[edit]
Medals awarded

While issuing notes of regret over the loss of human life, the U.S. government has, to date, neither admitted any wrong-doing or responsibility in this tragedy, nor apologised, but continues to blame Iranian hostile actions for the incident. The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action ribbons. Commander Lustig, the air-warfare co-ordinator, even won the navy’s Commendation Medal for “heroic achievement,” his “ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire” having enabled him to “quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure.”[2] According to a 23 April 1990 article in The Washington Post, the Legion of Merit was presented to Captain Rogers and Lieutenant Commander Lustig on 3 July 1988. The citations did not mention the downing of the Iran Air flight at all. It should be noted that the Legion of Merit is often awarded to high-ranking officers upon successful completion of especially difficult duty assignments and/or last tours of duty before retirement.
The incident continued to overshadow U.S.-Iran relations for many years. Following the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 six months later, the British and American governments initially blamed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian militant group backed by Syria, with assumptions of assistance from Iran in retaliation for Iran Air Flight 655.[7] The cause of the crash was later determined to be a bomb associated with the Libyan intelligence service, though an Iranian group had claimed responsibility for it.[citation needed]
The Flight 655 incident has often been compared to that of Korean Air Flight 007 interception by the Soviet Air Force in 1983.
The Vice-President George H. W. Bush declared a month later, “I will never apologise for the United States of America, ever. I don’t care what it has done. I don’t care what the facts are.” [8][9][10][11]
[edit]
Compensation

On February 22, 1996 the United States agreed to pay Iran US$ 61.8 million in compensation ($300,000 per wage-earning victim, $150,000 per non-wage-earner) for the 248 Iranians killed in the shootdown. This was an agreed settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice.[12] The payment of compensation was explicitly characterised by the US as being on an ex gratia basis, and the U.S. denied having any responsibility or liability for the incident.
The United States has not compensated Iran for the airplane itself, to date. The aircraft was worth more than $30 million.

Hypocrites. No credibility, no moral high ground.

So, I was right. NO APOLOGY. And how long did it take for threm to pay the compensation Sally? Clinton wasn’t it?

I do thank you for your replies, however, I had earlier decided, and promised, to no longer engage the trolls. I look at their nasty insults, challenges, etc. as comic relief.

I have broken that promise once only, in Neo’s post “Islam: tear down this wall”, because I could not let stand neo-nazi/Aryan Nation anti-semitic tripe. If you haven’t read her post and comments I suggest you do.
I will not engage trolls again.

If you run across such quotes and are suspicious, please go to The Talmud Exposed (google it) which is “a project to provide responses to the anti-Semites who post alleged quotes from the Talmud and other anti-Jewish propaganda in a way intended to promote hatred of Jews.”

Regarding this 18 year old incident —

Here’s what, and all of what, Ariel said:
The downing by the Vincinnes was a mistake and owned up to, as well as paid for. Reagan gave his apologies to all concerned.

Here’s what Reagan said at the time:
This is a terrible human tragedy. Our sympathy and condolences go out to the passengers, crew and their families.
(Which may not be strictly an “apology”, but which is pretty close.)

And here’s what the US paid to the families involved: US$61.8 million.

The downing by the Vincinnes was a mistake and owned up to, as well as paid for. Reagan gave his apologies to all concerned.

So, Ariel, care to comment on these factually incorrect statements?”

She is factually correct. I just read the entire transcript you linked to. When you re-read it, keep in mind the block-quote boxes used to insert references are inserted by secondary authors.

Hmmm, well no Douglas. The shooting down may have been an accident, but it was certainly avoidable and would NOT have occurred if the Vincennes had been in international waters as they claimed. They then also tried to create a story regarding a tanker being in distress. Only problem was, the tanker didn’t exist. Funny that.

Your statement that Rogers had no way of knowing what the aircraft was is palpably false. Read the story again.

There are serious doubts about who actually set the mines that hit the tankers too.

Reagan never apologised, the US lied regarding ALL the circumstances and they fought paying compensation right to the bitter end when they settled out of court. Reagan lied to congress and the UN and was responsible for false testimony being submitted to the World Court in the Hague.

The treatment of the story that I’ve linked to is pretty mild on the US, being a proUS media outlet.

The hard evidence is even more damning.

Yet Rogers was decorated and the Libyans got blamed for Lockerbie.

