Supporting wars of aggression is not a liberal position. Ever.

[cali]

Supporting war-like language encoded in Congressional bills, is not a liberal value.

Supporting the Iraq war with its death toll of a million people and 4+ million refugees, and the infrastructure and environmental degradation of an entire country, is not a liberal value.

Supporting sending soldiers into a war zone over and over and over again is not a liberal value.

Supporting a war that is costing over 2 billion dollars a week, driving us into debt and siphoning off much needed funds for the infrastructure, the environment and the social welfare, is not a liberal value.

Supporting attacking Iran for any reason but legitimate self-defense, is not a liberal value.

Supporting any part of bushco's disasterous foreign policy, is not a liberal value.

And if you support even one of those things,

You are not a liberal.

[Bonobo]

1. Thank you. A simple position and one we should NEVER move from.

No wars of choice or aggression.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

9. K&R

:toast:

[mikelgb]

72. No Wars

only defence

[Hydra]

2. My, my Cali

Are we actually in agreement for once?

[truedelphi]

86. Only the total Hilbots will not agree.

And maybe just maybe those people will finally wake up.

A long time ago, (early 1992 maybe) back when Mark was writing for Mondo 2000, Sirius started saying that he had found out that the Clintons were part of the CIA plan to stage elections - that we woul dthink that we were getting some ultimately cool people into theWH for a change - but we should not be surprised.

You have to realize that in any situation where the Powers that Be are used to being in Full Control - they thinkup stuff like this. Cover all the bets any way that they make shake out.

I recently was reading where Bill Clinton was talking to an audience in San Francisco and he was saying what a sham the drug laws were.

And some on the crowd reacted just so very favorably to that.

But the reporter was a bit smarter than Clinton counted on. He placed in the article the comment to the effect: "Was this not the same Bill Clinton who had been our PRESIDENT for eight years? Had he never considered the marijuana laws then?"

That whole scenario pretty much sums up the CLintons. They look so very cool, but what do they accomplish?

[Hydra]

94. Yeah, bread and circus

Keep the people just distracted and hopeful enough that they won't dismantle the system of privilege.

I seem to recall that Clinton overrode the California law that marijuana could be used in a medical form?

[truedelphi]

100. Oh yeah The Marijuana Medical Initiative was passed in like 1997 or '98

Maybe even earlier.

And he passively let the DEA go against the citizens here.

The state oF CA has a whole section of code forbidding California law enforcement officials from
making arrests (though arrests do happen, especially against people growing their own, because of vagueness in the law.)

But the Federal agencies can step in claiming that Federal law superscedes state law - and I never saw or heard anything to the effect that Clinton wanted to hamstring the DEA.

In fact during the eight years of the Clinton era, the local sheriff-enforced system of going after marijuana offenders - especially those who did medical marijuana - became much harsher than previously. It is big business in CA to put someone in jail - our prisons are built here faster and more often than schools due to the control that the prison guard union has over the Governorship.

However the people themselves have been inspiring.

Several years ago, under Bush, citizens in Santa Cruz basically drove the squads of DEA out of the area!

bTW this type of legislation passes in so many places - when the state initiative went for a vote in Marin County CA - where the average age of people is like 49 years old - it still passed by 82%

[uppityperson]

3. thank you. k&r

[DianaForRussFeingold]

4. K&R I agree! It's not even a 'sane' position

:kick:

[renie408]

5. Amen. n/t

[Mythsaje]

6. True or not...

I don't think our opinion matters anymore.

K&R

[Hydra]

8. I doubt it as well

see you at the camps, buddy! I hear you write Sci-Fi- I write Fantasy. We'll have to trade books written on old bedsheets :evilgrin:

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Can I join, I also write actually both sci fi and fantasy

[Hydra]

15. Cool!

DU's inside the fence book club- original copies of first run books :evilgrin:

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. There you go

damn on a real note many camp survivors managed to keep diaries and other written material

[Bonobo]

19. I got a chest full of old clothes and a garage we can all practice in!

Oh, and I could get it translated into all the major languages!

[Hydra]

20. My mind is my journal

you can't read it if you don't have a prybar...unless you have something to offer that I don't have in my brain-box already :evilgrin:

[Moochy]

37. I hope we dont have to memorize entire books

like in farenheit 451. Here's hoping that my iphone still has service in those camps....

[Mythsaje]

14. Hell, no... I'm going to be too busy escaping.

:evilgrin:

[Hydra]

16. you have a boat?

I can pay in french fries!

[Mythsaje]

18. I'll just make a raft out of a bunch of sea turtles...

and float to the mainland.

