "some terrorism," waged mostly by words, against those terrorist-supporting factions of which the U.S. disapproves. Supporters of the "war on terrorism" respond: very well, but even if the U.S. is selective, why should the terrorists we're going after get off the hook? Answer: the shouldn't, but that isn't the issue because if the U.S. were truly concerned about terror, it would apply its condemnation across the board. Therefore, supporting the "war on terrorism" isn't really supporting an effort to neutralize or punish terrorists, but amounts to supporting something else. Of course, part of this "war" includes the effort to eliminate al Qaeda, a worthy goal. But as the White House and certainly Alan Keyes constantly insist, there's a lot more to the "war on terror" than that.

[Stu Pidasso]

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I have my guesses. They might be right.....

But if someone has a great answer for this one, I'd love to hear it.


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Simply because for so long the west has tolerated it.

Stu

[lastchance]

What are these political goals?

[Chris Alger]

The political goals of terrorism are usually to change the behavior or attitudes of a large group of civilians through the more or less random application of extreme violence. For example, during Operation Grapes of Wrath, Israel wanted to put pressure on the government of Lebanon to put pressure on Syria to put pressure no Hizbollah. So it bombed civilian centers in southern Lebanon in the hope that the resulting terror would create refugees to flee to Beruit, forcing the Lebanese government to act and getting the ball rolling (it didn't work, oh well). That's as clear an example of terrorism as exists, but you won't find U.S. officials calling it that. In fact, they'd more likely lump it together as part of the "fight against terrorism."

[Chris Alger]

When asked exclusively about the war in Iraq, Keyes responded: "We are engaged in a war against terror that was started by the terrorists...." The clear implication of his very plain language was that the war in Iraq was in fact "started by the terrorists." Keyes is a radio and TV personality answering the first question of the biggest debate of his political career. He knows what he's saying and I haven't "twisted" a thing. Keyes's argument is also perfectly consistent with the demogogic approach taken by Bush, Cheney and hundreds of other GOP luminaries who contend that the war in Iraq is a consequence of the threat posed by al Qaeda, Saddam's "allies," according to Bush.

[Chris Alger]

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The war on terrorism cannot be won without immense suffering caused by us if we insist on seeing every issue within the prism of that war alone.

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The "war on terrorism" cannot be won because there isn't any war on terrorism. Even if there were a war against terrorism, we couldn't be fighting it by pouring ever greater amounts of gas on the fire, as the far right demands.

I read a few months back that the greatest number of suicide bombings, in the world, have been carried out by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. Ever hear Bush mention them? Do you think that any GOP leader has ever suggested sending troops to Sri Lanka in order to wipe them the filthy terrorists? Of course not, because nobody cares about Sri Lanka for the reasons they care about Iraq.

For much of the year they've been negotiating their greivances with the government of Sri Lanka. Rather than being denounced as "negotiating with terrorists," the U.S. State Department applauds these efforts. Here, for example, is Powell asking the Tigers to prove that they are "capable of playing a legitimate role in the political life of Sri Lanka," despite their "practice of turning its sons and daughters into human bombs." Can you imagine him saying the same thing about al Qaeda or even Hamas without getting crucified as a deserter from the war against terror?

The "war on terror" isn't a quixotic mission to vanquish terrorism. It's a means of scaring us into supporting things we otherwise wouldn't while distracting us from thinking about why terrorism is getting worse.

[adios]

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But when Kerry used the phrase "global test" ...

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Does the term "global test" refer to government policy that Kerry is formulating or has formulated? A yes or no response please, spare me your spin.

[adios]

Same question for you; does the term "global test" refer to government policy that Kerry is formulating or has formulated? A yes or no response please.

I'm heading out of town for the next 5 days or so and I doubt that I'll be getting back to this thread [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. To me the term "global test" refers to a government policy regarding preemption. Go back to Kerry's answer in the debate and you'll see that the "global test" comment was an answer to a question about preemptive war. Process is the means by which policy is carried out more or less. I asked that question about what the process for enacting Kerry's "global test" policy would be and the answers I received were that process is unimportant for enacting policy which in my opinion is ludicrous and that the process would be that fight the preemptive war and after words have iron clad proof that you offer to the rest of the world that your preemptive war was justified. I maintain that Kerry's referring to a policy that inidicates a justification to the rest of the world for a preemptive war before the fact. Maybe I'm being arrogant but I think my interpretation is far more reasonable than those who believe it would be after the fact. If I'm right then my question stands, what would the "Global Test" process entail in justifying a preemptive war to the rest of the world and what constitutes passing the "Global Test" as a result of that process?

If "Global Test" comment is just campaign rhetoric then it's irrelevant.