Michael Yon apparently thinks you can’t Google. Here he is today in the WSJ:
Over the past 15 months, we have proved that we can win this war. We stand now at the moment of truth. Victory – and a democracy in the Arab world – is within our grasp. But it could yet slip away if our leaders remain transfixed by the war we almost lost, rather than focusing on the war we are winning today.
Very compelling stuff! Victory within our grasp! We’re finally winning!
But wait — what did he say about the war 2 years ago?
Please do not let your respective media delude you: we are winning in Iraq.
I’m shocked.
What about 3 years ago?
I get the impression that people at home are losing faith in the effort, though we are winning.
All the while Michael Yon’s been saying we’re winning, over 2200 Americans have been killed. So what I wanna know is — at what point will war cheerleaders propagandists like Michael Yon feel enough shame to finally STFU?
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Michael speaks with forked tongue.
Mister Yon needs to go get him some Eurasia glory of his very own.
When you pry the pen from their cold dead hands?
SO?
I might do the George Jetson on this treadmill of untruth.
At Nuremberg, we tried and convicted propagandists too.
Never, it’s their career. Just look at Bill Kristol.
Serious people make me gag.
anybody now CHEERLEADING this clusterfuck,should be required to go to the gym in the GREEN ZONE,once a day,to improve their physical,and mental prowess
without a flack jacket and helmet
it’s what they do, the repeat the rediculous as though fact, then they claim their is a debate and the rediculous actually becomes another valid point of view
should have put “serious” in quotes /s
This seems to me to be the strongest rebuttal to all the war “optimists”. A video loop that runs through the history of “we’re finally seeing the end” claims over the years juxtaposed with the latest claims. Follow this with the simple question: Why would you believe them this time?
and a sign that says “I am an american who supports bush”
Is this a trick question? Propagandists are functionally incapable of feeling any shame for any reason.
im willing to furnish 1 WAY TICKETS…..”g”
Over at Rawstory, there is an article about Cheney authorizing torture, etc., but in the comments at the bottom of the page about 10 comments down, begin a series of comments from an anonymous poster with an incredible amount of information tying Cheney to just about everything…Just sayin’..worth the gander.
they are simply….FABULOUSLY paid whores,and sociopaths
Re: War Cheerleaders and Propagandizers. Vanity Fair (April) explains that “the (Olympic) Torch Relay was first cooked up by Nazi propagandists under Joseph Goebbels in preparation for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin”.
I am so sick of the word, ‘victory’. Old men sending young people to fight their wars. It is obscene.
he is one sick fuk,as if you didnt know…..how are your horsies today,just fed the 3 down the block “apples”
When pigs fly?
When a Bush serves?
Quips like that could part the Red Sea.
Yes. I’m now putting “president” in quotes in my comments from now on.
Better yet, their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews need to be plunked down in the middle of Iraq. Let them put their money where their mouth is and sacrifice up their own kith and kin. I’ll help them enlist.
Apparently not.
The “victory is at hand” line is always paired with the “unless you all blow it with a failure of the will” caveat. These must be kept in the propaganda stew at all times, so that when things go badly, they can immediately switch to the “stabbed in the back” offense at home.
Blue Texan took a jab at it the other day:
Turn the corner.
Michael Yon is just following in David Brooks’ and countless other footsteps. I wonder if he believes his prose any more than the performance artist Ann Coulter believes her own?
Failing to isolate and discredit these ”pundits” would allow them to propagate even more widely. Thanks, Blue, for spraying a little editorial Roundup ™ on Mr. Yon’s prose.
Great catch BT,
These fuckers can’t even define victory, nevermind accomplish it.
How the hell do you “win” an occupation? Ridiculous.
Yet, they continue to be taken seriously by 28% of america and 90% of DC, and an OpEd spot is always waiting for this type of self-delusion.
ecahn said someone on the TEEvee told us the countries they passed would be the countries hitler planned an attack against
YON obviously own lots of stocks in the militarial industrial complex companies and wants to boost his returns
The present participle form of English verbs ends in -ing. Its most basic use is to describe an action in progress.
Therefore, according to neocons, one can be winning forever.
That’s a good thought. Thanks.
I remember when rush limbaugh first came to the radio, I was certain he didn’t believe his own rubbish, I could always tell because he had a laugh in his voice as if to say;
“I can’t believe I am going to say this”
billy krystol has that exact look on his face whenever he makes another of his rediculous claims
but I believe rush and coulter now believe their crap, they’ve been payed so much to believe it now there is no turning back
ding.
there is some thinking (from WWII, I believe) that war is good for business and creating jobs…I don’t think it works that way anymore but apparently megaphones do.
Another propagandist.