[Hydra]

21. Aye Capt. Jack!

You don't by chance have the Black pearl nearby, do ye?

[Mythsaje]

23. Nah...any passing ship will do...

The black pearl would be completely obsolete. At least until the oil runs out...then it would be state-of-the-art again.

[Hydra]

27. Nothing wrong with wind power

One of the most awesome yachts I've ever seen was a four masted racer that had been converted for comfort.

[Mythsaje]

28. Sounds awesome...n/t

[Cha]

40. And I'll read

both ya.

[lateo]

7. Excellent post.

[H2O Man]

10. Nominated n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. K&R

[Liberal In Texas]

13. And it shouldn't be a value for any one who claims to be a member of the Democratic Party.

Elected or not.

[redqueen]

67. THANK YOU! Red state dems are NOT republicans...

I'm sick of being accused of being the reason we have so many DINOs!

:bounce:

[Liberal In Texas]

84. Red state with blue islands. I'm in one of them. And I'm hardly Rep. leaning. n/t

[redqueen]

87. I'm in blood-red territory... I'd STILL vote for ANY dem before a puke.

I'd bet the vast majority of dems are the same.

[Bluerthanblue]

22. excellent Cali-

thanks for this!

[kenny blankenship]

24. But we OWE it to the people of Iraq (Iran?)-yeah Iraq-to COMPLETE our war of aggression on them

else they'll never learn to love us, and they won't have a chance to realize what wonderful people we really are.

[krkaufman]

25. I'll see your "not a liberal," and raise you a "not a moderate, either"

I was chuckling the other day, whilst chatting in the Young Turks chat room, when some poster commented that they were in the middle, not a Right Winger or Left... and then proceeded to say it was acceptable to go to war over oil.

[Marr]

29. Well said.

The people our media calls "moderates" are anything but. They'd be far right loons in Europe.

[redqueen]

69. Yup! The moderate myth has taken over... I see it WAY too much here. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

26. Thank you

I didn't even begin to know how to respond to that post. It was WRONG on so many levels.

K&R

[Lone_Star_Dem]

30. Well said

I'm in agreement.

That's not drifting to the right. It's leaping hurdles to try and be like the right.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

31. Absolutely right!

In fact, supporting wars of aggression is a war crime...

This is one of the crimes we accused Germany of, after WWII...

And now we're guilty of it as well...

[unkachuck]

32. absolutely!!

....if you don't truly believe that there is a peaceful meaningful roll for government in our everyday lives, a roll with people-first programs and projects that only government can provide best, you're not a liberal....

....or a true Democrat, as matter of fact, you're in the wrong Party....and you can privatize this....

[yodermon]

33. unless of course

you have determined that you must triangulate your way into office by appeasing the fascist right-wing forces that dominate american discourse, but as soon as you're in office, wham you unveil your ultra-left-wing communist agenda which will show them all who's boss, muahahaha.

Sorry, bit shitfaced, i agree w/ the orig. post.

[bvar22]

34. K&R

I wish our "top tier" Democratic candidates agreed with you.

[mvd]

35. Agreed. And why is this even called a war?

We toppled Saddam. The leaders of Iraq have not declared war. Al Qaeda is part of the war on terror, not the war in Iraq. I think this is an occupaton.

[IndianaJones]

36. you're right I'm not. happily. nt.

[shanti]

38. k&r!

can't say that enough!

[porphyrian]

39. Right on. - n/t

[stuntcat]

41. Any war is a shame on Humanity

I'm ashamed by it all anyway.

[Exultant Democracy]

42. Facts are facts. n/t

[mike_c]

43. K&R a thousand times....

:thumbsup:

[Swamp Rat]

44. yep

k&r

[bridgit]

45. "Supporting the Iraq war" and "Supporting wars of aggression" can be two different concepts...

watching the Burns documentary: The War, it is clear as was the remembrance of some that considered themselves flat-out pacifists (forget or set aside 'liberal' for a moment, they were not prone to aggression in any circumstance!! none!), that there came a time when war was a nesscesity...and still i understand what you're saying,

but it flushes all notion of any, or even would-be proper national/international/human defense from the field of view, if i had my way there would be no war whatsoever...

but to confuse the concepts is to do just that, confuse the concepts

[Liberal In Texas]

46. Kick for the a.m.

[Zandor]

47. I disagree. Overly broad statements.

"Supporting wars of aggression is not a liberal position. Ever."

You haven't defined a 'war of agression'. What wars in our history fit your definition?

"Supporting the Iraq war with its death toll of a million people and 4+ million refugees, and the infrastructure and environmental degradation of an entire country, is not a liberal value."

