USA Today: Qanta Ahmed: Islamism’s Double Pronged Assault on Liberal Democracy

Source: USA Today-

Source:The New Democrat

Islamism, from ISIS and other groups, is not just and assault on American and Western values, but its an assault on liberal values, whether it’s in America, Europe or in Asia. ISIS Islamists, want to destroy individual freedom, freedom of expression and individualism in general, all great liberal values and why I’m a Liberal. And replace it with their far-right view of religion and impose their values on everyone in the world that they can reach. Religious and cultural fascism where they decide how everyone should live and if you disobey in any way, or try to live like a human being an individual, you risk your life as a result.

The Far-Right’s version of Marxism which is religious theocratic fundamentalism. How today’s so-called Progressives, can ever say that what Islamists believe is just part of their culture, all I have to say to that is what Richard Dawkins said. Which is, “the hell with their culture.” When you take the side of a group like ISIS and other Islamists, you at the very least are showing sympathy for their perspective and worldview. A worldview where non-Islamist Muslims, women, gays and others, are considered to be second-class citizens who should be forced to live like prisoners in their tiny world.

You can’t have a liberal democratic world and a Islamist world when the Islamists are trying to destroy the Liberals. The Liberals and the West, have no choice but to fight back and destroy ISIS. This is not the Cold War where you had liberalism against Marxist Communism. Where both sides knowing they could destroy each other and the world agreeing not to in order to protect their self-interests. This is a war where the good guys have to win. Very similar to World War II when the West destroyed the Nazis. There’s no co-existence between the Islamists and Liberals. The Islamists have to be destroyed for the good of the West and for there to be any chance that someday Middle Easterners can have a peaceful home and region of their own. Where they’re not always dealing with extreme terrorism.

Paris last month, was the French 9/11 and France was already wide awake against ISIS and bombing them in Syria which is why ISIS hit them. So France is not some socialist pacifist pushover (to be kind) that doesn’t understand the use of force and that there are times that you have to be tough. They know what ISIS is about and what they need to do to destroy them and are already a great American ally in the War on Terror and now the War on ISIS as well. America, will probably have all of NATO, plus Iraq and the Syrian rebels, in the West’s fight to destroy ISIS now, thanks to Paris. Even though Paris was a hell of a price to pay for it, because of that insult on liberal values.

They don’t want another Paris attack happening to them and Britain doesn’t want a major attack in London, or one of their other great big cities and they’re now onboard to destroying ISIS as well and will provide airpower against ISIS as well. So what ISIS has done in Paris as horrible as an attack as that was, but they’ve woken up the West to the threat that they present against us and will take a hell of a beating as a result. What we’re going to see in this fight against ISIS is not neoconservatism and one country taking all the risks and collecting very little rewards for what they put up. But instead liberal internationalism, where a coalition of Western and Middle Eastern countries, take out ISIS together.
Source:The Blaze

USA Today: Dan Carney: 'Football is Foreign to American Values'

Source:USA Today-NBC SNF's Reporter Michele Tafoya, perhaps asking for her own turkey. 

Source:The Daily Review

I can’t think of another sport other than maybe baseball that represents America better than American football. Think about it, America represents almost everything that Americans love about America. Winners and losers, finale, hard work, teamwork, reward for success, physical play, toughness, violence, fair play, the game is designed for TV, for if no other reason that the field is a hundred yards long and roughly fifty yards wide. Not that different from an average TV set today. American football, is a working man’s game and even a working women’s game as well. It is a sport for hard-working middle class Americans which most of us are. Unlike golf and even soccer, which is about as yuppie and coffee-house a sport as there is anywhere in the world.