Reagan was never censured for misleading the people of the USA, the UN and the World Court.

But, the statement was made by Obersturmfeuhrer Ariel who hasn’t the balls to defend it. War, lies and videotape. Family values eh?

Good luck charlie I give it a week before you are declared a troll.

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822

But the visuals aren’t words, but rather diagrams and pictures, sort of like 5% dyslexia.

On-Topic: Neo sounded good, I thought, but I’m not much for the podcast thing- I like the control of my time that I have in reading a post and comments, rather than the binding linearity of an audio track- which doesn’t even have visual cues that I can fast forward to. Text is good.

I do browse conservative/neocon journals such as Commentary and New Criterion from time to time.

So, Ariel, care to comment on these factually incorrect statements?”

She is factually correct. I just read the entire transcript you linked to. When you re-read it, keep in mind the block-quote boxes used to insert references are inserted by secondary authors.

The assertion of the Nightline investigation that you linked is that the details of the Vincennes incident were not discussed honestly in public. No surprise.
The report actually verifies that the shoot-down was accidental- it was not an intended consequence or target of the alleged mission, and the captain of the Vincennes, under the circumstances of the immediate issue of being in a naval action and having a limited time to respond, took appropriate action to protect his ship. Of course, the problem was it wasn’t an actual threat and he could not have known that. The Nightline investigation does nothing to dispel that assertion. It points out apparent inconsistancies in accounts of the event and documentation, and outlines an apparent cover-up, but that’s it. Still an accident. You also need to keep in mind that Iran was actively mining the Persian Gulf at that time, and that is an act of aggression in international waters- you and Nightline like to gloss over that fact. If you want to discuss culpability or liablility, that might be a different issue, but there’s a lot to discuss on that regard- it’s a complex picture.

Exactly — I hadn’t checked out any right-wing/neocon blogs before, and this one and the freerepublic blogs were the first (and only) ones I checked out.

Perhaps you should get out of your ‘group-think faction’ more often.

Confudeforeigner has posted the link (since you wanted links):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html

Now refute it, please.

I hope you won’t “cut and run”, but will refute the contents of the link.

Awaiting your response.

1:13 AM, June 26, 2006

No balls?

He really is an unconscionable liar.

I’d be happy to dissect the White Australia policy with him too. Between you and me though, it doesn’t look that great from a pro US conservative stance, so he’ll cut and run from that too no doubt.

That’s what you guys are really good at ain’t it? Cutting and running. No heart I guess.

Once again you tell other people to do your work for you. Dishonest.

Return, out of bounds. Advantage Ariel. Play on.

The downing by the Vincinnes was a mistake and owned up to, as well as paid for. Reagan gave his apologies to all concerned.

So, Ariel, care to comment on these factually incorrect statements? Telling lies seems to be about the only thing you do, and not very well.

Master manipulator indeed.

Interesting. It’ll take me a while to get my head around that.

Oh yeah. the old “my best friend is ……… (insert minority of choice), so I can’t be a racist” line.

Great manipulation Ariel. Your a master alright.

In Re: Stahl/Albright 5-12-96. This is the Clinton Administration’s mouth speaking. Their foreign policy was not renown for its’ “efficiency”. q.v. no armor for the Somalia Mission.

The reason the food was not getting to the “little chillrin” was that the Sunni kleptocracy was stealing the money allocated to food and medicine with the connivance of the UN kleptocrats who had their muzzles buried in the “Food for Oil” trough.

This is discredited Leftist Meme 96-331-A4 from The Golden Book of Leftist Lies and distortions.

1:19 AM, June 25, 2006

This is a classic example of the referential disconnect.

2 points.

1. The amount of money syphoned out was relatively small and, in most instances (eg the AWB payments) didn’t actually come out of the oil money. The total effect on the quantities of food and medecines was negligable. You can look it up and do the maths.

2. The neocon notion that your ideological opponents are necessarily for pro GWBs domestic political opponents. Quite wrong.

Clinton/Albright were disasters in the middle east and totally craven in their lack of spine in dealing with Israeli expansionism and mass murder.

Clinton used to brag that he was the most proIsraeli president the US ever had.

Conned’s last two posts are simply more examples of the use of those tools. Analyze them and you’ll see what I mean. Much was out of context, and he graciously left out the part he played in those responses.