Wigwam, what about the person that hires the propagandist and allows him/her space on the front page of the paper of record?
it never worked that way, that was propaganda to make people think war was good
their is a peace dividend, their is no war dividend save inflation, lost assets, lost lives, lost productivity
Whenever I “just look at Bill Kristol” I see mommy’s precocious little man in a high chair, smiling to delight one and all in his presence. makes me puke. I cannot just look at him any more. puke.
Well, that makes sense now doesn’t it? Thanks for the info. No Thanks to the Nazi Torch, they said.
gotcha, thanks. I still hear that thinking from time to time. fwiw. but i’m agreeing widtcha.
it’s not working quite so well any more because the funds aren’t spent in small town america any more, if we pay blackwell, and they’re hiring israeli commandos.. the money doesn’t go to main street, also, they’ve connveniently moved the HQ to Qatar … also, think of all the money in IRAQ, a lot of it’s been used building things that get blown up over and over, but, take heart, GE’s earnings really appear to be going way down … maybe these jerks will switch to investing in something useful like FOOD
And at least 67,000 Iraqis (probably many more) and millions of refugees.
NLG calls on the Boalt School of Law to FIRE Yoo. Momentum is growing.
Begs the question – If a professor at UC is accused of breaking the law (rape, child pornography, murder, etc.) do they get to stay until the trial is completed? Or, are they urged to take a hiatus?
War has always been a very good business for the Bush family.
FINANCE: U.S. Lawmakers Invested in Iraq, Afghanistan Wars
By Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Apr 7 (IPS) – U.S. lawmakers have a financial interest in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a review of their accounts has revealed.
Members of Congress invested nearly 196 million dollars of their own money in companies that receive hundreds of millions of dollars a day from Pentagon contracts to provide goods and services to U.S. armed forces, say nonpartisan watchdog groups.
David Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Iraq, is to brief the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees on Tuesday and Wednesday. The latest findings are unlikely to have a significant impact on this week’s proceedings but could stoke anti-incumbent sentiment in this year of presidential and legislative elections.
Lawmakers charged with overseeing Pentagon contractors hold stock in those very firms, as do vocal critics of the war in Iraq, says the Centre for Responsive Politics (CRP).
Senator John Kerry, the Democrat from Massachusetts who staked his 2004 presidential bid in part on his opposition to the war, tops the list of investors. His holdings in firms with Pentagon contracts of at least five million dollars stood at between 28.9 million dollars and 38.2 million dollars as of Dec. 31, 2006. Kerry sits on the Senate foreign relations panel.
Members of Congress are required to report their personal finances every year but only need to state their assets in broad ranges.
Other top investors include Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican with holdings of 12.1 million – 49.1 million dollars; Rep. Robin Hayes, a North Carolina Republican (9.2 million – 37.1 million dollars); Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin (5.2 million – 7.6 million dollars); and Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat (2.7 million – 6.3 million dollars).
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Democrat and former governor of West Virginia who chairs the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, invested some 2.0 million dollars in Pentagon contractors, CRP says.
Other panel chiefs who invested in defence firms include Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent who presides over the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman, the California Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
In all, 151 current members of Congress — more than one-fourth of the total — have invested between 78.7 million dollars and 195.5 million dollars in companies that received defence contracts of at least 5.0 million dollars, according to CRP.
These companies received more than 275.6 billion dollars from the government in 2006, or 755 million dollars per day, says budget watchdog group OMB Watch.
Heh. The horses are eating and flinging poo…! They are loving all the green grass!!
wow, that says a LOT
yea cows are too………….so cute,they keep me sane..”g”
it all reeks!
That should be illegal.
can we please have Obama now?pretty please!
even more ironic and compelling when it’s a law professor violating the law.
The Gorilla Guides individuals that post here attest that American Troops function as death squads. As the troops inspect individual homes looking for insurgents, I’m sure that many innocents are killed. There are likely many worse scenarios than this. This WSJ writer is a creep.
Poor George Orwell. Little did he know that people would aspire to make his imaginary nightmare reality. He is spinning in his grave while asses like Yon spin here.
war crimes,fraud on the government,prolly all hidden trusts
when will our tax money go to HELPING ordinary Americans…this is the question that needs to be asked,and answered
Thanks for this. It has everything to do with why either side of the aisle doesn’t want to apply “conflict of interest” in ethics. War is good for their coffers.
When Republics have no power.
o/t sorta. I wanted to recommend this article. I don’t know how to digg but maybe someone more savvy than I can give it a boost.
Why would a war veteran vote for McCain?
Posted within the last 24 hours..