I can see why Socialists in and outside of America don’t even like football, or prefer soccer, or even a combination of those things. For the reasons why football represents America so well. With Socialists, the idea of winning and succeeding is somehow considered selfish if it is done on a an individual basis. With soccer, the idea is not to win and to even score, but to prevent your opponents from winning and scoring. Ties, are like kissing your sister, or eating a cheeseburger dry, or without fries. Somehow doesn’t seem satisfying in America. But for Socialists, “what’s wrong with a tie? Not about losing, but about how you play the game.”American football can’t be that bad if you got a billion people or more every year watching our Super Bowl. America only has three-hundred and twenty-million people and still growing.

Americans, are a people on to themselves. Other than maybe Canadians I think you’re going to have a hell of a time finding a nationality that is anything like us. We are the true rebels on this planet where we actually expect to get out of life what we put into it. Unlike most of the rest of the developed world where it is not about individual success, but about how everyone else is doing. With American sports and football is the perfect example of this, we expect one team to win and to know who had the better team at least for that one game. Because again we like winners and losers and whole concept is very foreign to especially Europeans who prefer soccer and collectivism. It’s easy to see why soccer is so loved in Europe and the rest of the developed world outside of America and Canada. But there isn’t another sport again other than maybe baseball that better represents America and Americans like American football.
Source:The Life of Baha

Mal Partisan: Our American Republic- The Federalists

Source:Mal Partisan- our American, Federal, Liberal Democratic Republic.

Source:The New Democrat 

"This episode of Our American Republic will discuss Federalism and the origins of our Federal System.  It remedied issues stemming from the Articles of Confederation by outlining unique roles and responsibilities for each part of the American Constitutional System.  How are we currently doing at preserving the original balance as conceived by the founders?" 

Source:Mal Partisan- the original United States of America.

From Mal Partisan

I believe the way the American federal liberal democratic republic was formed is based on what we were before the United States was created and what our Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) wanted to escape from. 

The United Kingdom as it is today, but lot freer now than it was in the 1770s, was a unitarian, big government, authoritarian, monarchy. Britain, still is a unitarian, big government, monarchy, but now with a social democratic feel to it where governmental authority now rests with civilians and no longer the monarchy.

But in the 1770s the U.K. had an authoritarian London knows best about everything big, unitarian, government. With England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the American Colonies, having very little if any say in their own state domestic affairs. 

The Founding American Liberals, wanted to move away from that top-down big government approach. And create a system where the states would have a lot more say in what goes on in their own states. Which is why the Federal American Republic was created to create a country where so much power was not in the hands of one central national authority. But where the states would have real authority over their own affairs.

Federalism, is not anti-government and even anti-federal government. The opposites are actually true. With federalism you get a set of rules and real governing guidelines for what the Federal Government can do, what it should and certain things that only it can do. Like defending the country, regulating interstate commerce, prosecuting interstate crimes, foreign policy, national infrastructure. But where the states and localities are responsible for what goes on in their own jurisdictions. Short of being under attack from a foreign power, or handling their own currency and things that only the Feds should be doing.

And even though federalism is not anti-government, it is anti-big government and anti-socialist. Because America will probably never have that top-down big centralized unitarian government, where so much power both economic and social, is centralized under the control of the national government. With so many so programs designed to take care of the people for themselves. Giving people the freedom not to responsible for themselves. Which is what is common in Britain and Scandinavia. 

What federalism says is that in a huge diverse country like America states should be responsible for what happens in their own states, because they are on the ground and know what's going on. The Feds can play a constructive role and assist, but not be there to run the program for each and every state. And the Federal system has worked very well for us most of our history.

The Washington Post: RFK Stadium- Past, Present, Future?

Source:The Washington Post- The Washington Football Factory!

Source:The Daily Review

I’m not an architect obviously, but one of the great things about RFK Stadium is that it wouldn’t have to be torn down. It is on a great property and piece of land and what the Redskins are flirting with right now is simply renovating it, or rebuilding it. But knocking out the skyboxes and press box level and the upper deck. Leaving in the lower bowl with those flexible seats that go up and down and then adding new decks of seats on top of the lower bowl and building a much larger stadium. Somewhere ninety-thousand seats or so, because Washington is big wealthy city in a huge wealthy market that loves their Redskins even when they’re losing. The future of the Redskins is not in Landover, or North Virginia, but in downtown Washington at the new RFK which would be right at where the current RFK is.