Sally put it quite succinctly.

Anyway, Neo has reiterated her policy. I’m going to abide by it. Besides, I disagree with enough here to keep it lively. Although, I may get my feelings hurt.:-)

Which all just goes to prove…..there’s no fool like an old fool. All that smugness. Tsk tsk.

Classical liberal eh? Heehee.

If you will recall sally, I made the point about acids and bases. To apply my reasoning thus to McVeigh, he was never under any type of internal controls in the first place. I am. Psychopaths can never be chained by guilt because they feel no guilt, thus it is quite impossible for me to achieve McVeigh level psychopathy.

In essence, Boot Camp trains civilians and city boys how to take orders and how to do what is necessary, because there is no other choice. They teach them how to react correctly, they teach officers to give the right orders. And the NCOs are the oil that allows the machine to operate. If you believe that military training does not make human beings into psychopaths, then you cannot in good conscience disagree with my points as I laid it out.

Why would I hope not? Do you think that’s just some sort of liberal squeamishness?

Forgive the lack of clarification, but I was refering to Ariel’s comments about 30 years from now and the comments she made concerning assassination. My narative will skip to the commentator that I was reading currently when I wrote what I wrote.

at the rate that tuition is going up in US universities,

To provide the reasoning that people like charles contribute no energy into producing, the tuition in ivy league liberal arts colleges are increasing. The tuition for technical institutes and communal colleges are quite affordable.

And, you know, is the price worth it?”

Charles, maybe you missed out when I said to Conned that I was a true believer in the United States Constitution. How many people do you believe I would sanction the death of giving this context? And for what?

Albright has no core philosophical beliefs.

I think he might be, folks, inadvertantly revealing the undercurrent of real racism that underlies much of contemporary left liberalism. You can see the same thing in his mentor, conned, by the way.

Sally, stop talking about people being racist or having undercurrents of real racism. You think becoming like Confude will make you any more pleansant to read?

We not be as sheltered as ye think.

Well Ariel, if that was true, then Charles might have to admit that his opposition has some cuttingly devastating arguments and solid positions. He might then have to consider them in a new light, which would threaten his previous beliefs.

my guess, people, is that these are all the same person and that person is a resident troll.
Mrswhatsit
I differ on that because I am quite sensitive to the mental voice tones of people, and I try and pay hard attention to writing technique and inconsistencies. There are too many inconsistencies in Conned vs Confude vs Charles vs um the other, for them to be the same person. So I’d have to disagree here.

Best comment from wasp yet, in the above.

It is one thing to advocate political change. Politicians fear losing power. Of course, a free people always have the option of overturning or resisting tyranny by force of arms. It is right that advocacy of overturn should have some penalty attached to it, and even Jefferson, pointing to the right of overthrow,The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants., acknowledged the right. It is also the reason why the Second Amendment to the Constitution involving the right to bear arms was inserted.

The US also has a long tradition of respecting the liberties of its citizens and gives prosecutors broad discretion.

It’s all a very complicated and subtle balancing act in which all rights are, in certain degrees, circumscribed. The most famous illustration being the proscription that disallows yelling “fire” in a crowded theater unless there really is one. Likewise all powers and liberties are to some degree or another, limited, and the constant judicial dialog should remind all of this.

A good deal of this give and take is incomprehensible to the binary mind of the totalitarians. And, the totalitarian mind is ever with us. We, as a free citizenry of a republic framed on the federal model, know this, giving citizens broad latitude; even giving non-citizens, on occasion, the right to express themselves without fear. This is because we know how to take the temperature of the political atmosphere and trim our sails accordingly.

And, this also is incomprehensible to the totalitarian, binary mind. The free citizen is comfortable with subtlety and some ambiguity. The totalitarian is not.

We know that it is necessary in our foreign policy as well. Sometimes we must accept some ambiguity in allies, for example, the promulgation of Wahhabism in a strategic partner because we know that we have no permanent friends, just permanent interests. When the time comes a formerly strategic ally will, in its turn be given a choice, as Saddam was given a choice, and will bear the consequences or fruits of those actions. And, again, the totalitarian mind will find this incomprehensible gibberish.

Even the totalitarians among us are tolerated as long as they do not pose active threat to the polity. And, yet again, they do not understand this, taking it as a sign of weakness or fear. A prominent illustration of this lack of understanding can be found in their reactions to the political phenomena currently known as the Neo-Con movement.

