Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark

[alphamale]

He joined the defense team for Saddam, and of course he's not there for a normal defense, but to make political points against the U.S. There's one thing I like about this guy - self-consistency: whenever there's an opportunity to do or say something against the U.S., he's there.

[D. Scarlatti]

Originally Posted by alphamale

He joined the defense team for Saddam ...

Incorrect. He's currently an advisor to the defense team.

... and of course he's not there for a normal defense but to make political points against the U.S.

If this is true, he's making points against the current administration, not the country. Do you understand the difference?

There's one thing I like about this guy - self-consistency: whenever there's an opportunity to do or say something against the U.S., he's there.

We have this venerable document we like to hold out to the world as the exemplar of the democratic values we wish to export throughout the globe. It's called the United States Constitution and it guarantees, among other things, effective legal counsel to criminal defendants. Are you familiar with this document, or these provisions? It's already pretty apparent you don't understand it.

[alphamale]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

Incorrect. He's currently an advisor to the defense team.

Score one for you, Captain Nitpick!

If this is true, he's making points against the current administration, not the country. Do you understand the difference?

You don't think he's making points against congress too? Do you understand that "the U.S." is used in contexts like these to mean the U.S. government? Or was that ommitted from your NitPicker's Manual?

We have this venerable document we like to hold out to the world as the exemplar of the democratic values we wish to export throughout the globe. It's called the United States Constitution and it guarantees, among other things, effective legal counsel to criminal defendants. Are you familiar with this document, or these provisions? It's already pretty apparent you don't understand it.

Yeah, and although the recent twilight zone SC is deciding issues nowadays on what other governments do or say, the Iraqis don't follow suit - they have their own venerable document.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

If this is true, he's making points against the current administration, not the country. Do you understand the difference?

I doubt it. Just like a lot of people who don't understand the difference between criticizing the war and criticizing the troops or trying to keep the government secular and attacking christians or defending freedom and defending terrorists.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Ari

I doubt it. Just like a lot of people who don't understand the difference between criticizing the war and criticizing the troops or trying to keep the government secular and attacking christians or defending freedom and defending terrorists.

You're dumb, deaf, and blind. Hard to see how you can get out of bed in the morning w/o breaking your neck! And criticizing the war but not the troops who prosecute the war is one of the funnier appeaser self-contradictions.

[BDS]

Personally, I support the Bush administration, but not the troops.

Also, I hope Saddam gets off with his life (although I doubt he will).

[Ari]

Yep, I can read the screen yet I'm blind, good deduction skills.
Blah blah blah, tell me how is criticizing the administration decisions an attack on people who have no real choice on what those decisions are?
Believing that any attack on the administration is a dirrect attack on the tools they use is about as bad as those dirty liberals who blame the guns and not the killer for the murder as if the gun had a choice to fire or not fire. You aren't a dirty liberal, are you?

[BDS]

I was kidding about support6ing the Bush administration, but not the troops, but I don't see how it's mandatory to support troops. Should German citizens have supported their troops as they invaded Russia? How about the Japanese troops atacking Bataan? Did they deserve the unqualified support of Japanese citizens?

[Ari]

BDS: Although I don't think it's mandatory to support the troops (especially those that join up during a conflict you don't support) they are generally used as tools by the government. Once you sign up saying no to an order can cause minor to major consequences. So there are some that have no choice to fight in a stupid war even if they don't agree with it themselves. In which case I think they deserve our support to stay alive and to fight for as good of an outcome as they can even with a crap administration controlling them.

[Adam]

I've never gotten the whole 'support the troops' meme. I'd like them all to come home alive...is that supporting them? I also think the current administration stabbed them in the back by sending them to fight a needless war without a workable plan to get them home again afterwards, so I don't quite see how one cannot see a contradiction between supporting the administration and supporting the troops unless one's brain had been rotted by all the 'pee see' troop supporting pressure out there. :confused"

[BDS]

Are the troops a tool of the government, or is the government a tool of the troops? The King is history's slave.

The notion that 2 million Germans invaded Russia because "Hitler told them to do it" seems simplistic to me. Who has more power? Hitler, or the 2 million soldiers?