Other panel chiefs who invested in defence firms include Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent who presides over the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,
—————-
of course FAT CAT LIARMAN has his paws in the thick of the winfall
that’s not really the answer, the answer is when we have publicly funded elections and politicians cannot take contributions
There was a time when “conflict of interest” used to be illegal. What ever happened to that? It was applied to many businesses, contests and government. Wherever money was made.
no wonder KERRY ,never wanted to win!
We’re stockholders in this “Enron” of a country. We’re hosed and will have to rebuild everything.
d’you see colbert where he asks Bush “why follow constitutional law now?” when contemplating his leaving office. it’s the only shred of hope left.
Congress is just one big pile of conflict of interests … bigger, higher, deeper, smellier …
Froomkin has Cheney on the Warpath Again? as today’s headline.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00879.html
Froomkin mentions the idea that Cheney would like to use Israel as a surrogate to attack Iran. This is my view as well. Something I put up yesterday I will put up again here.
There is a site:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php
where you can feed in latitude and longitude and find out sunrise and sunset and moonrise and moonset times for anywhere in the world.
Looking at these for Natanz, for example, indicates that there is a marginal window for attack on the nights of April 11th and 12th and numerous dates from April 29th to about May 12 with the best dates being May 3rd-7th.
I’m not saying this will happen or in this timeframe but there is a significant possibility for it and these are my best guesses.
kinda a bad joke that liarman is on the homeland security panel when he can’t protect his own website!!!
Elections for the people by the people, what a quaint idea.
god bless Froomkin,who i believe is Jewish,he is a real pearl
our government was never established with the idea of setting up a permanent poltical elite, but yet here it is … WHAT can be done about it … we can’t even get them to impeach obvious criminals, establish a working justice department … LET alone end all their profiteering from office … where is Tom Paine and the voices of reason when you need them?
Hugh, why does this administration have a hordon for Iran to the point of making any excuse to bomb the hell out of it? they keep pointing their pointy verbal sticks at it every chance they get. why?
sorry to be so dense.
he will retire from the senate wealthier than his friend the Clintons,wonder if thats why Hill voted for Kyl/Lieberman
Bullseye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87yq372R4Ts
keep our Social Security money flowing to the war effort….by by
Yep. that’s what I heard this week. we only win by staying and staying and staying. there is no stick in the sand.
Very nice catch, thankyou.
I had never seen this.
there is never winning a war, a treaty is always brokered, their is reconciliation or their is anialation, there is nothing in bewteen
Awright!
:)
somebody must make A VERY LARGE STRAIGHT JACKET ,for UNKA DICK stat,that Froomkin article,is truly frightening
“Victory” in Iraq.
Lessee, an Iraq that is an ally, politically unified, democratic, peaceful, stable, economically viable, precisely calibrated to be militarily strong enough to defend itself yet not too strong so that it would constitute an aggressor threat in the region and beyond.
Yeah, we’re gonna bring all that about in my lifetime.
Right.
It’s sort of in keeping with the theme of this post, the myth of the eternal enemy. It’s not this Administration’s mistakes and misdeeds that are dragging us down. It’s that there are enemies out there doing this to us. First, it was Osama, and then it was Saddam, and now its Ahmadinejad. Yes, these guys are thugs and anti-American but mostly they are props for this Administration’s quest for endless war because as the Yoo memo argued war gives power without limit to the President and endless war does so endlessly. In short, if Iran did not exist, they would have to invent it.
Win a war. Oxymoron if ever I heard one.
No one wins in a war. Some may lose more than others but war is all about loss. I only lost three of my five children in the war but my neighbor and his family was totally wiped out. How is this a win? Take one of my daughters away and I am not a winner because I have one left. I lost. I lost my daughter.
Sophie’s Choice was not about winning. Thus the conclusion.
who needs INSIDER INFORMATION…when they create their own markets
ok im depressed,the media will not intervene
is this the WAPO article today?
I would also say re my comment at 83. Add in Cheney’s paranoia and his and Bush’s vindictiveness. Throw in the millennialist ravings of the neocons that if we bomb them they will love us and become stable democracies. Stir in a heaping of pro-Israel fundamentalism. Pour in a good measure of oil, and you have the poisonous brew of our Middle East policies.
yes
look at this: from americablog
Did Bush just say he doesn’t (or didn’t) think Iraq was worth it?
by John Aravosis (DC) · 4/11/2008 01:47:00 PM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Make a comment · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!
From ABC:
Though there were concerns during much of last year that Iraq was heading toward civil war, Bush says that he often reiterated his confidence in U.S. “victory” for the sake of the troops.
“That’s as much to try and bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well — you can’t have the commander-in-chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing that either it’s not worth it or you’re losing. What does that do for morale?” Bush said.