Neo-cons, those refusing to drink the poison Koolaid of the totalitarian left, are attacked relentlessly as apostates lest their thinking infect others. the totalitarian mind sees some ideas as virulent germs that must be scrubbed out. When their scrubbing becomes a little too vigorous they find themselves; in the case of blogs, scrubbed out themselves.

The totalitarian Left understands none of this. All of the delicate balancing of a free citizenry is lost on them. They are like insects, programmed with a few simple patterns, doomed to repeat those patterns over and over, even when they don’t work. They’ll never understand insecticides, the swatter or the heel when their infestations pass a certain threshold and they are liable to the methods of control. And, like, for example ants, they will find openings to re-infest until the openings are sealed.
At a certain point the totalitarian mind is programmed in a recursive loop at that point they are lost to political dialog and yet we persist because we never really like to acknowledge that a soul is ever lost or irredeemable.

There is something comforting in that thought. Even here we constantly engage them and they constantly reject the engagement. They’re lost souls, wandering in the wilderness, but we keep shouting to help them find the way.

Sorry for the length of this and sorry for the inevitable reaction of the totalitarian trolls. They’re chained to their oars, ears full of wax.

1. why not attack saudi instead of all the other places if they are the ones you are so mad at.

and

2. - We’re also tired of having some real concerns we have, like uncontrolled immigration that depresses wages and other issues about the direction this country is headed ignored by the DC slime. We know that GWB is an empty suit owned by interests and is a Saudi bumboy. But, since, right now, security is uppermost on our minds we’ve been willing to overlook his shortcomings. We are a patient people but our patience is wearing thin.

And we’ve been sh*t on a lot lately. It’s well past time we put some fear on the bastards in DC and some state capitols. But, we’re also pretty smart in that we know that our biggest asset is the fear we can instill when we get pissed off.

when are you turning yourself in?

On June 25, 1996, Iran again attacked America at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, exploding a huge truck bomb that devastated Khobar Towers and murdered 19 U.S. airmen as they rested in their dormitory.

Quote in above link, LOUIS J. FREEH, Former Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Iranian terrorists bombed Khobar Towers with non official support of Saudi citizens aligned with al Queda.

Advocating Overthrow of Government>Advocating Overthrow of Government

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

and sally you are really not meant to be talking to me however witty your ripostes.

hmmm the point of the penultimate comment was?

Saudis keep killing Americans?

…on the subject of prosecution do you think that people who threaten to overthrow the federal authorities should be prosecuted?

Take this, for example, from “Charlemagne”:

Something that I think would happen within the next ten years or so: at the rate that tuition is going up in US universities, higher education will start to get outsourced at some point to places like India (which have plenty of English-speaking professors willing to work at cheap rates). Universitites will be forced tooutsource to India and US students will spend 4 years in India learning from Indian professors.

I will confidently bet that the person who wrote this 1) does not live in the United States and 2) knows zilch about college education in this country. The first big clue is the use of the word “university” as the generic descriptor for post-secondary education. Nobody who lives in the United States uses that terminology. American usage is to say “college” when we mean to talk about the larger world of post-secondary education, and “university” only when we mean to talk about institutions that fit within our specific definition of that term. The generic use of “university” where we would say “college” is a British usage — and, oddly enough, an Australian one. Hmm.

Also, anyone who could imagine that within 10 years, American families would be sending kids to India to avoid the high cost of college education here does not know the first thing about the private/public structure of American education, the financial aid system, or, most importantly, the fierce and growing protectiveness of the typical American family sending a child off to college right now and the intense focus of such families on the perceived value of a “status” degree. The chance that such a family would see India, with its “cheap” professors (!!) as a better educational destination for their 18-year-old child than, say, a private college with good merit/need aid or the state university system, or that the current “helicopter parent” approach to secondary education could change that much in 10 years is, well, zero.

Outsourcing is a real issue in many industries, of course, but if it is ever going to affect college education in the United States, it is not going to happen in this generation. Nobody who lives here would suggest such a thing. This post is the work of a person from somewhere else who read a headline about rising tuitions in the US, knows nothing else about post-secondary education here, jumped to the rest of his conclusions, and has no problem with making know-it-all comments about subjects he completely fails to understand. Oh, yes, and he’s from Britain or a British colony.