Worst case scenario, the city knocks down the current RFK, but rebuilds a new one on the same site, but that has about twice as many seats and perhaps a retractable roof on top and bring the Super Bowl to the nation’s capital for the first time ever. Which is long overdue considering how great a city market this is. Which the new RFK hosting college football and even bowl games, perhaps even bowl playoff games, perhaps the Maryland Terrapins would play Navy and Virginia every year. Maybe Penn State every other year. As well as a lot of other events during the NFL offseason to keep the money coming into this new huge stadium. That could become the best downtown big city football stadium in America and give Washington something New York doesn’t have. Which is a downtown NFL stadium to call its own.

I’m lucky being born and growing up watching football when I did. Because I remember all three Super Bowl Championships the Redskins won, plus the one they lost to the Los Angeles Raiders. So I know RFK Stadium very well and how much it has meant to this great franchise. Where it was probably the toughest place to win a road game at least in the NFC East in the 1980s, if not the NFC and NFL as well. Because Washington sports fans are so loyal to their winners and so crazy when the Redskins win to the point that opposing head coach has to ask the referee to tell the fans to shut up so his team can hear the plays and be able to talk to his team. That has been missing ever since the Redskins left RFK for Landover, but is something that the Redskins and should bring back. And be used to return the Redskins back to being an annual winner and championship contender. Which is where Washington expects the Redskins to be.

Brookings Institution: Molly E. Reynolds: 'Can Speaker Paul Ryan Keep His Promise of Amendment Opportunities For the Rank and File?'

Source:Brookings Institution- Left to right: (not necessarily ideologically) House Republican Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

Source:The New Democrat

"Editor’s Note: With Paul Ryan’s rise to become Speaker of the House, he faces a set of immediate challenges that will help determine his legacy. Over the coming weeks, Molly Reynolds will profile some of the major issues and legislation Speaker Ryan will be forced to address. She will also assess both his performance on those matters and the consequences of the choices both he and the House of Representatives make.

The House returns to Washington this week with several important tasks left to complete before the end of the year—including legislation that funds discretionary federal programs through next September. As it does so, it must confront Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) promise, made as part of his ascent to the chamber’s top job, to open up the legislative process to more input from rank-and-file members.

In the eyes of Ryan and his allies, the transportation bill that passed just before the House’s Veterans Day recess represented a successful down payment on this promise. Certainly, the numbers are encouraging: the House devoted roughly 23 hours over three days to debating the bill and amendments to it. Of the 301 amendments that members proposed to the measure by submitting them to the House Rules Committee, 126 were made in order for consideration of the floor by the Rules panel. The amendments approved for floor debate, moreover, were a mix of proposals offered by Republicans (47), Democrats (41), and bi-partisan teams of House members (38). Roughly 68 percent of those amendments ultimately offered on the floor were successful (74 of 108). At the same time, however, the House’s experience with amendments on the highway bill reveals several dynamics that may make it difficult for Ryan to keep his promise to the House Freedom Caucus—just as former Speaker John Boehner struggled to keep his pledge to “restore regular order” upon assuming the Speaker’s chair in 2010.

To understand why a consistent (relatively) open amendment process may be difficult for Ryan to sustain, it’s helpful to review why the House majority leadership, via the Rules Committee, often limits the amendments that can be offered to a bill on the floor of the House. From a policy perspective, restrictive rules make it easier for the majority party to enact policies preferred by a majority of its members. Importantly, however, restrictive rules can also achieve political goals by preventing difficult votes on amendments that divide the majority party. Take, for example, the controversy over an amendment to this year’s Interior appropriations bill involving the sidebar issue of the display of the Confederate flag on federal property. Because the bill was being considered under an open rule, Democrats were able to offer an amendment banning the display of the flag in national cemeteries. A group of southern Republicans responded with their own amendment relaxing that prohibition, and rather than face a vote that would reveal divisions within the GOP on the issue, the leadership pulled the bill from the floor.

