Ken, am I right in assuming that in describing the argument as pedantic, and further modifying the phrase as "idiotic" you are suggesting that we infer you to be using idiotic in the classical sense of having knowledge of self rather than of the external world instead of the more recent, vulgar usage of deserving naught other than ridicule?
@ adam:Or it might be that a great many very realistic people in his administration (and on his campaign staff and transition team) put a great deal of thought into the most efficient way of combating terrorist threats, balancing our security needs, and national interests with the idea that enlisting the support, and resources, of the other democracies and near-democracies (as opposed to the neo-con formula of over-spending our own resources and spurning the efforts and compromises requisite to garnering the aid of others) is a force multiplier and that fighting in such a way as to minimize the number of people we alienate shrinks our future number of foes.
you're "excepts" aren't good and aren't even true. you can't get to saying that he cut the number of troops, but what the heck, we're just quibbling there.
the point is that we've got a guy in the White House, he's what you and others would call (and have called) liberal or leftist or socialistcommunistanarchistloonyleftAmericanhater or whatever, and not only is he fighting but his admin recognizes that the war against the Islamists is going to last a decade or more and is going to have to be fought in lots of places.
You're about fair enough to admit that the liberal guy quietly put people on the ground in Yemen and a few other spots, and his admin has had more success getting Pakistan to move off lying and denying, so maybe others might get to the point of admitting some of the facts in evidence.
@ adam:
adam, some people are anti-Semitic, some aren't. There's more than one explanation for why people dislike Israeli actions disproportionally, some of those explanations might account for why people seem to dislike US actions disproportionally.
George sometimes ascribes anti-Semitism disproportionally, but it might not be due to anti-anti-Semitism.
narc, it's easy to find examples of somebody saying almost anything....whether those people and their statements represent anyone else is another story..
I don't suppose that the guy who's attempting to expend and even not lose the war in Afghanistan that that last robust bunch of caring conservatives managed to lose after winning.....
might be a representative of ... a liberal.
@ narciso:
narc, you should make an effort to post an occasional comment at the Green Room.
you managed to fit more information into two sentences than they manage to muster in half a week.
@ CK MacLeod:
http://dl4.glitter-graphics.net/pub/1555/1555374l44k0ph6dc.gif
Ken wrote:
Ken, am I right in assuming that in describing the argument as pedantic, and further modifying the phrase as "idiotic" you are suggesting that we infer you to be using idiotic in the classical sense of having knowledge of self rather than of the external world instead of the more recent, vulgar usage of deserving naught other than ridicule?
@ adam:
I'm not sure that we are either aside from my being more willing to think that they think that they're basing their actions on reason.
@ adam:Or it might be that a great many very realistic people in his administration (and on his campaign staff and transition team) put a great deal of thought into the most efficient way of combating terrorist threats, balancing our security needs, and national interests with the idea that enlisting the support, and resources, of the other democracies and near-democracies (as opposed to the neo-con formula of over-spending our own resources and spurning the efforts and compromises requisite to garnering the aid of others) is a force multiplier and that fighting in such a way as to minimize the number of people we alienate shrinks our future number of foes.
@ narciso:
you're "excepts" aren't good and aren't even true. you can't get to saying that he cut the number of troops, but what the heck, we're just quibbling there.
the point is that we've got a guy in the White House, he's what you and others would call (and have called) liberal or leftist or socialistcommunistanarchistloonyleftAmericanhater or whatever, and not only is he fighting but his admin recognizes that the war against the Islamists is going to last a decade or more and is going to have to be fought in lots of places.
You're about fair enough to admit that the liberal guy quietly put people on the ground in Yemen and a few other spots, and his admin has had more success getting Pakistan to move off lying and denying, so maybe others might get to the point of admitting some of the facts in evidence.
@ adam:
adam, some people are anti-Semitic, some aren't. There's more than one explanation for why people dislike Israeli actions disproportionally, some of those explanations might account for why people seem to dislike US actions disproportionally.
George sometimes ascribes anti-Semitism disproportionally, but it might not be due to anti-anti-Semitism.
@ George Jochnowitz:
George, anti-Zionism isn't necessarily a product of anti-Semitism.
Here, in Brooklyn, there's a big bunch of really hard-core Jews and not all of them are Zionists.
@ narciso:
narc, it's easy to find examples of somebody saying almost anything....whether those people and their statements represent anyone else is another story..
I don't suppose that the guy who's attempting to expend and even not lose the war in Afghanistan that that last robust bunch of caring conservatives managed to lose after winning.....
might be a representative of ... a liberal.