grog says:

um, noooooo, actually what liberals are saying is that we are stretched too far so trying to build a new roman empire is a bad idea.

the neocon cowboys in the bush camp are currently bankrupting the country on a fool’s errand to quell the middle east through military force, something that has been tried without success over the millenia.

not that common sense or knowledge ever enters into neocon thought.

James Hill says:

[Message deleted – See Comment Guidelines. – ed.]

Thomas says:

#2
The conclusion that anyone is trying to make another Roman Empire is idiotic. It is the delusional fantasy of a person that hates Bush so badly that they will attribute any crazy idea to him. It is tinfoil hat stuff.

What would suggest we do with the middle-east? Let them duke it out with nukes because that is what will happen eventually. It is expected that Iran will develop and/or acquire nuclear weapons within the next decade. What would you suggest we do about that: sit around the campfire singing kumbayah?

god says:

Look who shows up to say Beluyevsky is wrong. Tee hee.

PC neocons with wedgies.

the answer says:

great cartoon

Frank IBC says:

Grog –

Apparently to you, Saddam’s attempt to assassinate the elder President Bush does not count as a declaration of war?

gquaglia says:

you see the case of iraq, the war was explicitly started by us, for our own personal reasons

I guess freeing a country from a sadistic, brutal dictator is our own personal reason. Saddam and his family tortured and killed thousands, they are better off dead.

How about a technology posting?

We sometimes get them here, but some douche always manages to turn it into a anti Bush post somehow.

Thomas says:

Come on now John. Don’t be childish. Look at the cartoon that was chosen for this post. Look at the comment in the original post about making a Roman Empire. You don’t think there is at least a bit of Bush bashing there?

#20
Then I suppose we have an issue defining a superpower. Do they have one of the most powerful militaries on the planet? Yes. Do they have a strong economy? Yes. Do they have nuclear capability? Yes. Do they have a space program? Yes. What more do you need? What else would they need to be a superpower?

Tim says:

That’s too bad.. Someone should stand in the way of our insane government and military before it’s too late. 🙁

We invade Iraq because Saddam might have killed thousands (with weapons we sold him), and we end up killing close to a million as a result. Nice.

MikeN says:

Now if only the US had said the same and will say it now. Why go into Kosovo or Bosnia, just because Europe asked? And tell them we won’t protect them from the Russians.

By the way, the Russians have apparently given some guarantees of protection to the Iranians in exchange for the contract to build their reactor. The French may have done the same, lost out, and now we hear belligerence from their leaders.

MikeN says:

#9
From The Death of a President FORTY YEARS AGO

while the haters of the President-of-the-day populated various outposts around the country, they never dominated the political landscape to any serious degree. This was, Manchester charges, not so in Dallas, where “radical extremists” dominated the city’s political environment. He points out approvingly that the Warren Commission Report, the presidential commission that investigated the assassination, said that there was a “general atmosphere of hate” in the city, an atmosphere that Manchester and liberals of the day believed had infected the Dallas political and civic establishment.

What did these “radical extremists” of Dallas believe? What did they say or write to leave the impression the city was ruled by a “general atmosphere of hate”? Why did these extremists hate JFK with such passion? Here is Manchester on political hate:

* “There was something else in the city, something unrelated to conventional politics — a stridency, a disease of the spirit, a shrill, hysterical note suggestive of a deeply troubled society.”

* Anti-Semitism was disturbingly visible, “Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.”

* “Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms.”

* The Democratic Mayor of Dallas was in fact not a Democrat at all but kowtowed to the Right because he was “as respectful of the prevailing political winds as any German functionary.”

* Local elected officials, not radicals themselves, “displayed an astonishing indifference toward radical excesses [and] bore a heavy responsibility for the city’s political atmosphere.” As a result, a “strange ideology” sprouted that was “malevolent and nihilistic” and on “American soil it had an alien look.”

And what precisely was the real problem with JFK in the eyes of these haters? “Kennedy’s private wealth and starchy New England vowels were bad enough.” Kennedy’s very being was a challenge to their accustomed and cherished ways, his views were a “desecration.” Why? Because the political haters of Dallas believed that “everyone had to stick together, wear the same label, and circle the wagons against disaster.” JFK simply refused to wear the right label, and worse was politely dismissive of any effort to get him to do so.

There was, of course, no Internet in 1963. But there was the Dallas Morning News, a right-wing newspaper that was filled with example after example of what Manchester holds out as sheer political hate. He writes: “…[T]here was something almost Orwellian about the News. To understand some passages, you had to know the code — there were references to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘Queer Deal,’ the ‘American Swivel Liberties Union’ and ‘the Judicial Kremlin’ (the United States Supreme Court).” The White House was ruled by a “dangerous faker” dismissed in the pages of the News as an “idiot” who was “50 times a fool” and a “cunning thief,” although “definite proof” of the latter had “not yet been established.”