Ben Stein explains Abu Ghraib, Iraq and September 11 for you

[Bluebear]

"I am going to get straight to the point. Something is terribly wrong with media coverage of the war in Iraq. The media hysteria about Iraq and the prisoners reached a crescendo when another network breathlessly disclosed that American guards at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad had stomped on the toes of suspected Iraqi terrorists to make them more likely to talk about murders of Americans and innocent Iraqis in Iraq.

This toe stomping was treated as a stunning revelation of American brutality. It was added to the torrent of hysteria about photos of nude Iraqis piling on each other and a nude Iraqi being led by a woman soldier with a leash. All of this --according to the media and some in Congress --is supposed to show that America is itself a terrorist nation and that we are really no different from the terrorists.

This is dangerous nonsense.

Here is what is important. This conflict started because a group of Islamic fundamentalist mass murderers killed three thousand totally innocent civilians on September 11, 2001. We did nothing to provoke it except in the terrorists' crazy brains. We had to fight back."

http://www.benstein.com/cbs.html

[asthmaticeog]

1. God, he's SUCH a cock. n/t

[Darkhawk32]

2. Hey shit stain.... Iraq had NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11!!!! n/t

[trotsky]

3. Ben Stein: Possibly the smartest guy who just doesn't get it.

Uh, Ben? We did a little more than "toe stomping," and you're begging the question of whether the people whose toes we stomped have anything at all to do with the attacks on our troops.

[dbonds]

13. Being able to memorize facts does not make one 'smart'

I knew many in college that could quote off list of various things, knew dates a names of everything, but could not do simple logic. They had no common sense. They were definately the least creative. These were the 4.0 students (not all 4.0 were like this but I would say a majority). Rare was the combo of being able to memorize facts, being able to follow logic, and creativity.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

14. ben stain is NOT a smart guy!...he is an economist smart about his $ &

nothing else...he is an idiot

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

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[ElsewheresDaughter]

33. stien was engaging in mendacity....imho

[ProfessorGAC]

36. I Will Debate Him On Any Subject, At Any Time

With such a challenge, i will demonstrate to you that he is, indeed, an idiot.

He is a two dimensional thinker with a debilitating lack of analytical thought processes. He is not half as smart as he thinks he is, and his personal bar is lower than he thinks it is. He is an undereducated, officious twit with little to offer intellectually.

There are probably 100,000 college professors who would wipe the floor with him in ANY debate. When one pretends to be learned, and would actually get annihilated by someone who really is, that is a tangential definition of idiot.

Any questions?
The Professor

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

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[Melynn]

38. Ben Stein is not a idiot

Ben Stein is stooge for the right wing.

Although I would expect that the right wing would turn on Stein if they ever figure out that Ben is a smart guy. The Freeper corp can't trust an intelligent person.

[LynnTheDem]

43. Because he's a total asshole of an IDIOT?

Shoe fits damned well in Stein's case.

Calling US troops shoving broomsticks up INNOCENT IRAQIS' asses "stomping on toes"???; ONLY a total fucking asshole would even think such a thing, let alone say it.

[PassingFair]

45. The Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms site is up and running somewhere

else.

This is a message board. Not a "why can't we all get along hug-fest".
We get paid by the invective.

That said, Welcome to DU.

[tridim]

27. I have yet to see any proof that he's smart

Only proof that he's as dumb as the average Freeper.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

39. Stein is a paid shill, like Armstrong Williams.

[lapislzi]

4. How can this guy be so smart and so fucking dumb at the same time?

Barring cognitive dissonance of epic proportions, how is this possible?

It makes my head hurt to think about it.

[Rex]

7. Win Ben Stein's brain - like new.

The man is an idiot.

[Generator]

5. I heard Ben Stein was in league with Bin Laden

I guess saying something because it just makes you feel better is okay. Facts aren't really relevant. Just revenge. I'm fighting back to make myself feel better. So I'll blame Ben Stein.

