http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/20/terrorism/
All the pundits seem to be lining up behind an escalation in Afghanistan, and I guess that's to be expected when some of them are Democratic pundits and the President is a Democrat. Thing is, it's totally at odds with public opinion, with about half the public thinking it's time to withdraw at least a little.
It's pretty much the same thinking that got us stuck in Iraq. This report produced by the Pentagon in 2004 (honestly, please just click the link and read, good stuff) pretty much fuckin' served the GOP for thinking that way, which is pretty amazing considering that the boss at the Pentagon was Donald Rumsfeld.
Basically, the report says that the Muslim world hates us for constantly getting them killed, and not because "they hate our freedoms" like your dumbass neighbor Jeff says. Oh, and also, everyone else in the world is starting to hate us too, and if you want friends on your side when you go to war, it helps that they don't hate you.
Yeah, some of the terrorists are just plain crazy, and there's no talking to them. But they wouldn't be getting by as well as they are if the non-terrorist people in the Muslim world didn't hate our asses too.
Glenn On Fire Rating: 7
Updates: 3
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
10/19/2009 Taliban Opinion Canvassing
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/19/rohde/
In my continuing series of columns commenting on things you really should be reading yourself, I write about the latest entry of David Rohe's fascinating account of being kidnapped by the Taliban.
The Taliban guys said a lot of things that were actually true, like the US killing civilians and keeping people locked up god-knows-where and subjecting them to god-knows-what.
We think of stuff like that as bad apples in a good bunch, but they think it means we are trying to wipe them out.
Pretty much it's because none of us really gives a rat's ass. If they did to us what we do to them, though, we'd care a lot. We still care more about 9/11 than we really should, but that's a drop in the bucket to what the Middle East gets from us on a regular basis.
A sizable minority of people in the USA still want to attack Middle Eastern countries today, which tells you that a sizable minority of people in the USA failed to develop critical social skills as toddlers.
Glenn On Fire rating: 7 (5 for the article, +2 for it being the 2nd article posted today)
Updates: 0
In my continuing series of columns commenting on things you really should be reading yourself, I write about the latest entry of David Rohe's fascinating account of being kidnapped by the Taliban.
The Taliban guys said a lot of things that were actually true, like the US killing civilians and keeping people locked up god-knows-where and subjecting them to god-knows-what.
We think of stuff like that as bad apples in a good bunch, but they think it means we are trying to wipe them out.
Pretty much it's because none of us really gives a rat's ass. If they did to us what we do to them, though, we'd care a lot. We still care more about 9/11 than we really should, but that's a drop in the bucket to what the Middle East gets from us on a regular basis.
A sizable minority of people in the USA still want to attack Middle Eastern countries today, which tells you that a sizable minority of people in the USA failed to develop critical social skills as toddlers.
Glenn On Fire rating: 7 (5 for the article, +2 for it being the 2nd article posted today)
Updates: 0
10/19/2009 New Marijuana Policy at the DOJ
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/19/drugs/
Yay! Obama is doing something good by telling the DOJ not to prosecute people who are following the marijuana laws in their state. Give credit where credit is due. (P.S. Why am I linking to WaPo when I tear them a new one every chance I get?)
For some reason, I'm just going to assume that all medical marijuana users are something like AIDS patients, and being mean to AIDS patients is just wrong!
The wingnuts are probably going to call him a hippie, they always do that. They say they believe in state's rights, but obviously that only pertains to assisted suicide laws.
Latin America is finally chilling out, that's probably why we're doing this. I wrote a paper for the Cato institute (wow, weird bedfellows in this column) on Portugal's experiment to relax drug policy, and I Have Become Rather Important! Read my paper, guys.
War on Drugs is bad, doctors treating patients with pot is good, blah blah blah.
Glenn On Fire rating: 3
Updates: 1
Yay! Obama is doing something good by telling the DOJ not to prosecute people who are following the marijuana laws in their state. Give credit where credit is due. (P.S. Why am I linking to WaPo when I tear them a new one every chance I get?)
For some reason, I'm just going to assume that all medical marijuana users are something like AIDS patients, and being mean to AIDS patients is just wrong!
The wingnuts are probably going to call him a hippie, they always do that. They say they believe in state's rights, but obviously that only pertains to assisted suicide laws.
Latin America is finally chilling out, that's probably why we're doing this. I wrote a paper for the Cato institute (wow, weird bedfellows in this column) on Portugal's experiment to relax drug policy, and I Have Become Rather Important! Read my paper, guys.
War on Drugs is bad, doctors treating patients with pot is good, blah blah blah.
Glenn On Fire rating: 3
Updates: 1
Introduction
Hi. This is not mockery. I really love Glenn Greenwald and his analysis, and I read his Salon.com column religiously. He carefully observes how the media covers politics, and how their general ineptitude contributes to real problems of abuse, fraud, and general injury to the political process.
Consider this blog to be a tribute to Mr. Greenwald, and his unparalleled and idiosyncratic polemics.
Consider this blog to be a tribute to Mr. Greenwald, and his unparalleled and idiosyncratic polemics.
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