Agreed. The lead up was misleading at best, the management of it putrid. This seems to be a common sense value as well.

"Supporting sending soldiers into a war zone over and over and over again is not a liberal value."

That's really more of an isuue of managing a war, not a liberal or conservative value.

"Supporting attacking Iran for any reason but legitimate self-defense, is not a liberal value."

Define self-defense. If we have troops and allies in the region that are legitimately endangred or threatened, the attack would be justifiable.

"Supporting any part of bushco's disasterous foreign policy, is not a liberal value."

His foreign policy as a whole is terrible. Probably a bit over the top to state all liberals must oppose all aspects 100%.

[cali]

48. no.

Define a war of agression: look it up. Preventive war is a war of aggression.

If it's true that sending soldiers repeatedly back into a war zone is also a conservative value, explain why conservatives are doing just that.

NO. Going to war with Iran because of a few sporadic attacks by those allegedly supported and armed by Iran is defintely not legitimate. Our troops being in Iraq is not legitimate.

[Zandor]

53. "war of aggression"

Hypothetically, had Kennedy determined at some point during the Cuban Missile Crisis that an invasion were warranted, would that have been an un-liberal value?

[cali]

55. It would likely have been nuclear war

and it would have been a mistake of massive proportion.

[Zandor]

56. So if the Soviets had not relented

no military response could be justified? No matter the nature, proximity, or seriousness of the threat, pre-emptive military action is always un-liberal?

[cali]

60. That wasn't the question you asked.

Had the Soviets not relented, Kennedy taking military action would not, as I understand it, have been a war of aggression.

Pre-emptive war is actually NOT the same things as preventive war.

And all this has little to do with launching a war on Iran- which you seem to support, because they are allegedly funding and arming insurgents in Iraq.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

59. What would it be called but a "War of Aggression"?

If the Soviets had invaded Turkey, where our missiles were, would that have been a "War of Aggression"?

[ronnie624]

68. Exactly.

Not to mention the fact that modern Cuba springs from US imperialist aggressions to begin with.

It is interesting, watching people, as they attempt to rectify the inconsistencies between their professed ideology and their cultural preconceptions.

[blondeatlast]

63. Yes, it would have been un-liberal. That came out rather well, considering.

And he took the progressive route.

[liberation]

74. Yes it would have been a preemptive strike...

Actions are defined by their consequences not by who performs them. Thanks for playing... the naiveté of some people never ceases to amaze me.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

64. 'I disagree."

I am so surprised!







NOT.






Bang bang bang bang bang those drums.....

[kenfrequed]

80. This line bothers me

Do you have any idea how much they have been attempting to trump up the case for war? They have been reading every insurgent attack as being from Iran. And then there has been the redefinition of anti-vehicle mines. The suggestion that EFP's are somehow new and radical and specific only to the Iranian military has been a major part of this.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_explosive_anti-tank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_Formed_Penetrator
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Supporting attacking Iran for any reason but legitimate self-defense, is not a liberal value."

Define self-defense. If we have troops and allies in the region that are legitimately endangred or threatened, the attack would be justifiable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[Solon]

85. I'll answer your first question, and define war of aggression for you...

Well, let's see, there's the Mexican-American war, which was basically a land grab, the Texas Independence war could technically be considered a war by proxy as well. The Spanish-American war was yet another war of aggression, hell, it was an imperialist war, from the start, done for the flimsiest of reasons, and the United States made no apologies that the goal was an overseas Empire. We have invaded numerous nations in Latin America, especially in the beginning of the 20th century, for basically no reasons of national security, but to secure American business interests.

As far as a definition of a war of aggression, well, let's see, it would be a war waged against a nation that presented no imminent threat to our or our neighbors' national security. Both the War in Iraq and any war against Iran would fit this definition, Iraq was crippled from sanctions against it for over a decade previous to the war, and the excuses for that war were outright lies. Iran, for all its bluster, has no real interest in military adventures beyond its borders, it would be counterproductive for them, at best. In addition, any justification we make based on "underhanded" funding or support for militia or terrorist groups by Iran would open the door for exposing our own underhandedness and funding of terrorist groups AGAINST Iran. In other words, if we are justified to declare war against Iran, they are just as justified to do the same. In other words, no good guys fighting, just bad guys fighting.

[proud2BlibKansan]

98. And I guess we can't ask why we have troops in a region?

If those troops are there because we invaded a region (like Iraq) then attacks on them are justified, IMO.

[SlowDownFast]

99. "I disagree..."

Yeah.

You would.

[H2O Man]

49. I would also note

that it is important to understand that Rev Martin Luther King Jr would not support the aggressive and violent policies of the ruling class in Washington DC.