Works for me.

[idiosyncratic]

6. I heard his commentary defending Mal-Wort recently. He is an idiot.

I would like to stomp on his toes and make him stand naked with feces all over his body. :mad:

I swear, these people have their brains wired differently. Otherwise, how can they see the world like they do?

[TrustingDog]

8. what a prick - gawd I can't stand that pustuling fuckface. n/t

[Stirk]

9. Notice how carefully he worded that.

"This conflict started because a group of Islamic fundamentalist mass murderers killed three thousand totally innocent civilians on September 11, 2001..."

The reader is supposed to associate the Iraqi prisoners, and Iraq in general, with the Sept. 11th attacks. Ben Stein isn't stupid- he knows Iraq had nothing to do with it. But he assumes that carefully worded statements like this will convince all of us idiots otherwise.

[rkc3]

10. Dear Ben:

Let me explain something to you. Our military wasn't stomping on the toes of Iraqis prisoners - they were stomping on their testicles with big heavy boots, and electrocuting them, and drowning them, and beating them senseless, and forcing them to have sex (raping them if you must), and setting attack dogs on them.

Regardless of what happened, it does not make us a terrorist nation. It does make our policies and leaders look bad. And it makes the rest of the world (particularly the Middle East, who we are liberating) wonder why we put ourselves on such high moral ground.

When you ask what America did to deserve this, you must first get past the "They Hate Us For Our Freedoms" nonsense. This is a sound bite created by Karl Rove. Extremists hate us for our policies. And sure there are individuals who exploit their religion to incite terror on us, but these are no different than Falwell and Robertson who are doing the same here in the US.

When you are done pontificating for the right wing nutties, take a few minutes and go fuck yourself,

Sincerely,

RKC3

[noamnety]

35. "stomping on toes"

A good basic test of whether someone believes their own logic is if they can bring themselves to call a spade a spade while trying to make their argument.

Ben obviously cannot.

[Must_B_Free]

48. So Hitler stepped on the toes of a bunch of Jews, so what?

As long as we're going to play that game...

[tsuki]

49. Yes, thank you. I was wondering what he would have to say to

defenders of Dachau. What a total sell-out.

[hfojvt]

11. How Ben Stein wins $240,000 of your money

Who paid you to write this Stein? I say we arrest him and stomp on his toes until he tells us.

[bear425]

12. Here's his address...

[e-mail]

[beam me up scottie]

15. snip "What do they think the Israelis do to find out about terrorism?"

Yeah, let's do things the way Israel does, since they're so successful.
dumb ass
:nuke:

[Inland]

16. "We are the good guys". That's why we don't have to care.

An amazing circular piece of logic. We are the good guys, so when we do (what even Stein admits are) terrible things, our media shouldn't take note, because we are the good guys.

"Let's be clear. There's no moral equivalency between us and the terrorists". But there is a moral equivalency between us and torturers. What, we have to be as bad as mass murderers before anyone gets to speak up?

And what makes Mr. Stein think that a government that gets a green light from him and others to torture isn't going to, say, cause lots of civilian deaths in an unneeded invasion and then cover it up? Does Stein think that unleashing the US as a torture machine is somehow limited to torture? Are the intel spooks saying "Oh, we will torture them for years. But we won't kill them and put them out of their misery, because that would be wrong." The exact same arguments Stein makes for torture can be made for mass murder. Because an argument that torture is good when we do it is amenable to just about any action.

By the time our people have gone down the slippery slope from "good guys" practicing torture routinely on "suspected terrorists" to overtly mass murderers, it will be too late for Good Mr. Stein to speak up. Because an argument that torture and killing is okay for suspected terrorists pretty much applies to him too.

[XNASA]

17. Another hypocritical chickenhawk............

Blah, blah, Iraq, blah, 911, blah, blah, Nixon was my idol, blah, blah, I used to host a show that had porn stars on as contestants, blah, family values, blah, blah, blah, terror, blah, blah....