[BDS]

By the way, this theory is from Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

The book makes my case very persuasively.

[Ari]

I don't know about previous wars but I can say with a bit of certainty that the troops wouldn't have invaded iraq if higher ups didn't tell them too. Bush made a case for war before we invaded. So, yes the troops are the tool of the government.

[D. Scarlatti]

Originally Posted by alphamale

[T]he ... SC is deciding issues nowadays on what other governments do or say ...

Do you ever stop lying?

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by BDS

I was kidding about support6ing the Bush administration, but not the troops, but I don't see how it's mandatory to support troops. Should German citizens have supported their troops as they invaded Russia? How about the Japanese troops atacking Bataan? Did they deserve the unqualified support of Japanese citizens?

What a smart fellow - he gets it!

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Ari

BDS: Although I don't think it's mandatory to support the troops (especially those that join up during a conflict you don't support) they are generally used as tools by the government. Once you sign up saying no to an order can cause minor to major consequences. So there are some that have no choice to fight in a stupid war even if they don't agree with it themselves. In which case I think they deserve our support to stay alive and to fight for as good of an outcome as they can even with a crap administration controlling them.

The issue wasn't about legal obligations of the troops, bonehead.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by alphamale

What a smart fellow - he gets it!

He wasn't agreeing with you - BDS didn't say anything that would imply that he thinks that you can't "support the troops" if you don't support the war.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Adam

I've never gotten the whole 'support the troops' meme. I'd like them all to come home alive...is that supporting them? I also think the current administration stabbed them in the back by sending them to fight a needless war without a workable plan to get them home again afterwards, so I don't quite see how one cannot see a contradiction between supporting the administration and supporting the troops unless one's brain had been rotted by all the 'pee see' troop supporting pressure out there. :confused"

Another dolt. The army is a volunteer army. When they sign up, they know they can't pick and choose which wars they'll fight in. If the troops had studied their american history (admittedly a huge "if" given the nature of government schools) they would know by example of the vietnam war that sometimes the troops are ordered to fight an unpopular, even irrational war. Therefore, it's silly to say they were "stabbed in the back". So you are contradicting yourself by "supporting" people who either did or should have known what they were doing when they signed up. That you can't see this is because your brain has been rotted by appeaser propaganda for the simple-minded.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

Do you ever stop lying?

Go back and look at their decisions.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by erimir

He wasn't agreeing with you - BDS didn't say anything that would imply that he thinks that you can't "support the troops" if you don't support the war.

He saw that it's not mandatory to support the troops when you don't support the war, unlike congressional libs who always make sure to emphasize that they support the troops - that's good enough to exculpate him from the standard appeaser self-contradiction.

[Ari]

So you don't believe it is possible for someone to join the army and assume that Bush or the president at the time they joined will only use them in defense of the country or to fight terrorism instead of an unrelated country. I guess everyone who joins the army can tell the future.

Sorry but it is possible to disaprove of the war and still support the people being used to fight it. Although you do have a point, why should we support troops that put their trust in the administration, they should have known from the start Bush was crap.

[D. Scarlatti]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Go back and look at their decisions.

I've looked at plenty. Name a couple. Maybe this will save you some trouble.

Yours is a typical conservative lie.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by alphamale

He saw that it's not mandatory to support the troops when you don't support the war, unlike congressional libs who always make sure to emphasize that they support the troops - that's good enough to exculpate him from the standard appeaser self-contradiction.

I agree with him.

However, I don't see how that has anything to do with whether it is a contradiction to support the troops but not the war. I still think that that is possible, and there's no indication that BDS doesn't think it is possible.

If it's a contradiction when someone else says it, why would it not be a contradiction when I (someone who doesn't think it is mandatory to support the troops) say it?

The proposition is the same, so what difference is my belief about something else (whether it is MANDATORY to support the troops) affect whether it's possible to support the troops but not the war?

[D. Scarlatti]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

I've looked at plenty. Name a couple. Maybe this will save you some trouble.

Yours is a typical conservative lie.

A bump for the chump.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

A bump for the chump.

Stopped reading drool from the fool.