Speaker Ryan’s internally-divided caucus—ranging from the more moderate Tuesday Group to the House Freedom Caucus with its conservative policy demands—seems ripe for generating these kinds of confrontations. On the highway bill, however, he was lucky. The biggest potential source of intra-party strife—the Export-Import Bank—had been largely neutralized as an axis of conflict the week prior when, thanks to a rarely-used discharge petition effort, the House had approved a reauthorization of the Bank. The discharge petition meant that the Senate’s version of the highway bill wasn’t the first consideration of the Bank on the floor of the House. A slim majority of House Republicans were on record as supporting it, essentially settling the underlying question of whether to reauthorize the Bank. Thus, the House leadership could get away with allowing only 10 of 25 proposed amendments about the Bank on the floor, all of which ultimately failed. It’s not difficult to imagine, however, that on future legislation, Ryan will not be so lucky and will have to confront demands from different parts of his caucus for the right to offer potentially divisive floor amendments.

Beyond the policy and political benefits of restrictive rules, they can also speed up the legislative process. Sometimes, this effort to move things along is explicit, such as when a rule waives a requirement that the House wait multiple days before considering a certain kind of measure, such as a compromise version of a bill produced by a House-Senate conference committee (which ordinarily must lie over for three days). In other cases, however, the House simply does not have—or want to have—the time to devote multiple days to considering amendments on a single bill. As political scientists Scott Adler and John Wilkerson have argued, congressional floor time is a scarce resource, and it is not always in the interest of the majority party leadership to expend that resource on considering 100+ amendments.

Last December, for example, the House had to pass a spending measure—the so-called ‘Cromnibus’—in order to avoid a partial government shutdown. Operating under tight deadline, the House Rules Committee decided to prohibit floor amendments on the measure. On one hand, doing so protected the bill from controversial amendments involving funding for implementing President Obama’s executive action on immigration that could have derailed the bill. At the same time, the closed rule also prevented some popular, bipartisan amendments—such as one involving NSA surveillance—from being considered. Closing off the amendment process on the Cromnibus served two important time management goals. First, it increased the chances the measure would clear in time to keep the government open. Second, it also ensured that members of Congress could follow their previously-set schedule and head home for the holidays on time. Otherwise, argued then-Speaker John Boehner, “if we don’t get finished today, we’re going to be here until Christmas.” Given that the House has been in session for fewer days in recent years and is scheduled to conduct business for only 111 days next year, this conflict between scheduling pressures and the demand for an open amendment process isn’t likely to get better in the near future. As former Representative Tom Davis (R-VA) put it in a recent interview, “if you open up the process…you’re going to be here till midnight, you’re going to be here for six days a week…You kind of have to let members understand what the tradeoffs are.”

A more open amending process is not the only reform Speaker Ryan has promised as part of his pledge to “make some changes, starting with how the House does business.” Others, such as the proposed reforms to the Steering Committee (the Republican intra-party panel responsible for making committee assignments) may be easier to implement and maintain. On the amendment front, however, we should be careful not to draw too many conclusions from his early success. More difficult challenges to his promises are almost certain to come." 

From Brookings

Warning! This piece may come off as inside Congress and the beltway wonky for all of you non-political junkies who have better things to do than follow Washington politics. Especially if you’re currently sober.

Generally speaking except when I’m trying to get somewhere, I love living just outside of Washington in Bethesda, Maryland. I’ve lived here my whole live and wouldn’t live somewhere else if someone paid me to leave. But this is probably why I’m such a political junky to the point where I can actually name all one-hundred U.S. Senators and most of the key U.S. Representatives. Even when a lot of Americans couldn’t name their own Senators and Representative even if you spotted them the last names. I love Congress and love following Congress especially the Senate, but the House is fascinating as well. Which is why I’m writing a piece on how to reform the House of Representatives.