Does anyone besides me cringe when they hear these chickenhawks say things like..."WE had to fight back." Who the f*ck is WE????????

[durablend]

23. WE is all the chumps over there in Iraq

I don't see Ben Stein on the recruiting line begging to get it.

(oh, and I much prefer the word "chickenshit"...much more fitting)

[Solly Mack]

18. "The US is the main repository of decency on this earth"

lololololololololol

His definition of decency must be a doozie.

Oh, bite me. The US holds no monopoly on decency.

"We saved Iraq from a dictator a billion times worse than anything we do there"

So that justifies torture? Gotcha (and the right froths about the "moral relativism" of the left - go figure)

"The media plays up endlessly fraternity boy mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison" & "....stomping on a terrorist's fingers and toes and depriving him of sleep "

I guess fools like Stein have to frame the torture in those terms. Makes it seem less horrible than what actually took place.

"That means interrogating prisoners whom we think are terrorists. Sometimes harshly"


This makes every Iraqi and Afghani a potential victim of torture.

What an idiot.

[scottxyz]

19. Guys like Ben Stein are an interesting study

They are apparently "smart" but at the same time they are complete idiots.

I don't really have a framework for understanding or explaining this combination of apparent intelligent with blatant idiocy.

Maybe he's a kind of "idiot savant". He's able to memorize lots of words and names and dates, but unable to interpret what they mean. He has a wonderful grasp of syntax, and none whatsoever of semantics.

I recall many wingnuts are like him. They love to pepper their writing with erudite phrases or bits of Latin. Their form may be grammatically correct - but their content is atrocious.

I think corrente.blogspot.com has proposed a new label for this idiot-savant warbloggers: "wankers". It fits.

[Junkdrawer]

20. LOL - I remember when the little shit lost $5000 on the Immaculate...

Conception question. (The IC refers to the birth of Mary, not Jesus).

He answered Jesus and was wrong. He was pissed and stormed around the set insisting he was right. Telling.

[Desert Liberal]

21. Really, Ben?

I guess in some people's eyes we might just be "the main repository of decency on this earth" but to those of us who HAVE brains and use them to think about more than the next latte or big-screen TV, America has become all the things the founding fathers were fighting against.
America has lost its way. We are no longer a nation which epitomizes freedom (personal, religious or otherwise) or the values so desperately needed in the world today. We have become a darkened nation. Our light of democracy is a candle, sputtering feebly.
Mr. Stein and the people who espouse his beliefs are standing by blowing hard to make that light fail completely.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

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[Desert Liberal]

25. Welcome to DU!

You're not REALLY dangerous, are you? :evilgrin:

Again, welcome!
:toast:

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

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[Bluebear]

29. DF, glad to have you at DU!

[pdxmom]

26. Looks like he's on the talking points email list

If you look at his other stuff he wrote, he definitely has the party line down pat.

How can someone so smart be so narrow-minded, illogical and just plain taken in like that?

[Desert Liberal]

28. The better question is:

How the HELL did the people who think like that become the majority?

Oops...I forgot. They aren't.

[durablend]

30. He was Nixon's speechwriter...

Obviously hasn't evolved in 30 years...

[Bariztr]

32. Dangerous Nonsense

What is dangerous nonsense it this fool's equating rape, murder, electrocution and other torture as just some "toe stomping" which was blown out of proportion by that wacky "libural media".

I guess all that book "learnin" didn't make him into much of a thinker.

[beanball]

47. Our boy Ben was that thinker or stinker.?

So long Ben you've been around too long,fuck off fuck face.

[Emboldened Chimp]

34. Gee, they stomped so hard on them toes that a few prisoners died

but they're brown people, so why should we care? God bless Murika.

/sarcasm

[tsuki]

50. That's what the Nazis said. God bless the Fatherland.

[girl gone mad]

37. And this guy is supposed to be respectable?

No man with any decency could make such ludicrous statements.