Connect the dots . . . and don’t bother to engage.

Neo!?!? Neeooo, they’re being mean to me again!! Can’t you make them stop, neeooo? Are these “people” supposed to be your friends, neeoo?! Do you want me to call you a racist again, neo? Because i will unless you scold them, neeoo. Do you want to get trolled, neo? i will, i really will, i’ll troll, unless….

Oh well. enjoy.

One of the podcast topics:

A Shorter Argument for Prosecuting Reporters From the NYT and the LAT

Killed
Captain Christopher Adams
Technical Sergeant Daniel B. Cafourek
Sergeant Millard D. Campbell
Senior Airman Earl R. Cartrette Jr
Captain Leland Haun
Technical Sergeant Patrick P. Fennig
Master Sergeant Michael G. Heiser
Staff Sergeant Kevin Johnson
Sergeant Ronald King
Master Sergeant Kendall K. Kitson
Airman 1st Class Christopher Lester
Airman 1st Class Brent E. Marthaler
Airman 1st Class Brian W. McVeigh
Airman 1st Class Peter W. Morgera
Technical Sergeant Thanh V. Nguyen
Sr. Airman Jeremy A. Taylor
Airman 1st Class Joseph E. Rimkus
Airman 1st Class Justin Wood
Airman 1st Class Joshua E. Woody

Never Forgive. Never Forget

hmmm… so how come your big mouth is always flapping away in the wind?

and Sally it is spelled Thanatos and i will think you may find that neo has told you not to talk to me so you had better do what you are told. And, lets face it, most of it is well out of your spelling range. Mind you there is a real talent for bitchy little coments in you.

enjoy

….by their friends shall ye know them neo and you have some beauties.

There are a several veterans here; some may even have seen combat. If you’re looking for stories like that you should go to what ever passes for an American Legion Post where you live. In the bar there will usually be some one willing to tell you combat stories of killing and maiming if that gets you off. Problem is they will probably have been cooks or clerks. Real combat veterans rarely talk about that kind of thing; it’s tasteless.

BTW the person with the palm sap was a credentialed Federal officer running CI operations in violence prone groups.

Let’s see if I can write his next comment:

I see you lot would rather whine about whiners than debate. So it goes. Something to think about. Well, neo? Do you approve of people calling other people whiners? Or are you just a racist? A racist cheerleader? For death? You know — thanotos? Well, neo? Neo? Hello?

Brown shirts! Brown shirts! [no wait, that was the other one]

I’m sure glad nobody has to walk home in the dark from here. The Left has a bad reputation for physical re-education. One night they jumped the wrong person. They’d never seen a palm sap before.

it is a right collection of violence enthusiasts you have here neo. Which one do you think will actually be the first to kill?

My money is on yrmdwnkr as he feels a strong need to live up to something.

If you have any sense you might start handing out a bit of advice to these wannabe psychopaths before the laptop fantasy gets out of hand.

But no, you would rather spend your time getting annoyed about “trolls”.

so it goes

Mousey Dung,
Cited in, “Favorite Sayings of the Left”.

Gonna love to see moderation and IP blocking around here so we can plan the world takeover in peace without the buzzing of annoying insects.

I notice an upturn in the troll population. It must have something to do with the Left’s tolerance for apostasy. People like Neo who turn from the True Faith must be handed over to the kommisars for a nice long stretch in the gulag. Until then turning up the knob on the Leftist Noise Distortion and Noise Machine will have to suffice. After all, the kommisars are not endlessly patient.

Reminds me of watching the Trots take over groups. By I’m sure glad nobody has to walk home in the dark from here. The Left has a bad reputation for physical re-education. One night they jumped the wrong person. They’d never seen a palm sap before.

yeah if they live in your neighbourhood you are aware of them……hmmmmm

see you lot have found yourselves another troll. My these pesky people coming on here and disagreeing how it riles you. If you are so keen on democracy and grown up can you not find a way to deal with dissenters? Well no because you have the authoritarian streak in you that makes you so right wing.

As for whoever made thecomment does the group think apply to both left and right - well unfortuanately yes it does, you can hear the same predictable troll nonsense on many sites and it is harmful. As i said above we are heading for narrow casting to the converted with people like “neo” in the role of pied piper.

