"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote in message
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"DH" <dh@stargate.com> wrote in
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"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote in message
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Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com>
wrote in news:nun9h11sc5ou5m84oq16m47lbgvql2jfeb@4ax.com:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:07:17 GMT, in alt.atheism , Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> in
<1125432437.3986fcc91216bbe7ba50b8f3be9db26c@teranews> wrote:

Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com>
wrote in news:tta9h19ur679l4t4a3pi3raf0bmh769gvu@4ax.com:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:43:51 GMT, in alt.atheism , Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> in
<1125416631.9a6d0a7eae856006127e0cd885db19dc@teranews> wrote:

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007425.php

What part of that was the good news? It is a very long page
and

[snip]

What if you saw a headline that said, "Red Sox Trash Yankees at
Fenway" and got through the first four paragraphs without a mention
of a Red Sox run or even a Red Sox pitcher getting a K? Would you
keep reading?

But that's not the case with this article.

That's the Chrenkoff article. The headline's "Good News" but, if
one actually consults sources other than Chrenkoff and does a
little integration, one realizes that Chrenkoff is reporting "news"
that is equally likely to be "bad."

Sure, anybody can put on a sad face and weep about items like the
Iraq Star contest or the IMF's first country survey in 25 years.

Sunni opposition to the draft Constitution is well known to those
who occasionally leave their rightwingnut blog sites and get out to
see what's happening in the world. If the Sunnis are developing
the self-discipline to use the political process to stall the
Constitutional process, this is not necessarily good news.

Actually it is good news. If they get used to airing their
disagreements with ballots instead of guns and bombs, that is
unequivocally good news. Even if they vote "no" on the
constitututional question, that is still a vote instead of a bomb.

Here's a tidbit further down your "good news" article:

[quote]
Bizarrely, both the main Sunni terror group, Ansar Al Sunna, as
well as Shia radical Muqtada al Sadr, have been both calling on
supporters to register to vote in the constitution referendum.
"[One] statement issued by six of the seven Ansar groups promised
that there will not be attacks against Americans on the day of the
referendum, 'to protect those who go to vote.' 'Voting is a jihad
of words and is no different from the jihad of the sword,' the
statement said. 'There are no objections to participation in the
referendum to show the world our strength and to defeat
federalism'." [end quote]

Now, if the terrorist organizations are also developing the
self-discipline necessary to thwart the political process via a
political process, thereby cloaking themselves in a certain kind of
respectability, that strikes me as truly bad news. Terrorists with
strategic smarts are very, very bad news.

Why is this a bad thing again? Groups getting involved in the
political process instead of using force sounds like a good thing to
me.

Geez, what are you? Pangloss? What terrorist group has ever
renounced terrorism in favor of the ballot?

Sure, they've USED
politicial processes as a means to their ends but they don't renounce
the other means and they keep using them.

OK, OK, I'll keep reading.... Oh, wait, there IS Good News!

[quote]
The International Monetary Fund report paints a picture of Iraq
beset by problems, but nevertheless with good prospects:

Iraq is suffering from rampant inflation, endemic disease and
falling oil production, the International Monetary Fund said
yesterday in its first review of the country for 25 years.
Nevertheless, Lorenzo Perez, the IMF director who oversaw the
review, said that in the medium term he was "quite optimistic"
about the country's prospects, although this will "depend on the
level of oil prices". [end quote]

Yeah, baby! Gas around the corner from here is $2.99 right now!
Iraq's economic prospects ARE good!


Here's the thing; the article's worthless. Sure, there's a lot of
activity there and, to be perfectly honest, some little bit of the
news it contains is, unequivocably, good. However, what little
good news there is is a side show.

The news that's important relates to this:

Oh, of course, nothing else is important unless *YOU* say so.

When will the Iraqis be able to defend their borders, unify their
country under a Constitution that makes ALL Iraqis feel like it's
their own Constitution, suppress domestic and foreign terrorists
and begin to use their own oil wealth to develop their own human
and economic potential?

Is that like how ALL American voters feel like they participated in
the 2004 election and stand behind the decision?

Good point. Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote
and, consequently, is not the 43rd President of the United States.
Look how polarized we are as a result. We, however, by tradition and
training, accept the rule of law. There are previous instances of
this sort of result, it was accepted, the country moved on, we learn
about it in History class and we accept the possibility in the
abstract. Every time there's a close election, the peculiarities of
the Electoral College are discussed in the nightly news or in election
night reporting. Pretty much everybody with a functioning brain stem
was prepared for this possibility. The PROCESS was respected by the
CITIZENS who have more to lose than to gain by violent revolution.

Now look at Iraq. They have no tradition of acceptance of the rule of
law, their is no consensus on anything and the Sunnis have a lot to
lose and may well feel disenfranchised.

There is no reason to believe they will stand politely by and let the
Shiites and Kurds steamroller them.

