"Not Alex" Video - MoveOn.org

I was working on the assumption that we wanted our clones posthaste, since Alex probably doesn't want to go to war.

Man, if you think that's bad, wait until a thread comes up where I can really flex my nerd-muscles.

yes, but they wouldn't know that. Alex is only a baby. we got, what, 17 batches, if we only assume one a year? how many spaarti cylinders do we have, anyway?

hehehe. you, me, Horn, Face, and Lt. Kettch.

Yub yub, Commander.

Okay, I'm done now. Really, I swear.

alright, i got what i wanted.

we now resume our previous discussion on how McCain is a douche.

oh, and how Republicans are whiny little brats.

You guys are complete Celtic hangover buzz kill.

I feel so used.

Hangover buzz? That's a new one.

Oh, right. McCain's an asshole.

My recollection of it was that at the time, the USSR was still intact, and had not signed on as part of the UN force. Because the USSR had a significant interest in Saddam's regime as an arms client, they were against removing him. It was the threat of a possible direct confrontation between the US and USSR that prevented the UN from going ahead and removing Saddam during the first Gulf War.

I would have to disagree. Under Gorbachev, Soviet arm sales to Iraq were quickly (and intentionally) declining. By the outbreak of the Gulf War, the USSR was only selling about 1/5 to 1/6 of the number of armaments to Iraq that they were selling in 1984 (when Gorbachev effectively took over due to Chernenko's health problems). Given the Soviet pullout from Eastern Europe (the "Sinatra Doctrine"), the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, declining Soviet military spending, and declining Soviet-Iraqi arms trading, I don't think that the fear of a Soviet counter-attack was very high. The USSR was simply not that willing to engage in costly foreign ventures, expressed primary concern for domestic issues, and didn't engage in significant arm sales to Iraq at that point.

Bush, Sr. gave different reasons for the refusal to remove Saddam: the delicacy of the international coalition, the desire to avoid a costly conflict (in terms of American lives), concerns over getting into a new guerrilla war, and letting military leaders decide objectives.

Quite likely, the fear of Iran was looming in the background of their decisions as well, given that we were arming him against Iran. Here is another analysis. The comment therein from Schwarzkopf's memoirs seems to line up with the mentality expressed in Bush, Sr.'s statements.

Arms sales stats are unfortunately from Wikipedia, but I don't have access to my books (I am in Bloomington, Indiana studying Russian at the moment).

I stand corrected.

Thank you for your insight on the matter, Dick.

uhhhh, woahhh, uhhh, what? when? how? ok, shock over. so...at one time cheney cared about the lives of american soldiers and used logic in his decision making regarding foreign policy. i'm trying to figure out whether he slipped and fell into bat-shit crazy or pure concentrated evil when he was appointed v.p.?

Yeah, they knew exactly what would happen in Iraq without a Saddam Regime in 1991 (Cheney was defending the reason why they didn't go after him back then in this 1994 interview), yet we did it anyway 12 years later (with him at the helm).

pax praestigiator

when it comes down to it, i love this ad. i love it a lot and for good reason. mouth pieces like ass holter (read: ann coulter) say that the democrats are low because they like to use unassailable spokespeople like 9/11 widows and when the video started i thought it was going to be about how alex will never meet his daddy because he died in iraq. that would have been the easy and expected route but instead they simply took mccain's own words (presumably representative of the gop consensus on iraq), put a human face on their cost and cut the legs out from under them. usually, i look at moveon as simply the michael stipe of 527's but after this i say, "bravo to you, good sirs and madams of moveon."

Well, I suppose an ad featuring something like this wouldn't go very far:


As an afterthought, perhaps I should have added a subtext with the following.
These men gave their legs for their country and all they got was a lousy president.

Yeah, I know its dumb... I was bored...

^^ Why is Bush wearing shorts for this photo op ?

Because he is an Asshole Fuckface!