Funny how an election result suddenly changes the tune of the head of the CIA regarding whether Iraq really is the “Central Front” in the “War on Terror.” What a shock.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday that al-Qaeda remains the single greatest threat to the United States but that Iraq is no longer the central front in the broader war on terrorism.
I’d say the single greatest threat to America is a complete economic collapse leading to massive asset deflation or hyperinflation, or both. But nice to see that at least Iraq isn’t the gold standard anymore among the Bushies as the primary place we need to be in order to fight the “terrists.”
Nice.
Rev. Newman should get thee to the Naval Observatory to exorcise the ‘intrinsic evil’ from the place so the Bidens can move in.
Good thing I’m not a Catholic.
I was raised Catholic but fell away from the Church years ago. Their actions in the Prop 8 fiasco and the molestation scandals really have me down on my former religion.
I note that comes from a South Carolinian priest. And the intrinsic evil they committed was voting for a Black man.
Hmmmm.
I guess they would have been better voting for the guy who got his endorsements from the Catholic hating Pastor Hagee.
Why in God’s name do we exempt religious organizations from paying federal taxes. If the ministers of same are going to play political roles, then, let these organizations pay taxes like the rest of us.
Someone should ask the priest if parishioners should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for John McCain because the Republican senator supports capital punishment, so supporting him would also “constitute material cooperation with intrinsic evil” according to the Catholic consistent life ethic.
Hayden has not read the Warren Buffet 2003 Memo to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.
It’s not the terrorists we need fear but derivatives…fWMDs — financial weapons of mass destruction that will explode and destroy the system.
And let me ask a silly of the CIA director, as the BBC reporter did. If you know the location of OBL..it’s been pinpointed, how is it you’ve not apprehended him?
And I would say that the single greatest threat to America is ass-covering PermGov/PermaCorp bureaucrats like Hayden doing their jive little tapdances to stay in the good graces of whatever powers sit ahead of them on the depth chart and thus maintain their fucking upper-upper middle class lifestyles.
Old man Mao knew.
The Gang of 700,000.
Make ’em pick blackberries.
AG
Not sure I’d be touting Mao as a role model AG, all things considered:
I’ve seen figures as high as 60 million, but 40 million deaths attributable to Mao is a reasonable estimate.
No “reasonable estimates” can exist about this idea.
First of all..Mao’s whole career was a reaction to the racist economic imperialism of Europe, the U.S., Russia and Japan. A necessary reaction, by the looks of it. And a fairly successful one, too, seeing as how China is now the most powerful single country in the world.
Second…all of those figures are at best guesstimates. Not only that, they are often flat-out lies told by assets of the same powers that did the imperialist dance on Chinese asses for the better part of 200 years.
Third…1.5 billion is a good estimate of Chinese population.
The U.S, in contrast, is at around 300 million.
That is, the U.S. is 1/5th the size of China.
Cut that 40 million figure to 1/5th? 8 million. How many lives have been wasted in the United States by racism alone? Including the various drug scourges, the imprisonment of millions who simply lost their goddamned minds while trying to deal with what has gone down here and the domino effect of families ruined by the same problem?
And how many lives and families have been ruined or lost in military endeavours the sole aim of which was to prop up the economic imperialist aims of the U.S.?
Hmmmmm…..
Suddenly ol’ Mao doesn’t look so dumb OR so “vicious”, does he?
What if FDR had decided to try to teach the robber baron class and their go-fers the meaning of life in Grapes of Wrath country?
What if RFK had survived, won the election and then said “OK, that’s about enough of THAT shit !!! Mafia, big criminality of the white collar variety and the entire, empty academic class…time to go see rural Georgia in the summer. Meet your overseer, Booker T.”
Would we be in our present pickle?
What if Obama decided to line the war criminals up against a wall and give America some real reality TV?
That’s essentially what Mr. Mao did.
Was he “right”?
I dunno.
It worked, apparently.
And in the long run of history…what IS “right”?
I’ll tell you what it is.
It is that which survives.
Bet on it.
We have been so “right” as opposed to China?
How come we’re in the hole?
Hmmmm…
Rethink your shit.
And reexamine your media as well.
Castro, Mao, and any number of other popularly considered (popularly hyped, actually) villains?
History will tell a differnt story, I think.
Watch.
AG
Arthur
On this one you’re just dead wrong.
Now there is an argument worthy of the leftiness blogs.
Thanks much, Steven.
I’m gonna frame that one and put it up above my computer so’s I’ll be able to remember not to spend so much energy in the furure trying to teach pigs to fly.
AG
It’s not an argument, it’s an opinion. The argument was the 40-60 million deaths caused by Mao and his policies. I don’t know how anyone can find that accomplishment as worthy of emulation or respect. You seem to be arguing from the point of view that ends justify means. Putting aside for the moment what ends Moa should be given credit for (and I can’t think of many positive ones) I hold to the proposition that the life of each human being is the highest end, and that causing the death of any individual (absent self defense or the defense of others) is immoral, and no cause or claim of “greater good” justifies such actions.
Who did you vote for?
AG
You wrote:
So I guess that you are not a pacifist. Not on the Gandhi/MLK Jr./Mandela level, anyway.
Hmmm…
Then I guess it all comes down to your own definition of “self-defense”.
That can be a very sticky wicket, I will admit. Hitler was acting in self-defense…in defense of Germany and the Aryan race…by his own lights. George W. Butch invaded Iraq in “self-defense”. In defense of the American way of life, one that is (and has been for about 100 years) fueled by active economic imperialism supported by overt and covert military means.
Mao?
Read the history of racist Western European imperialism in Asia before you condemn him.
His second revolution? The so-called “Cultural” one? Perhaps it was misguided. Perhaps it just spun out of control. But the idea behind it? That China should remain “Chinese” rather than become a clone of Europe as has Japan to a large degree?
Hmmmm….
Sounds about right to me.
Later…
AG
I’d say that the greatest single threat is the damage to our environment, largely enabled by the Bush administration in its giveaway of precious resources and lowering of protections.
Long term you’re right.