Will the Iraqi Constitution be the seed of a democratic, free, open
and happy society or will it be the seed of a theocracy that joins
in global Jihad against the Western nations?

If Iraq becomes a jihadist theocracy it will be by repudiating the
constitution, not by accepting it.

A Constitution in an environment heavily controlled by clerics which
STARTS by endorsing the principles of Islam as the foundations of law
and repudiating the idea that any law can be formed which is contrary
to those principles is half-way to a Jihadist theocracy already.

Right now, the Sunnis are fighting, tooth, nail, IED and ballot
against the Constitution. While the Constitution may actually get
ratified, if that 20% of the population feels left out, Iraq will
be a hellhole for decades.

You overgeneralize when you say "the Sunnis". The violent factions
are a small minority even of that 20% minority.

Planning for the best-case is not the way to handle foreign policy,
war or anything else.

Stop focussing on wisps of good news and see if
you can pitch a Constitution that the Sunnis will actually LIKE or
come up with some other way of mending a country that the NeoCons have
gratuitously and entirely unnecessarily broken and put in hazard of
becoming a Jihadist theocracy.

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 02:10:39 GMT, in alt.atheism , Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> in
<1125454239.4e306cd9e55ad22df88e9542b9f54496@teranews> wrote:

Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
news:74s9h1tdnu3iu25bonu145qp7v09g718e5@4ax.com:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 23:01:53 GMT, in alt.atheism , Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> in
<1125442916.4d681953f467c3499ffe3079090d62a9@teranews> wrote:

Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com> wrote
in news:nun9h11sc5ou5m84oq16m47lbgvql2jfeb@4ax.com:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:07:17 GMT, in alt.atheism , Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> in
<1125432437.3986fcc91216bbe7ba50b8f3be9db26c@teranews> wrote:

Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com>
wrote in news:tta9h19ur679l4t4a3pi3raf0bmh769gvu@4ax.com:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:43:51 GMT, in alt.atheism , Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> in
<1125416631.9a6d0a7eae856006127e0cd885db19dc@teranews> wrote:

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007425.php

What part of that was the good news? It is a very long page and
after the first few screenfuls did not seem to have anything I
gave up. I don't know that this is the longest page I have ever
seen, but it is sure up there.

Well, that's sort of the point, there's a lot of good news out of
Iraq.

I did not see anything in the screens I looked at. I saw the same
old cliche of someone telling me that the media are not covering
the good news, but nothing meaningful.

How about you give a reference to something a bit more
specific.

There are all sorts of specifics on that page.

So what was the 2-3 best news items you saw?

That the Sunnis are going to try to reject the Constitution (the
lead item) is good news only in a most perverted manner. That some
Sunnis are going to use the political process, rather than (or in
addition to) violence to destabilize the country is not really
good news.

That the USAID has "provided 18 experts to provide assistance to
the Iraqi National Assembly's (INA) Constitutional Committee"
(second item) is, I suppose, news, but I don't see it as good or
bad. It is just an informative detail.

That the Kurds are re-occupying Kirkuk (third item) may be good
news in a sense, it is also one of the signs of the coming civil
war. Kirkuk is one of the major disputed areas: the Kurds
(reasonably) say they were kicked out and it has oil. I don't know
why you see the re-occupation as good news.

That people signed up for Iraqi Idol (fourth item) could be a sign
of normalization or of desperation due to unemployment. There is
nothing in the item to tell us either way.

You only looked at four items?

I looked at the first four items of a page you said was all good
news. I found no good news in that list. I gather that you have no
meaningful response to my analysis above.

You pissed on four items.

No, I explained why I thought that the first four items in that page
were not particular good news. If you don't have an argument, by all
means try offensive language.

That doesn't mean that they're not positive
developments.

I agree. Now all you have to do is explain why my argument was wrong
and why they are good news.

The Sunni are participating in the election. You *assume*
that they're doing it to destablize the process. That's *YOU* being
negative, not the news item. Same with the others you mentioned.

Yes, Fred, if you close our eyes and put our fingers in our ears and
hum loudly and the just peek long enough to read the right blog, then
we can construe the news as positive.

I did not "*assume*" they were
doing it to destabilize, I read many reports on how the Sunnis were
against the proposed constitution.

Now in your world perhaps they have
had a sudden change of heart and they are going to vote for the
constitution. If you want to believe that, go ahead. I asked you to
make a prediction regarding the content of the constitution and you
would not. Want to predict on whether it gets rejected?

Now give me your positive spin on why it is a good thing that the
Kurds are moving back to Kirkuk. And why this is news, I suppose,
since they have been doing this since Saddam fell.

So, again, where is the good news?

Keep reading.

Sorry, but I don't feel like wasting my time again. If you don't
have anything in particular, then you don't. If you had something
you would let us know.

