"As bona fide Republicons, we get to stay AWOL from responsibility. Plus, we get the standard IOKIYAR deferment. Ha ha. Smirk. Sneer."

- George AWOL Bush (R) & Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney (R)

with that response!

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And feels like 1

As someone who'd heard of the Invisible Pink Unicorn (bbhhh) long ago, I can't help but think of this FSM character as being something of a deity-come-lately.

and that will never happen. too many dems voted for the IWR.

If you are incapable of making the only moral statement that people will take seriously coming from you then there is no point in making lesser ones that sound completely hypocritical.

American exceptionalism seems to be everyones excuse for not cleaning house.

That would be putting Clinton on trial for war crimes in Kosova and Bosnia.


That's one place this started, not in Iraq. It didn't matter that we didn't annex Kosovo (or Iraq). What mattered is that the territorial sovereignty of another country, considered "inviolate", was achieved through predominately military ends.

All the talk of Iraq is mostly because it's more recent and because it's more likely to work with a (D) audience that is partly still is engaged in self-castration because of it. That example will become more pertinent only really in the event of a Russian invasion and "re-purposing" of Ukraine.

Prosecuting either, however, would serve no purpose except for domestic consumption and those that we think are important abroad. We live in a small, small word--one which, oddly, doesn't include most of the Earth's surface or population.

The other place this started was in the perceived humiliation of Russia by the West in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the splitting off of parts of the empire. The Baltics are still a sore point, and while many analysts are talking about how Putin's now not just speaking of "Russians" but "Russian speakers" it's not new talk with Russia--it's a repeat of what happened in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Except then Russia was too weak, too disorganized, to do much. Worse was when the Baltics went all EU and NATO on Russia.

Putin considers his valuation of his own moral principles to be far more important than your valuation of either your own, Bush's, or his moral principles. He's sure in his moral judgments, fairly good in his political judgments, and really--we just don't matter to him that much except to the extent we actually do things.

It's like a scene from a comedy that I once had the displeasure to sit through. Two opponents. One adopted a kung-fu pose and made various grunts, shouts, and presumably threatening posturing. The other just watched the other guy's gyrations deadpan then pulled out a gun and shot him. We can posture all we want. Unless we do something that gets in his way, it's all posturing. Just as with the kung-fu parody, so it's portrayed as a kind of outrageous farce.

I thought that it would come to bite the US in the behind, and thought that it was a dumb thing to do, alongside other dumb Clinton moves like ignoring Brooksley Born's warning that derivatives were a huge problem and signing Graham, Leach, Bliley and NAFTA and giving WTO status to China.

Why should I be castigated for writing that elections in Crimea pose serious problems, particularly in light of the lack of UN observers and the presence of Russian troops and their local followers in the streets with guns?

Brought to us by GHWB, the R's hero, next to Raygun.

I saw the interview w/Jimmy Carter reprimanding Bushes war, brought to us with lies about the 'evil' deeds of the Iraqis. Carter told the truth about Kuwait illegally cross-drilling into Iraqi oil fields even after Iraq defended Kuwait from the Iran attempted invasion of same. It was on PBS so no one seemed to pay attention, esp. the M$M.

More Bushes = more war, more lies and more death.

I hate those evil bastards like the plague...worse even.

The U.S.A. has no more moral authority. It is an evil greedy corporation.

Only consequences will.

Not particularly interested in our government sending moral messages, rather in seeing our government preventing bad behavior on its own part as well as other nations.

There would certainly be consequences at home, but of the unintended sort that folks here would probably not like to see happen

to start wholescale prosecutions of Obama administration officials, and Clinton administration officials, for everything from the IRS to Benghazi 'scandals.'

Another possibility would be to convince the next Republican who takes office and commits illegal stuff to, well, take extra steps to make sure he is never succeeded by a hostile party.

So many of those Biblical saying still are wise about humans.

as a war criminal receiving his just punishment, but rather a politically-based prosecution based on policy differences, which they would treat as justification for turning Issa's press releases into indictments.

important to recognize how the enemy will react.

That's what my OP was about, the enemy Putin and how to gain the most moral advantage over him, moral statements that could be taken by other nations of the seriousness of our resolve in this matter.

got to do with it?

I thought that was the problem, it's an immoral act which harms others without their consent?

law's foundation--that states aren't allowed to invade, conquer, and annex other sovereign states.

Predicting that you will go back to "to strengthen international law" or some pathetically circular variant thereof.

you read up on the topic

You must have some personal rationale as to why war should be avoided.

instability, tyranny

Everyone sees what you're avoiding, you aren't fooling anyone.

No one is going to do anything to Bush.

There is a problem in the Ukraine right now. Not when Bush was president. It is either dealt with or down the line conservatives will be talking about President Obama just like you are talking about Bush now.

