Withdrawn from combat, you say?
Posted on: September 16, 2010 - 8:38pm
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Withdrawn from combat, you say?
http://www.aolnews.com/story/despite-formal-combat-end-us-joins/806553?cid=10
Quote:
BAGHDAD -Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.
It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.
The attack also made plain the kind of lapses in security that have left Iraqis wary of the U.S. drawdown and distrustful of the ability of Iraqi forces now taking up ultimate responsibility for protecting the country.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
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I'm not interested in getting into the politics, but troops were not withdrawn from combat, they were withdrawn from an active combat role.
That is a subtle difference in language, but in impact it is huge. Iraqi patrols usually have U.S. troops advising them, and if the Iraqi's request American aid they will fight. The U.S. still provides air support as well.
What *is* different is U.S. troops are not running patrols and doing raids anymore.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Hey, the war ended on May 1st 2003. 40 days after it began. At least that was what the liberal media kept pumping out after W. made his speech on the flight deck of the Lincoln. For the next couple of years, we kept hearing about every synthetic milestone they could drum up as having been exceeded, ie, there have been more soldiers killed since the war ended than during it.
So what the fuck is Obama trying to take credit for then? He certainly can't end a war that was over more than seven years ago. He did not end the occupation of Iraqi bases. His very minimal draw down was immediately redeployed for his troop surge in Afghanistan (but that is fine because liberals get to do anything that they damned well please).
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Well, OF COURSE will american troops get attacked. As far as locals are concerned, they are evil invaders that destroyed regime which provided most of them stuff like water, food and medical care. I wonder if this one attack was for depleted uranium or white phosphorus, or just 'take that, bastards'. All that most of Iraq citizens want is to be left alone in peace. And maybe get done with these pesky Shiites that Saddam didn't allow them to dispose of.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
The "liberal media", Gracie? Who the hell are they?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Which is precisely what the OP about. The wording was chosen so carefully it's almost as if it the administration had authored a contract, rather than a press release.
Which is fairly easy to do right now. I doubt it will be so easy a few years from now. Even other members of Democrat party are fleeing the sinking ship of what has essentially amounted to Bush Lite™ governance -not to mention a SHITLOAD of election promises that haven't been acted upon.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Those would be the people from CNN, MSNBC and the other networks who love to piss and moan that Rupert Murdoch broke thier strangle hold on what information people are allowed to see before forming opinions on matters political.
Hey, you just had to ask.
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Oh, you mean the "slightly less conservative than Fox News" media. The ones that (as Franken said) talked about Clinton's penis 23 hours a day instead of 24.
The "liberal media" in this country doesn't exist.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
No, I was talking about the people who were counting down to the magic day in the fall of '03 when “more soldiers have died since the war ended than during the war” and the other magic day when “more soldiers have died than the number of people who died in the world trade center”.
After that, they got triple dates for adding the number of dead at the Pentagon, the number of dead in Pennsylvania and the total number of dead in both events.
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If you really want to bring Clinton's dick into this, then tell me what was up with the blue dress? Would not any woman in that situation find a way to tell the dry cleaner that there was some spilled mayo in one spot? Then if the dry cleaner figured it out, he would remain silent when she picks up the dress so as to assure a repeat customer?
But no! Monica saved the presidential cum stain. What the fuck was she going to do with it? Perhaps the plan was to wait 40 years and then have her grand kids over to show them. “See this stain Jimmy? That is where the president did something with grandma and spilled something on her dress”.
Either that or she had intended to blackmail him at a later date.
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I'll comment on both of your posts here.
1. If GW Numbnuts and his cyborg boss knew he had to make more dead soldiers and disabled vets why bother lying about "Mission Accomplished"? They were the best friends any terrorist ever had.
2. For Monica, my bet is the latter. I figured that she and Tripp would have co-authored a book if the "taping scandal" hadn't backfired.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Signature ? How ?
Because he was talking specifically to the crew of a naval carrier who had successfully achieved their mission. He didn't sit in the oval office and tell the country that the war was over. There are many missions that take place in a war... not one. The soldiers understood that. Not that I support GW or the war but it pisses me off when people are willfully ignorant and intentionally misinterpret people just because they disagree. Anyone with half a brain knew Bush wasn't saying the war was over. Presidents save that kind of speech for the oval office and have it broadcasted during prime time.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
He didn't say "Your combat operations in Iraq had ended". He said "Major combat operations in Iraq had ended" while the number of deployments increased.
If there were soldiers that understood differently, they were under orders to do so. You read like some theists I know. We take the words of the Bible and they say "Well God/Jesus/Paul didn't really mean that..."
We are also talking about a self-professed media creation in GWB. He liked putting on a show. It also gave him a chance to put on a combat uniform - something he couldn't bring himself to do the first time around.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
The speech was meant to be a morale booster to soldiers who had spent time fighting in two theaters and were headed home. To construe it as anything else is pure political hackery. In the exact same speech he also said,
and
It is pretty damn clear he wasn't saying we are done with Iraq and bringing everyone home now. What part of "we have difficult work to do in Iraq" do you not understand? Now if you want to argue Bush was an idiot and in retrospect we had a few more operations in Iraq one could consider major you would be right. He is, and we did. Just like he was wrong about the WMDs but to portray it like Bush was trying to say we were done in Iraq is BS which is how the news media portrayed it even though the white house immediately released a press release emphasizing the Bush did not mean the war was over.