I cited an article with *dozens* of particulars. You chose to ***** on
the first four items based on your own negative assumptions.

No, I analyzed the first four and gave my analysis. If all you have is
that I "pissed" on them then you can't defend them either.

That says
more about you and your pessimism and defeatism than it does about the
developments in Iraq.

No, it says more about how I am willing to look with an open eye on
what is happening. This nonsense about "pessimism" and "defeatism" may
work politically, but it is intellectually dishonest. It is not my job
to shut down my mind and back every declaration of victory the
administration gives. It is not my job to blindly support their
policy. Just about every single step in this war has been screwed up,
from beginning to now and likely to the end. That is not because I am
a defeatist, it is because they have done a bad job. We are reduced to
asserting that we have to fight this war because we have already lost
people. We are reduced to supporting a theocracy because we hope it
will not be as bad a theocracy as the neighbors.

BTW, Fred, how about that Democrat Gov. pardoning all of his
associates and assistants, those already indicted and those not
yet indicted. Pretty corrupt, don't you think?

You misspelled "Petty".

No, actually, I did not. The governor used his power to prevent
any investigation of criminal wrong doing by his friends and
co-workers. With his actions we will have a harder time learning
what other crimes were committed.

You're assuming that other crimes were committed.

So was the governor. I figure that if he has to resort to blanket
pardons for any and all crimes committed until the moment of the
pardon, then he is covering up the crimes they committed. If you
want to pretend that this was just so they were not bothered, go
ahead.

I'm not pretending anything. There was some petty cronyism which
deserves, maybe, a few bombastic articles in the papers, not some
witch hunt prosecution.

And what made the prosecution a witch hunt? Did you notice that the
gov pardoned unnamed people for any violation of the penal code and
pardoned a man indicted for 22 felonies.

But you just know this was a
witch hunt, you know that there were no other crimes involved.

And
since you know this there is no need to investigate. Which seems to be
the Republican way these days. You know the answer, why bother to get
evidence. Make the evidence up, attack those who disagree, say
whatever you need, you have the secure knowledge that you are right.

This is a remarkably common tactic by Republicans.
President Ford did it, Bush did it.

So did Clinton. Oh, wait, he *sold* pardons.

Who is now assuming crimes were committed? Your Republican friends
pardon those in office and in the administration who use their power
and office to commit felonies.

Nixon was punished enough.

Yeah, who needs the legal process.

The country didn't need to have that drag on
all through Ford's presidency. Same with Bush I.

Yeah, why should those felons go to jail. Rich white Republicans are
punished enough just by being under investigation,

no one needs to
know what they really did and they sure don't need to go to jail.

They use the power of the government to
cover up crimes and to stop investigation into their wrong doing.
And the best, though so pitiful, defense you could offer was that
Clinton did something sort of similar. By your standard what Clinton
did was quite fine since there was so much Republican precedent for
misuse of pardons.

By *YOUR* standard what Clinton did was *worse* since he did it for
money.

No, that is not my standard. My standard is that people who use their
power to subvert the government, as did Nixon and a host of people
under Reagan, are way worse than those who *supposedly* do it for
money.

(It is funny how you are willing to give a whitewash to the gov
of Kentucky, but you are so sure about Clinton.) We don't know and
won't know what was going on in Kentucky because the gov their has
used his power to impede an investigation.

And, not surprisingly, the
Law and Order Republicans in the state are behind him. I wonder if the
Feds have the guts to step in.

Oh, wait, it was a
Republican who did it. Well, it was a maverick attorney general
and the Gov was doing the right thing. Right?

Fletcher in KY? Reads like a little cronyism for patronage jobs.
Hang 'em all! Firing squad at dawn! Prepare the alligator pit!
Feed 'em to the dogs!

Trying to use satire to dismiss criminal acts and gross misuse of
power (the pre-emptive pardons) by a Republican, eh? You sure do
like one party rule.

You sure do like making mountains out of Republican molehills. Now
tell us about how Gov Taft of Ohio deserves impeachment because he
failed to report something like $6000 worth of goodies like golf
outings and meals.

If you have to resort to pointing to a different Republican governor
who has committed a crime, then you are getting pretty desperate.

How about making the punishment fit the crime?

How about trying to change the subject again. Like I said, when all
you have as a defense is to point to a different Republican gov who
has committed a crime, then you have nothing.

How
about pointing out that Schwarzenegger took millions from people he
does business with, but he did it just before he took office, so it
was all just fine.

You got a problem with a businessman doing business?

No, I have a problem with a politician taking millions from a company
doing business with the state.

I have a problem with his taking money
from a company that bribes someone so they won't talk about his
affairs.

I have a problem with his vetoing a bill that would have hurt
his benefactor.

If you see the gov of a state as just another
businessman then you have some serious problems.

Again, by your
standard what Clinton did was great, he (supposedly) did it for the
money.