I'm just making it blatantly obvious.

In that circumstance, I fully expect the gums to curl and the teeth to show.

Don't know about you, I'm dropping the food and putting as much distance between myself, the cub, and the Mother Bear as these old legs can manage.

There's bravery, and then there's fool-hearty overconfidence.

Gotta be a better way to find food...

Putin learned well that morality is for suckers. If that were not so Bush and Cheney would the locked up in the Hague ages ago.

Last edited Mon Mar 10, 2014, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

If Russia, India, and China unite to stop what they may well see as a "rogue elephant", we could end up with our asses kicked up to our ears. Russian physics and resources, Indian mathematics, Chinese production...

We're coming to a point where it's either recant or suffer the consequences....

While the Chinese and Indians wipe us off the board economically.

We will have more support in the world when we are viewed as a world power who will act to help others.

When even our own politicians are not exempt from the rule of law they will get so much support we won't know what to do with it all.

Imagine the spontaneous outpouring all over the world of cheering seeing Dick and Duby dallying in the docket.

Takes extreme outside threats for those three to weld into an alliance.

The war profiteers. They need to be held accountable as well.

Due to our "foreign adventures" we are becoming the exact sort of people we staged a revolution against. Only a psychopath would want to rebuild the East India Company and reinstate a Victorian style economy (the one the world overthrew last century).

India and China have fought three conflicts since 1962. Today there is a massive military build up as India counters Chinese incursions into disputed territory. Additionally, India is very suspicious of Chinese ties with Pakistan.

India want a strong US presence in the region as a counterbalance to China. They are also buying a lot of US military hardware because they have learned the hard way that Russian gear is junk in comparison.

(WW II, Russia)

India may be keeping her options open.

their long term strategic aim is to find a counterbalance to Chinese military and economic hegemony. Which means a strategic alliance with the US. The Indians don't give a rats ass about Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Iraq or any other supposedly evil deed the US is up to. They care about China.

And the US has spent plenty of time palling around the Pakistanis.

Which is why India is going with the US for arms - they want to ensure military superiority over Pakistan. Once America is out of Afganastan they will not care so much about Pakistan.

as far as I can tell the Ukrainian people are fucked.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Looting-Of-Ukraine-Has-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-Crimea_Euro_Putin_Russia-140306-182.html?show=votes

Crimea to accept the ships and personnel currently stationed in Ukrainian Crimea.

Novorisk was supposed to be the location, and there are other ports, as well, on the Russian shore of the Black Sea east of Crimea. Navies in the Black Sea are not supposed to include single-purpose aircraft carriers by treaty, so you don't need a humungous port for them. What Russia needed was a port for medium to small sized ships. Surely those could have been built with Russian technology and whatever other technology and oil and gas rich Russia could have built. You realize, of course, that the Russians sold their largest multi-purpose ship with the ability to launch aircraft to the Chinese.

If Putin had put some real money into that project, he's have Russian ports for Russian ships.

Instead, he spent money elsewhere, including $50 billion to build up Socchi, a semi-tropical resort with winter sports facilities

I'm not knocking Socchi. It looked very nice. But which project do you think deserved the highest priority: a Russian base for the Russian Black Sea fleet, or a resort with semi-tropical with winter sports facilities?

I know which I would have voted for.

We need to.

Clinton might though. But not until her second term.

Not because of Putin, not to increase our global image, not for revenge of a presidential election decided by the courts, not for anti-corporatism, not for the left or the right, not for the fallen (ours and theirs), not for the any religious reasons; but because it is the right thing to do. We are, or at least should be, better than we have been acting lately.

The European religious crusades were a bust a thousand years ago. The wars for business reasons are the modern version of the religious crusade, and will end just as badly.

Both political and economic/financial leaders are always exempt from any kind of repercusion from their deeds. The most that happens is that some underlins are set up to take the fall: if the dastardly deed is not schmoozed over.
Whereas for other nations, everything that happens is somehow traced to the leader and it is also put in such deviius light as to make that leader the most evil human alive.

we give Texas back to Mexico. It would sure save us a lot of infighting and allow Texans to secede from this country they hate so much. And Mexicans are used to working for peanuts which would be right in line with all those good minimum wage jobs, Texas has created recently.

Should be fun.

100,000's ...maybe over a million died in Iraq because of lies. That will hang over this country forever.

It should have been done right around the time Pelosi swept if off the table & Obama insisted we needed to move forward.

Hard to move forward while dragging a bunch of lying neocons still yammering their hawk BS, still holding positions of authority, & still being asked on talk shows.

Truly, they should have been quashed after what they did to Clinton, but apparently unable to learn, we continue to allow the unvanquished criminals & war profiteers to speak freely.