One thing that Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi can agree on for the remainder of this Congress and future Congress’s, is that the House is broken. Both parties have continually broken into it (pun intended) and have almost destroyed it. And a big part of why it’s so partisan has to do with how the majority treats the minority. 

House Democrats, didn’t ask for much if any input from House Republicans when they were in charge. And continually wrote bills in the House Democratic Leadership room. Bypassing even their own committee chairman, let alone the Republican Leadership. So House Republican couldn’t even attempt to amend bills. As well as Moderate Democratic members who were actually interested in getting reelected and didn’t want to vote for something that could hurt them at home.

House Republicans, in the last two Congress’s under Speaker Boehner, have been a little better and have at least allowed for bills to come out of committee and have some amendment votes on bills. Not saying the House should become the Senate and adopt some super majority requirement for bills to get passed. But if I’m Speaker of the House, (that idea scares me more than you) I would want members of my caucus to weigh in on bills. Especially my committee chairman, so my members feels they have a real role in how the House works. But also if I need their votes on controversial legislation, they can say back home that they offered their amendments, but didn’t have the votes for them. And had to vote for the next best thing. Or they can say they made the bills better, because their amendments passed.

You also want the minority to not only be able to offer amendments to bill in committee and mark bills up in committee and not just send them to floor without even a hearing. Especially on the minority leadership to put pressure on them to offer ideas and alternatives. So you could say, “you don’t like what we’re doing, what would you do instead?” Put some responsibility on them to offer their own ideas and vision. Which would also give you opportunities to hit them back and not always be on defense when the House is debating bills on the floor. And when reelection season comes, you’ll have an opportunity to explain why their agenda isn’t good and why they shouldn’t be back in the majority.

Again not saying the House should become the Senate with unlimited debate short of 3-5 majority and all of that. With all the hot air that comes out of Senate filibusters. (Who needs summer in Washington when you have the Senate filibuster?) But in a couple of areas where the House should become like the Senate has to do with how committees operate and bills are written. All major legislation should go through committees. Where the chairman write bills along with their members and when the chairman and ranking members don’t agree on what the final bill should be they can both write their own relevant bill to whatever the issue that they’re considering is. And then let the rank in file decide who has the better bill. And offer their own amendments as well.

The House floor should work the same way. Where the Majority Leader brings up bills that have been passed out of committee and then when the Minority Leader and the minority caucus doesn’t like the majority bill and they haven’t reached a compromise on what the bill should be, the Minority Leader or their designee, should be able to offer a substitute to the majority bill. When the two-party leaders disagree. And again let the members decide who has the better bill. And not just do this in this Congress, but make these rule changes permanent so both parties whether they’re in the majority, or minority can have a stake in the game. And the ability to legislate and offer their own ideas.

Speaker Paul Ryan, who ideologically I don’t agree with him on much other than how government should help the poor and empower them to take control over their own lives, I believe truly believes in the notion that the U.S. House should be a battle place of ideas. A competition where both Democrats and Republicans can offer their own visions for the country and then let the country decide who has the better vision. And not just on the campaign trail, but on the House floor and in committee as well. Probably more than even Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who rarely if ever allowed for amendments to bills except when they were bipartisan. A reform approach like this would make the House work better, because now they would be debating ideas and visions. Instead of who wants to destroy America first. And the country would better off as a result.

The Onion: 'Socialism Vs. Capitalism'

Source: The Daily Review Plus- Capitalism & socialism.

Source:The Daily Review

Just to be serious for a minute or so and risk losing viewers who are expecting nothing but laughs from me and for me to be an asshole:

Socialism vs capitalism, is not a real debate. Socialism, is a broad collectivist political philosophy. Capitalism, is an individualist economic system that every developed country in the world has a version of including social democracies. Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden, go down the line. The amount of major countries in the world that don’t have a capitalist system, you can now count on one hand and perhaps not need a second finger. Just chop off the other four, or save yourself from some extreme pain and point out North Korea and perhaps Syria. While you hold your other fingers down. This should really be capitalism vs Marxism, or capitalism, vs Communism.