To you lot she is a hero of free speech to me she is a mildly racist, nationalist, cheerleader for death with an increasingly authoritarian tone.

I might be wrong but I am certainly entitled to argue it particularly given how dangerous the application of the foreign policies she supports is.

..and finally read your own coments. If you spent as much time arguing substantive points as you do shouting troll! everytime someone has the temerity to disagree the whole thing might be more impressive.

..oh and yrmdwnkr, it is not a good thing to break down the barriers on your violence. Violence is not big or clever get some therapy man before you do something stupid. And neo if you really are a therapist you should not be passively encouraging his violence - talk to the guy for god’s sake.

In Re: Stahl/Albright 5-12-96. This is the Clinton Administration’s mouth speaking. Their foreign policy was not renown for its’ “efficiency”. q.v. no armor for the Somalia Mission.

The reason the food was not getting to the “little chillrin” was that the Sunni kleptocracy was stealing the money allocated to food and medicine with the connivance of the UN kleptocrats who had their muzzles buried in the “Food for Oil” trough.

This is discredited Leftist Meme 96-331-A4 from The Golden Book of Leftist Lies and distortions.

You sounded like an older lady who is unfamiliar with being in the “national” mind, even on a podcast.

I don’t have a problem with that, but, I was a little disappointed that as soon as you developed strength in your voice, and thereby your own confidence, you didn’t ONCE put forth your own opinions conflidently and clearly.

Thats not necessarily a bad thing, but, I figured you could have handled it first time. I trust you will on the second.

Not everyone is adaptable to the FIRST expression of broad expression, and, actually it makes me MUCH MUCH more sypathetic to you than your clear recursive logic as to why you explain yoru “conservativism,” hearing your voice shows that you are NOT! a fascist, but rather an active politcal player who can’t understand the current liberal ideaology.

I explained so far as best I can at the moment.

I tend to go outright crazy after midnight, I will read the comments in the morning.

Night NEO, you sounded fine, and you sounded serious, but you did not sound articulate, though I know you are MUCH more articulate than I.

You’re forgetting that the reason why outsourcing happens has little to do with quality and everything to do with price. Walmart’s shelves are stocked with products made in China not because the Chinese make higher-quality products, but because they make them cheaply.

The point is that undergraduate tuition has been rising very steeply at US universities, making going to college increasingly difficult financially. Of course the top US universities will continue to attract international students, as will graduate schools for specialized education. But my prediction is that the standard 4-year undergraduate degree education is on the way to be outsourced within a few years. (Take an analogy: Specialized, custom-made software is still written in the US and will continue to be, while run-of-the-mill, generic software is increasingly outsourced. The same thing holds for education as well.)

With 55 0f the top hundred Universities situated in the US, I don’t think we’ll be doing the outsourcing. Thirty years ago in engineering, i was running with Persians, Chinese (Taiwan), and others in a podunk University. There are even more foreign students now than before, many of them Indian.

My neighborhood has Russian and Ukrainian emigres. And I finished talking to an Iranian just a half hour ago, first time, he introduced himself as Persian. I teased him for that. And I am still trying to track down an Iraqi friend of mine but have been unsuccessful so far.

We not be as sheltered as ye think.

I thought they were UN sanctions, Charlie? Weren’t they UN sanctions? I’m pretty sure they were UN sanctions.

Sally,

The sanctions were imposed by the U.N. Security Council on August 6, 1990, i.e. right after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

The economic sanctions remained in place thereafter, even though it was clear that the sanctions were having no effect whatever in terms of removing Saddam Hussein from power. (As you yourself pointed out, Saddam, being totally unconcerned with Iraqi lives, couldn’t care less that so many innocent children and ordinary Iraqis were dying on account of the economic sanctions). So, increasingly large sections of people around the world started calling for lifting or easing of the sanctions, seeing that the sanctions were only hurting and killing ordinary Iraqis and not hurting Saddam one bit.

But the US, and its sidekick, the UK, made clear that it would block lifting or easing of sanctions as long as Saddam remained in power. As you know, the US has veto power in the Security Council, and can veto or block any decision taken by the Security Council, such as the decision to lift or ease sanctions.

So you had a peculiar situation: children and ordinary Iraqis were dying in Iraq because of the sanctions, the sanctions weren’t hurting Saddam at all, and yet the US wasn’t going to allow the sanctions to be lifted.