[Solly Mack]

54. I adore you

:)

[Elidor]

50. But-but-but...I was told this is the way to win elections

You mean it isn't true?

[liberation]

76. Never take advise about wining from a loser.

The DLC's wining strategy: Try to appeal to people, who would never vote for you no matter what, by alienating the people who would have voted for you. Brilliant!

[lonestarnot]

51. You're getting better!

:applause:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

52. Unfortunately, some politicians who call themselves "liberal" disagree with you.

Hell, they even call themselves "anti-war".

[L0oniX]

57. Attacking countries that have oil that we can steal is good for SUV owners...

we don't want to stop driving our cars for lack of gas do we?

:sarcasm:

[Virginia Dare]

58. I'm sure if you took a poll..

99.9% of Americans would say no.

[blondeatlast]

61. Word, cali. I was made physically ill by that vote. Thank you. nt

Edit: spelling

[Richard Steele]

62. Damn right! recommended.

[robinlynne]

65. thank-you.

[redqueen]

66. Well put.

Thanks for not saying "democrat", cause obviously the two words aren't even remotely synonymous.

[YOY]

70. It's not even a "moderate" position

but some here would disagree...of course because they are so "moderate".

[democrank]

71. Recommended......for the sheer clarity.

What a splendid break from the standard flow of politicians` fence-straddling bullshit.

[Stuckinthebush]

73. Amen

They'll call you a starry eyed liberal.

They'll call you an appeaser.

They'll call you a dangerous peacenik.

They'll call you a fool.

They'll call you a traitor.

They'll call you uninformed.

They'll be wrong.

[blondeatlast]

75. I'll call those who voted NO something:

Patriots. :patriot:

And that includes Senators Lugar and Sanders.

We need to redefine patriotism.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

77. I disagree. Vide e.g. Kosovo

The Yugoslav serbs attempts to ethnically cleanse Kosovo presented no threat to US interests, so the US bombing was a war of aggression, but even so I think that it was the right thing to do, because it prevented a massive humanitarian catastrophe.

Declaring war on Iran would be a massive mistake, but for specific reasons, not the very generic ones stated.

[ronnie624]

92. Perhaps you'll find this of interest.

Despite the intensive efforts, the results of “the mass-grave obsession,” as the WSJ analysts call it, were disappointingly thin. Instead of “the huge killing fields some investigators were led to expect,..the pattern is of scattered killings,” a form of “ethnic cleansing light.” “Most killings and burnings in areas where the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army had been active” or could infiltrate, some human-rights researchers reported, an attempt “to clear out areas of KLA support, using selective terror, robberies and sporadic killings.” These conclusions gain some support from the detailed OSCE review released in December, which “suggests a kind of military rationale for the expulsions, which were concentrated in areas controlled by the insurgents and along likely invasion routes.”

The WSJ analysis concludes that “NATO stepped up its claims about Serb ‘killing fields’” when it “saw a fatigued press corps drifting toward the contrarian story: civilians killed by NATO’s bombs.” NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea presented “information” that can be traced to KLA-UCK sources. Many of the most lurid and prominently-published atrocity reports attributed to refugees and other sources were untrue, the WSJ concludes. Meanwhile NATO sought to deny its own atrocities, for example, by releasing a falsified videotape “shown at triple its real speed” to make it appear that “the killing of at least 14 civilians aboard a train on a bridge in Serbia last April” was unavoidable because “the train had been traveling too fast for the trajectory of the missiles to have been changed in time.”

*********

Within Kosovo, no significant changes are reported from the breakdown of the cease-fire in December until the March 22 decision to bomb. Even apart from the (apparently isolated) Racak massacre, there can be no doubt that the FRY authorities and security forces were responsible for serious crimes. But the reported record also lends no credibility to the claim that these were the reason for the bombing; in the case of comparable or much worse atrocities during the same period, the U.S. and its allies either did not react, or—more significantly—maintained and even increased their support for the atrocities. Examples are all too easy to enumerate, East Timor in the same months, to mention only the most obvious one.

The vast expulsions from Kosovo began immediately after the March 24 bombing campaign. On March 27, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that 4,000 had fled Kosovo, and on April 1, the flow was high enough for UNHCR to begin to provide daily figures. Its Humanitarian Evacuation Programme began on April 5. From the last week of March to the end of the war in June, “forces of the FRY and Serbia forcibly expelled some 863,000 Kosovo Albanians from Kosovo,” the OSCE reports, and hundreds of thousands of others were internally displaced, while unknown numbers of Serbs, Gypsies, and others fled as well.