So let’s try it this way and compare democratic socialism and use perhaps Bernie Sanders as the elected leader and not Marxist dictator. Versus what I at least call Randism, that I personally named after Ayn Rand and name Ayn their leader. You should’ve seen the ceremony, because it was beautiful. No one forced Ayn to show up, because she’s an objectivist and showed up voluntarily.

You have Democratic Socialists who say that the state or society as a whole is the most important thing. And because of that you can’t let people to be free and as individualist as they want. Because some people are just better and more productive than others, which will make the poor and ignorant look even worst and hurt their self-esteem.

Socialists  say what we should do is have a big central state and not even have states and localities with much power over their own affairs either. Because if they’re free to do well than others will be free to struggle. And one part of country will be doing very well, because they know how to educate, how to build, how to regulate, how to tax and everything else. While other parts of the country will have central planners who don’t do much else than planning screw ups. And their people will suffer as a result. So you need a big central state to run things from government central to take care of the nation.

And then you have Randian’s or Libertarians, or Objectivists. Who say, “what’s mine is all mine! And anything that government take is a form of theft! And any type of regulation is a form of imprisonment.” So in a Randian system, government doesn’t tax or regulate. Just arrests criminals and imprisons them. (I guess after a fair trial) And protects the country when it’s under attack. How they even pay for that? Your guess is as good as mine. They would say tariffs, but Randian’s also believe in free trade and part of free trade is low tariffs. In a Randian system, instead of government trying to do practically everything for everybody, short of running business’s, government does practically nothing for no one. Except when a someone becomes a victim of a predator.

So you have Democratic Socialists who say that the collective is more important than the individual. They say you can’t have people living for themselves and showing everybody how much smarter, more productive and cooler they are than Joe and Jane Average, as well as Tom and Mary Below Average, and John and Susan Moron. They say what instead society should do ( in a Democratic Socialist’s mind ) is say that at the very least Bob and Anne Rich, should take care of the Average’s, the Below Average’s and the Moron’s, because they can afford to. That if you encourage people to become independent of the state as far as trying to succeed financially, then that is exactly what will happen. So you need big government to step in and prevent that from happening so everyone is taken care of.

With the Randian’s saying, “of course we want to be free on their own! And is someone falls down, people especially Bob and Anne Rich and other Rich’s, will step in and take care of the people who fall on hard times.’

Democratic socialism, is not the ultimate of collectivist economic systems. But only Marxism beats it when it comes to collectivism. Randism, is not the most individualist of economic systems, but anarchism beats it. But Democratic socialism and Randism, are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Democratic socialism, has at least one thing on Randism, it has been tried and still in use in the world with success. Randism, well there might be more Randians than Marxists right now, but a squirrel is bigger than a mouse, so what. I’m not a fan of either, but they’re both fascinating to follow.

The Onion: Nathan Eckert- 'The Iraq War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region & Set Off a Global Shockwave of Anti-Americanism'

Source: This photo was originally posted by The Onion- The Daily Review- The Onion, debating the War in Iraq.

Source:The Daily Review

“George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more.”

From The Onion

"Bill Maher rips all of those bad predictions from "think tanks" and tells them they can't call themselves think tanks if they are stupid. "To those of you who dreamed up the Iraq conflict, and predicted we'd be greeted as liberators,  and that we wouldn't need a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, the WMDs would be found, looting wasn't problematic, that the insurgency was ib its last throws, and that the whole bloody mess wouldn't turn into a civil war...

...YOU HAVE TO STOP MAKING PREDICTIONS!!!"

Richard Perle thought we could win Iraq with 40,000 troops.