So Bush wasn’t confident of victory? And he didn’t say that Iraq wasn’t worth it, or that we were losing, because that would hurt the morale of the troops, rather than not saying it because it wasn’t true. Kind of like saying “I denied I had an affair because it would have hurt my wife to say otherwise.” No, you denied you had an affair because you didn’t have an affair. The only person who comes up with the previous excuse is someone who knows he was lying. So Bush is basically saying that he thought we were losing and that it wasn’t worth it. But he kept wasting our money, and letting our troops be injured and killed, so that he didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Well, that would be the feelings of the troops who survived.
im very upset about Pelosis meek respnse yesterday
ahhh…thanks for reminding me of the incentive for endless war.
So IOW we’ll just hopscotch our way to any old scary lookin’ country with a less than popular leader. Whoops, we were about to succeed (I won’t say “win”) in Afghanistan until Rumsfeld intervened to transfer the threat to Iraq. We’re all just so tired of Iraq and everyone can see how pointless it is, so we’ll transfer our reason for war powers to Iran. We’ve never liked them anyway.
Is that it? Again, sorry I’m so dense. I knew this but had forgotten it. It’s all about the war powers of the “president”. got it. got it.
…but so proud of Jackie Speier! What a debut!
The Associated Press confirms and expands on ABC News’s blockbuster revelation Wednesday that top Bush aides, including Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement. (See yesterday’s column.)
if this doesn’t get the entire lot of them put up in front of a war tribunal I don’t know what would …
She needs a thousand tables delivered to her door. Is there no way to move fancynancy?
Oh yea…bring it on!
its bleak,im anxious!
Me, too and the Rs were rude enough to boo a new member of Congress. They have no class.
i just heard,Chuck Heston say (old interview) thank god for the atomic bomb,oy
pigs have more,
This all would have gone better if Chuck Hagel’s suggestion had been followed: Wolfowitz and Perle should have played “Airborne Ranger” and parachuted into Baghdad on the first day of the war.
Then if no one had followed, they could have just won by themselves. Right?
ps… Michael Yon: when do we get to the part about the candy and flowers again??
they are protected by the ENORMITY of their crimes imo
…- …- -.. — .- – ..- -.- -. — .– .– . .- .-. . ..- .. .- .- .. .- –. !
-.. ..-. …. !
Boy Jo with such language you might yourself banned from the Lake /S
It is possible, sadlyyes, that what you have disclosed regarding Congressional ‘interests’, explains Speaker Pelosi’s concern in better ‘managing’ the ‘war’. Perhaps the profits have been wrong, afterall?
But, isn’t it so much more romantic to postulate widespread, totally successful, ‘BLACKMAIL’?
Note: The preceeding snark is snark, except where it is not …
Also via Froomkin:
yup….just saw UnKKa Dicks tax return at Huffpo
The Cheneys donated $166,547 to charity in 2007, the White House said.,on >3,000,000,000.00 income….REAL SPORTS!
George W. Bush, according to AFP’s Olivier Knox:
Whew. I thought for a moment that Bush was describing his own policies in the Middle East.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20…..0410223446
h/t Dan Froomkin
That’s why Heston was the Omega Man.
GAS WILL BE 10dollars a gallon pretty soon imo
hahaha
sick old fukker….with a gun
You broke the “code”? LOL… Happy Friday. Now off to ship some more $$ to ExxonChevronMobilStandardUnionCitgo
sadlyyes at 46–do you have a link for that?
haven’t read all comments yet to see if you posted it later.
==
and dosido, epu’d–i wrote this to newshour about last night’s body slam by muller, since you left a link….i watched it last night. was a good boxing match.
–
Margaret Warner, as usual, did an excellent job with her troops report last night, Thursday April 10th…
However, I just heard that Col.(?) Ralph Peters is a policy advisor for the McCain campaign. If this is true, viewers should have been informed of that fact. And you missed a possible question for him– he kept using as his argument that he visits troops all over the country, in what capacity? He is retired. How is he getting access to bases to speak to troops? I would like an answer to that. And it wasn’t asked.
You did an excellent job keeping the intense interview on topic, however I think in doing that, you missed the big fish when Col. Peters kept mentioning his visits to bases. He wasn’t talking about hospitals, where the public can go, he said bases, restricted to the public, he used that point over and over again. He’s retired and acted like he was just a concerned citizen, unless I missed something in his introduction.
Bobby Muller, I could listen to him for hours. Sticks to the facts. And there are a lot of facts that aren’t getting aired. Please have him back as a guest. Hope Bill Moyers finds out about him, too.
Really enjoyed him. Was informed by him.
Sincerely,
D
Athens, Ohio
I didn’t know that. Hmm.