*********

The person who commits a crime bears the primary responsibility for it; those who incite him, anticipating the consequences, bear secondary responsibility, which only mounts if they act to increase the suffering of the victims. The only possible argument for action to incite the crimes is that they would have been even more severe had the action not been undertaken. That claim, one of the most remarkable in the history of support for state violence, requires substantial evidence. In the present case, one will seek evidence in vain—even recognition that it is required.

Suppose, nevertheless, that we take the argument seriously. It plainly loses force to the extent that the subsequent crimes are great. If no Kosovar Albanians had suffered as a result of the NATO bombing campaign, the decision to bomb might be justified on the grounds that crimes against them were deterred. The force of the argument diminishes as the scale of the crimes increases. It is, therefore, rather curious that supporters of the bombing seek to portray the worst possible picture of the crimes for which they share responsibility; the opposite should be the case.
This is by no means the only impressive feat of doctrinal management. Another is the debate over NATO’s alleged “double standards,” revealed by its “looking away” from other humanitarian crises, or “doing too little” to prevent them. Participants in the debate must be agreeing that NATO was guided by humanitarian principles in Kosovo— precisely the question at issue. That aside, the Clinton administration did not “look away” or “do too little” in the face of atrocities in East Timor, or Colombia, or many other places. Rather, along with its allies, it chose to escalate the atrocities, often vigorously and decisively. Perhaps the case of Turkey—within NATO and under European jurisdiction—is the most relevant in the present connection. Its ethnic cleansing operations and other crimes, enormous in scale, were carried out with a huge flow of military aid from the Clinton administration, increasing as atrocities mounted. They have also virtually disappeared from history. There was no mention of them at the 50th anniversary meeting of NATO in April 1999, held under the shadow of ethnic cleansing—a crime that cannot be tolerated, participants and commentators declaimed, near the borders of NATO; only within its borders, where the crimes are to be expedited. With rare exceptions, the press has kept to occasional apologetics, though the participation of Turkish forces in the Kosovo campaign was highly praised. More recent debate over the problems of “humanitarian intervention” evades the crucial U.S. role in the Turkish atrocities, or ignores the topic altogether.
<http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200005--.htm>

[LeftishBrit]

96. I actually agree on that one...

There are exceptions to everything, and extreme humanitarian crises that justify military intervention beyond self-defense. However, internal crises that are worse than a war are very rare; and I don't think that anything that has been done by the Bush government comes remotely near this category of justifiable intervention.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

97. Tragically, Afghanistan could have been but wasn't.

The Taliban in Afghanistan really were a spectacularly unpleasant regime; using military force to remove them and replace them with a functioning state with a decent government was, I think, possible, and would have prevented more suffering than it caused.

Unfortunately, the US and its allies only went half way through that scheme, removing the Taliban and then not giving a damn about reconstruction or humanitarian work and failing to deliver much of the money pledged to helpe rebuild; allowing a bunch of feuding warlords barely, if at all, better than they were to take over, so all the death and suffering of the war was for virtually nothing.

In the last 8 years there's been at least one other crisis - Darfur - that warranted Western military intervention; and that didn't receive it.

[Mrspeeker]

78. Yeah but Support the troops

and wave flags every time one comes home from duty!!!
They are just doing there jobs, which happens to be killing , but its ok because it was a Economic Draft..they had to go to war so they could get a job....or some stupid BS like this is what your going to here all day

War is Wrong, Killing is wrong...AMERICA IS WRONG!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

79. Supporting wars of aggression is not a sane or moral position either

eom

[Forrest Greene]

81. But... But, What If

...someone c-calls you "unpatriotic"?!?

[On the Road]

82. It's the Whole Framing of the Issue

Iraq is never discussed in DC in terms of of invasion being a war crime or of morality in general. It's all expressed in terms of whether the war is being conducted competently, whether we can afford it, whether it's in the US interests, or what the effect is on US soldiers.

Anyone who has been duped into adopting this type of thought process of Iraq is an easy mark for getting suckered into an attack on Iran.

[conscious evolution]

83. I agree

[Vilis Veritas]

88. Awesome post...

I am just not so sure how much prevention power the people have anymore...how does peace rain down on the planet without eliminating a bunch of war-mongers...? :shrug:

Peace.

edited to add k & r

[EnricoFermi]

89. Well, it certainly isn't conservative either

It is radical.

[losthills]

90. Agreed!

[me b zola]

91. k&r

[hiphopnation]

93. and yet

a war-like tendency is what is needed to fight the likes of our most vicious foe at this very hour...how very ironic.

[LeftishBrit]

95. As a Brit, I agree

Still less are such actions socialist (with a big boo to Blair!)