Didn't Mr Stein get the memo? Even lead torture approver Alberto GOnzalez has been trying to disassociate himself from the abuses. Why would Stein step in and defend them?

[Kimber Scott]

40. I'm so glad he cleared that up for me. I was beginning to think Iraq

had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of 09/11, that there were no weapons of mass destruction related activity plans in Iraq and the Geneva Conventions actually meant something.

I hope Ben drops us a line from the front lines, when he decides to go to Iraq to defend our freedoms. I'm sure he'll be the best toe-stomper of them all. Viva la Ben Stein!

[LynnTheDem]

42. What the F*CK is he smoking?????!!!

Let's shove a broomstick up HIS ass and up his DAUGHTER'S ass and see if he still thinks of it as STEPPING ON TOES.

MY GAWD!!!

NONE of the "terrorists" who were TORTURED in Abu Ghraib had any info on other "terrorists"; MOST OF THEM were INNOCENT OF ANY CRIMES.

Or did Benny not bother reading the ICRC & US Military REPORTS about this?

Obviously Benny hasn't bothered to read anything on anything in a very long while.

[mikelewis]

44. "The US is the main repository of decency on this earth." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

What fuckin planet is this guy from? We aren't the most decent people on this earth by any measure. We're just as fucked up as everyone else. This guys claiming that because Saddam committed atrocities on innocents, our atrocities, as long as they are not as terrible, are perfectly acceptable. This guy is a complete egg-head. All brain, no common sense.

[hfojvt]

46. reminds me of what Krugman wrote:

In fact, here is a section of my collection of quotes:

"If America's record is better than that of most countries — and it is — it's because of our system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances.

Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe in that system." Paul Krugman

For the record, Orwell had nothing against patriotism, defined as love of country.
By "nationalism," he meant blind chauvinism, specifically "identifying oneself with a single nation
or other unit, placing it beyond good or evil," and thinking "solely, or mainly, in terms of
competitive prestige." In short, primitive tribalism writ large. Gene Lyons

Meanwhile, as secrecy grows, and media conglomerates put more and more power in fewer and fewer hands, we have witnessed the rise of a new phenomenon—a quasi-official partisan press ideologically linked to an authoritarian administration that is in turn the ally and agent of powerful financial and economic interests that consider transparencies a threat to their hegemony over public opinion. Bill Moyers


Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. Kurt Vonnegut

I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well. George W. Bush inaugural address

And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side." ibid (end of quotes)

I have to say that Bush has lived by that last pledge. When we see that wounded traveler, we will not pass to the other side. Instead we will ask: "Is he dead?" and then bang, bang, bang "he's dead now."

[ignatius 2]

51. Whose "we" Ben? You have a loved one there or are you yourself plannin'

on ridin' in an unarmored humvee to show your support for this sham?

[Rapcw]

52. It's really unfortuanate this guy is a republican.

Me and my dad would often watch his show "Win Ben Stein's Money" on Comedy Central. I don't know if I could ever watch that show again with my knowledge of him now.

[HoosierClarkie]

53. I find this statement

"We did nothing to provoke it except in the terrorists' crazy brains. We had to fight back." absolutely absurd! I guess he is just another moron that thinks Saddam had something to do with September 11. Really crazy to me.

[CBHagman]

54. One of the most deeply stupid and dishonest things ...

...I've ever read. Stein apparently is willing to exploit September 11th to justify the invasion of Iraq and to justify actions that will result in even more hostility against the U.S. (and thus the deaths of ever more people). The level of ignorance, especially about history, and mendacity are simply appalling.

I'm so angry I can't compose a reply at this point (and essay has so many flaws it would take several pages to respond to them one by one). If CBS has to fire somebody, why don't they kick this miserable Nixon shill out the door? There isn't profanity strong enough to use against Stein.