Paul Wolfowitz predicted in 2003 that within a year the grateful people of Baghdad would name some grand square in their fine city after President Bush."

From Renegade Reposter

Source:Renegade Reposter- Bill Maher, on The War in Iraq.

What America did to Iraq in the spring of 2003 is what Joe did to Tom in my hypothetical. We invaded their territory and killed millions of Iraqi’s simply because they had an evil government led by an evil dictator and the Bush Administration thought (if you want to call that thinking) the price of losing innocent Iraqi lives was worth eliminating an evil dictator. Weapons of mass destruction? Well not in Iraq as it turns out, because the United Nations as well as the U.S. weapons inspectors did their jobs in the late 1990s and early 2000s and had Saddam’s weapons removed. Remember, the Iraqi Military didn’t even put up a fight against the American forces during the invasion. They all rolled over, not to get their bellies rubbed like my cat does everyday, but to surrender and not be killed.

What was all this for again? Well originally if you believe all the propaganda from the Bush Administration in 2002, it was about preventing Iraq from becoming a nuclear power and to get rid of their other WMD. Chemical weapons that Moammar Gadhafi still had and used against his own people in the Libyan Civil War of 2010-11. But Saddam no longer had weapons like that to use against Americans or Iraqis. And the worst thing about this colossal disaster, 10 on the Richter scale when it comes to the world championship of mistakes, is that the weapons inspectors were telling the Bush Administration that Saddam not only had zero nuclear weapons, but they couldn’t find other WMD as well. WMD, was an excuse for invading Tom’s home and preventing Tom from hurting and killing other innocent people in the future. But what the Bush’s really wanted to do was to eliminate Saddam and at all costs.

Seriously, who are the brainiacs who dreamed up the Iraq War? And how many weeks straight were they up drinking nothing but Red Bull and Starbucks frappuccinos developing this grand scheme of imposing liberal democracy on a society that still believed that women should always cover their faces in public and wear nothing but long black dresses and long black suits so no one can discover that they are women. As well as a country that was actually scared of freedom like an inmate whose been in prison since he was 18 and now finally getting out in his sixties being told he now has to take care of himself. I mean you don’t have to be a foreign policy expert to see flaws in this grand strategy that has more holes in it than a Chevy Caprice that is parked in Watts or Compton, California.

Iraq, is even a unique country even for Arabia and the broader Middle East. Different Arab population, as well as a country that has other major ethnic groups in it and several different religious groups. A country the size of California in the heart of the Middle East. That pre-Iraq War the only form of government they knew was life in prison. So what the Iraq War did was pardon all of these innocent prisoners who’ve all been in prison for 40-60 years and tell them, “you’re free to go and good luck to you. You’re certainly going to need it! Oh by the way, that free society we were talking about, doesn’t exist! Ha, ha! Fooled you! Yeah, no more military, or law enforcement to deal with, Just murderous thugs who kill people for the hell of it. Wish you best!”


Nathan Eckert, (assuming that is his real name. You never know with The Onion.) was damn right about the consequences of the Iraq War in the early days of it in 2003. But if you’re a Neoconservative, you only think in terms, “they are either with us, or against us! They love, or hate America.” So of course a Neoconservative wouldn’t listen to this, because in their peanut brain size mind they don’t believe in intelligence and evidence. Just neoconservative political fundamentalism. That says, “trust us, it will all work out in the end! Don’t trust the evidence, because in your heart you know we’re right!” That is not thinking, because thinking requires evidence. The Iraq War was simply based on blind faith that since the supporters of this war believed they were on the right side of history and were doing the right thing, that is all they needed. And it has been multiple trillion-dollar mistake. And has cost Iraq the country we were supposed to save, millions of their own lives.

Looking back at the Iraq War from over a twelve-year perspective it reminds me of someone who knows a guy down the street, who knows this man has beaten up a lot f people and at the least is suspected of murdering some people in his home. So lets say this guy Joe, decides to invade this bad guy’s home and beats let’s say Tom up and holds him hostage there at Tom’s own home until a more suitable homeowner can be installed to live there and bring justice to Tom.