You read like some theists I know, pick one sentence and ignore the rest that comes with it. Of course, that is how politics tends to be. But anyway, I'm done because I don't really want to defend the scumbag. Just be honest with yourself and think for a second on what he was really saying. It isn't like there aren't enough real problems with the man that you have to make them up.
I don't even know why I jumped into this discussion. Next thing you know I'll be defending Bama. I blame the booze.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Some news outlets are better at not tainting their product with a blatant pov but to maintain that traditionally mainstream news outlets would not or could not advocate for a "progressive" interpretation of events is naive.
Conceivably, the power of the press is not lost on those who make their living in the media. They have the ability, not just to report the news, but to influence how the message is interpreted by the public. It is sometimes called advocacy journalism, it exists in all media ( conservative and liberal ) to varying degrees and it's never going away.
PS, In the early 90's I repeatedly learned from the left-leaning media news outlets that "semi-automatic machine guns" were a menace to American society and should be banned. There were numerous "Special News Reports" that attempted to portray semi-autos as fully automatic machine guns in order to confuse the public and garner support for ( mostly ) Democratic sponsored legislation that would be used to enact sweeping gun prohibitions against commonly owned semi-auto firearms. Hell, I even angrily called one of my local TV stations to correct them when they also began employing the same dishonest tactic in their own newscasts.
Believe what you will, nevertheless the vast majority of news reporting is still filtered through a progressive pov.
Gay Edgar was a lying sack of crap who was benefiting from organized crime. Why shoot his cash cow?
Love to know what you're reading/watching because I don't see the bias you speak of in what I read and watch.
Oh and I don't see the point of using an AK-47 to go "hunting" and I own one.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Well jcgadfly, I can refer you to a guy I know who hunts with an AK47. Register over at ocforums.com and look up the moderator known as Krag. He is a reasonably nice guy who will talk with you and crack jokes all the time. He is also a baptist minister.
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Umm, guys... can we stop chest-thumping over something as inane as media bias?
That's cool - I just don't see the need.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Trivially, we can. Just tell us why and make it something that is actually sensible.
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Yes Ken, exactly. There were some liberals a couple of centuries ago who decided that the idea of a monarchy was fucked up. Then there are people who claim that heritage to try to force their fucked up agenda on everyone else.
When I refer to the liberal media, I have the latter in mind.
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That's an interesting observation. So are you saying that the bulk of the mainstream media in the US are actually just examples of Fox News Lite ?
I'm an animal lover, I don't hunt at all, and so far have never even referenced the topic of hunting in this thread. In your fervor did you assume that I'm some sort of "bubba" who would support such a thing ?
1. No, I just believe that the myth of the liberal media is just that (based on what I've seen over the last few decades).
2. You brought up the guns. I just thought you'd like to know that I'm not an anti-gun person (just in case you thought I was going on the "guns are evil" shtick). I also know that some people claim to use assault weapons to hunt game. Like I told AIGS, I don't see the need.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
The 800 lbs gorilla has weighed in...
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Okay, I accept that as your view point and I'm sure you have evidence to validate it, not that I am asking you to do so. ( I am not attempting to dissuade you, in other words. ) ...and now more for the sake of inquisitiveness, but how would you evaluate Rachel Maddow as a newscaster ? Does she embody a politically detached approach to reporting ? Any other examples that you would prefer are welcome.
Again, I only ask from curiosity, I will attempt no counter-argument or rebuttal.
She is no more a newscaster than O'Reilly, Hannity or Beck.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Perhaps, you are right ( call her whatever you think fits best, news oriented commentator, pundit, etc ) but I was more interested in how you perceived her regarding her objectivity and whether she also represented a "conservative" media presence. I was seeking a little more elaboration from you in order to understand how you gauge media bias but I can tell you're done with it. Never mind, then.
Oh, sorry.
I don't watch a lot of TV but I have seen instances (YT, etc.) where she's taken shots at both sides. If I were to consider her anything it would be more left of center than some. She is not in the majority on MSNBC, let alone the rest of media.
Short of Free Speech TV, I don't think there is anyone that can be labeled "progressive" or "liberal". Not too sure about them, sometimes.
I'm not including you in this (unless it fits), but it reminds of something Peter Werbe said (paraphrasing), "Conservatives hang the "liberal" label on people and things they perceive as being slightly to the left of Mussolini."
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Frida Kahlo rocks.
Thanks for the clarification jc. Also I wasn't sure if my probing questions were irritating you, so you'll understand why I thought it better to let it go. Just another example of how hard it is to communicate subtle nuances over the internet.
Oh, as for myself I would consider myself to be a Libertarian ( former party member ) with a tendency to pick and choose a conservative or liberal pov dependent upon the issue being considered, ie, pro gay rights, pro choice, extreme anti gun-control, etc.
Yeah, she was pretty cool, too bad she died at such an early age ( 47 ). I expect Kapkao to come back and bitch at us for derailing his thread again , heh heh. Sorry K, it was an accident.
I'm half asleep, carry on...
edit; Actually, Melle and Answers took most of the wind out of any discussion I could have hoped to conjure up in just the 1st two posts.(In addition to a naturally sluggish mind)
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
No irritation from you at all. You just happened to catch me in the middle of an awful week. I should apologize to you.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
It's not like Kap hasn't high jacked plenty of threads himself.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)