Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] the poetry of donald rumsfeld

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

On Mar 18, 2004, at 2:46 PM, Tom Lord wrote:

> So, here's the news item (and i use that term advisedly):
>
>     http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/17/15138/5087


  The kung fu styles are much funnier:

http://www.poe-news.com/features.php?feat=31845

> (The US now has a huge base in the middle east.  We win, haha.  Look
> no further (except to note that iraq was notably weak) for an
> understanding of why we went to war.  I'm personally quite uncertain
> that that was a bad idea.  But jeeze, I wish they would just say that,
> straight up.  So I'll do it for them.)

 Its not kosher for the "President" (by which I mean, Bush, Clinton or 
Bush) to say:

  "Saddam is crazier then a sackful of weasels. He has to go."

 Something about not having the leader of your country insult the 
leader of
another country, or something. We could probably say it now, but no one 
cares.

 The focus on the WMD issue irritates me, because I took the time to 
read all the state department briefings rather then be told what to 
think by the media, not to mention pages and pages of personal 
research. Our decision to go into Iraq was quite complicated and 
agonizing, and there was more then one reason. Worries about WMD was a 
good chunk of it, but the briefings made it clear that it was 
_uncertainty_ about WMD, coupled with certainty he was crazy. The media 
kind of lost that in the process of editing things into sound bites.

 In fact, its too bad that all of the issues in our society that can't 
be boiled down into sound bites end up as problems. The political 
campaigns aren't helping either, since their messages boil down to "us 
good, them bad". The reality is shades of grey. You can pick any issue 
(women, environment, terrorism) and any president (Clinton, Bush), and 
they are neither completely good or completely bad.

 What I found most interesting was that Madeline Albright's criticism 
of Bush was not that we invaded Iraq, but rather that we didn't handle 
the UN as well as we could have. Though considering all the jokes about 
Texans and Frenchmen, I don't understand why everyone was so 
surprised...

 Pierce