That’s what I was referring to:

Lesley Stahl to Madeleine Albright on U.S. sanctions against Iraq (on “60 Minutes”, Dec 5, 1996):

–”60 Minutes” (December 5, 1996)
As cited in: Freedom Daily,
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0401b.asp

Unless of course it’s the people ironically named “liberals” and/or absurdly labelled “progressives” who are cut off from reality, and it’s — surprise! — the neocons who are the true reality-based community.

But broad slurs and mere assetions of blinkered, bigoted sentiments are not argument, and so I’ll stop at this point. I’d hoped Charlie might actually be one of those open to genuine debate — instead, he’s content to slavishly echo the the inane, predictable, and boringly familiar “thoughts” of a common troll. We’ve heard it before, Charlie. You’d do better playing with toys.

I thought they were UN sanctions, Charlie? Weren’t they UN sanctions? I’m pretty sure they were UN sanctions.

I guess you’re saying, though, that the rest of the world can and should be held hostage by any tyrant willing to hold a gun to the heads of his own people and their children. Interesting policy, and I suppose to a sufficiently weak mind it can even appear to be a “moral” one — until the rest of the world’s aspiring tyrants, psychopaths and thugs catch on how easy it is to put one over on the feeble “leaders” of the rest of the world.

I am beginning to understand Neo’s posts regarding Trolls from a few days back, and why it was becoming a concern for her.

I just scimmed most of what was written in this current thread because , quite frankly, I see a whole of trash going on. I thought there was room for honest debate regarding the issues posted, and I gave it a shot on a couple of previous threads.

However, I am seeing alot of inflammatory claptrap here. The few reasonable voices here are drowning in a sea of boilerplate and angry spittle.

I am beginning to remember why I stopped reading comment threads. People complain when certain cites don’t have them, or keep them behind registration, but I understand why now.

Neo-neocon, I understand your earnest request for people to stop feeding the Trolls, but its gotten beyond that. It looks like they are feeding one another at this point. For myself, I think I’ll need to stick to reading your posts alone.

For those of you who consider themselves so well-informed, brilliant and needing to write immense posts, why not start your own blog, or would that require too much thought and effort?

Flame away, because I ain’t going to be reading it. I have better things to do.

Neo, I love your work, please keep it up.

What would those consequences be, in your imagination, Charlie? I mean, you’re not making a racist point here, are you?

Not at all. The consequences I was pointing to is this: as I mentioned previously, many in this country (the neocons like many in this forum, for example), live in this coccooned, self-referential world, which is curiously cut off from reality and oblivious to what is going on in the rest of the world and to world opinion.

Now, when the time comes when higher education gets outsourced and a large number of US students are forced to spend 4 years in another country learning from professors in another country, they will get a wonderfully new perspective about the world and about reality, so that the neocon trick of shutting out the real world and living in a fanciful make-believe self-referential world will become increasingly difficult to pull off on young minds who have lived and learned in a foreign country and studied with professors who have, in many cases, a perspective completely different from what they are used to.

The consequences, in other words, would be good and salutary for the USA and USians. But it will be devastating for the neocons and others similarly cut off from reality.

Imagine the consequences of that.

What would those consequences be, in your imagination, Charlie? I mean, you’re not making a racist point here, are you?

I think he might be, folks, inadvertantly revealing the undercurrent of real racism that underlies much of contemporary left liberalism. You can see the same thing in his mentor, conned, by the way.

I do not believe I will hate terrorism, the murderer of children, and all those thugocracies any less in 30 years than now.

Lesley Stahl to Madeleine Albright on U.S. sanctions against Iraq (on “60 Minutes”, Dec 5, 1996):

“We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

–”60 Minutes” (December 5, 1996)
As quoted in: Freedom Daily,
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0401b.asp

Sorry, was that the left or the right you were talking about?

Wait up till the super-power ends up as a super-boob as China and India gobble up everything American,at dirt cheap rates. Dont believe me doya??

Something that I think would happen within the next ten years or so: at the rate that tuition is going up in US universities, higher education will start to get outsourced at some point to places like India (which have plenty of English-speaking professors willing to work at cheap rates). Universitites will be forced tooutsource to India and US students will spend 4 years in India learning from Indian professors.

Imagine the consequences of that. It will be a very, very interesting time.