And even though Tom’s friends come over to try to save Tom and Joe takes them out as well and in the process perhaps Tom’s wife and kids are seriously hurt if not killed in the process for being there and Joe thinking they are in the way of bringing justice to Tom. When innocent people are killed in war they are called innocent bystanders. And a cost of war.

What America did to Iraq in the spring of 2003 is what Joe did to Tom in my hypothetical. We invaded their territory and killed millions of Iraqi’s simply because they had an evil government led by an evil dictator. And the Bush Administration thought (if you want to call that thinking) the price of losing innocent Iraqi lives was worth eliminating an evil dictator.

Weapons of mass destruction? Well not in Iraq as it turns out, because the United Nations as well as the U.S. weapons inspectors did their jobs in the late 1990s and early 2000s and had Saddam’s weapons removed. Remember, the Iraqi Military didn’t even put up a fight against the American forces during the invasion. They all rolled over, not to get their bellies rubbed like my cat does everyday, but to surrender and not be killed.

What was all this for again? Well originally if you believe all the propaganda from the Bush Administration in 2002, it was about preventing Iraq from becoming a nuclear power and to get rid of their other WMD. Chemical weapons that Moammar Gadhafi still had and used against his own people in the Libyan Civil War of 2010-11.

But Saddam no longer had weapons like that to use against Americans or Iraqis. And the worst thing about this colossal disaster, (10 on the Richter scale when it comes to the world championship of mistakes) is that the weapons inspectors were telling the Bush Administration that Saddam not only had zero nuclear weapons, but they couldn’t find other WMD as well.

WMD, was an excuse for invading Tom’s home and preventing Tom from hurting and killing other innocent people in the future. But what the Bush’s really wanted to do was to eliminate Saddam and at all costs.

Seriously, who are the brainiacs who dreamed up the Iraq War? And how many weeks straight were they up drinking nothing but Red Bull and Starbucks Frappuccino’s developing this grand scheme of imposing liberal democracy on a society that still believed that women should always cover their faces in public and wear nothing but long black dresses and long black suits so no one can discover that they are women.

As well as a country that was actually scared of freedom like an inmate whose been in prison since he was 18 and now finally getting out in his sixties being told he now has to take care of himself. I mean you don’t have to be a foreign policy expert to see flaws in this grand strategy that has more holes in it than a Chevy Caprice that is parked in Watts or Compton, California.

Iraq, is even a unique country even for Arabia and the broader Middle East. Different Arab population, as well as a country that has other major ethnic groups in it and several different religious groups.

A country the size of California in the heart of the Middle East. That pre-Iraq War the only form of government they knew was life in prison. So what the Iraq War did was pardon all of these innocent prisoners who’ve all been in prison for 40-60 years and tell them: “you’re free to go and good luck to you. You’re certainly going to need it! Oh by the way, that free society we were talking about, doesn’t exist! Ha, ha! Fooled you! Yeah, no more military, or law enforcement to deal with, Just murderous thugs who kill people for the hell of it. Wish you best!”

Nathan Eckert, (assuming that is his real name. You never know with The Onion.) was damn right about the consequences of the Iraq War in the early days of it in 2003. But if you’re a Neoconservative, you only think in terms: “they are either with us, or against us! They love, or hate America.” So of course a Neoconservative wouldn’t listen to this, because in their peanut brain size mind they don’t believe in intelligence and evidence. Just neoconservative political fundamentalism.

Neoconservatives believe: “trust us, it will all work out in the end! Don’t trust the evidence, because in your heart you know we’re right!” That is not thinking, because thinking requires evidence.

The Iraq War was simply based on blind faith that since the supporters of this war believed they were on the right side of history and were doing the right thing, that is all they needed. And it has been multiple trillion-dollar mistake. And has cost Iraq the country we were supposed to save, millions of their own lives.