Tim Blair

Who'll have the honour of complaining to the ABC and to mediawatch?

It's a fowl lie.

Guys, a general question. Anyone have any insights into when we crossed over into 'bizaro world' when so many seem so determined to avoid the truth which is right in front of them?

There used to be down-to-earth common sense, which the average 'guy on the street' had. Now it seems its all too hard. So much easier to construct a dream world where the only baddies are those pesky old Americans we know so well.

That there might be a mysterious threat lurking just outside in the shadows, of such ferocity and savagery...yet seemingly so innocent...naaah...'I'll think about that tomorrow. After all tomorrow is another day'.

The Australian describes Jamal al-Harith as being released from camp X-ray in March this year.

Not bad, considering X-ray was closed on April 29, 2002.

Bruce:

I ask myself that same question a lot these days. I've been asking my Dad, about 80 years old, a lot of questions about his youth. His own father was a heavy-weight boxing champ and so there were a lot of old tales I wanted to write down. Dad served in WWII. This is from a 1945 letter he wrote from the Pacific theatre as a very young man just after the Japanese capitulated:

Several of them have faced the firing squad here. It’s not good enough for the blighters. They are making them work pretty hard, but it’s nothing to what our boys got from them. If they don’t keep them under the thumb we’ll be at war with them again in a few years time.

If we cut and run from Iraq and elsewhere, will these cretins just leave us alone? Dad's no scholar and he knew the answer to that 60 years ago. Common sense - it's not so common anymore.

Bruce, sometime after September 2001 a lot of brains seem to have melted. I think it is because the Left, having so emotionally invested themselves in the "American Arch-Villian" worldview, couldn't mentally comprehend the events of 9/11 and the aftermath.

Their minds simply collapsed, and they've been running on autopilot ever since.

Meanwhile in Washington...

"The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources."

Why on earth would they need a "defining statement on War?" They're a freaking NEWSPAPER. Their job is to report and select wire stories to run.
Sheesh!

Well, if Chalabi is a double agent, who is to say which side he was passing garbage to, and which side he was really working for? Maybe the raid on his house and the press coverage are just part of his cover.

I'm just sayin' is all. Based on the level of access and the qualify of information we all have, nobody commenting here is really in a position to say.

Nice off-topic post there, Jussi. Why don't you get your own blog if you are so concerned? Guys, don't fall for the change in subject. It will just lead you down the path of the troll.

Down the path of the troll- consume you, it will...

The loss of common sense and reality contact, plus this inability to think "around the corner" started years ago. I watched similar behavior while living in Chicago in the late 1980s. The phenomenon was pervasive amongst the democratic community there. It was quite disturbing to watch, and was one reason why I moved away from there.

The first major manifestation of this was in the democratic party response to the results of the 2000 presidential elections. That's when it went mainstream.

I really don't know what started it. But the 9/11 terrorist attacks simply accelerated the "left wing meltdown", much as Bruce describes.

Excuse me, and as Quentin described as well.

In answer to your question, it started somewhere about 1967, 68, or so. That's when a brutal totalitarian Marxist dictatarship (North Vietnam) was thought to be a better fate for South Vietnam than the corrupt bully-boys then running the south. (Corrupt bully-boys no worse than those in power at that time in, say, South Korea, or Spain, or Mexico).

And it was not through ignorance either. By the late 1960's it was well known what a Marxist regime brought a country: death in the millions, government engineered famine, "re-education" camps, more people dieing a violent death after the Marxist victory than died in the war that proceeded the Marxist victory. There was plenty of information available about what happened under Stalin, and Mao, and in eastern Europe. But the idiot left chose to completely ignore the available history, and what that signalled for South Vietnam if the North won.

The 2000 electrion was very important. I was undergrad at Michigan and living with 7 chicks. Some of them said they were moving to Canada if Bush won (I think they did get summer jobs in BC, but came back). One was furious that the democrats weren't doing more to make sure Gore won in a recount. I pointed out that the economy and job market were about to go to shit and the dems should just follow the rules and let Bush get in office so a republican would take the fall. I never expected him to handle things so well [not getting overly invovled beyond getting his tax cuts, Afghanistan, and Iraq]. Heh, I'll vote for Bush again probably for the reason I voted for him last time, I'll take a look at the budget proposals. But I just realized I'm more a "Anybody but Kerry" (and anti-'internationalize the war' no matter what the cost) kinda guy.

Having an early primary was a big mistake for the democrats (and being all radical). They made some dumb decisions and it'll cost them. They're stuck with Kerry now. If they switch, no one will ever trust a democrat again.

(maybe after the election Bush'll find a better alternative to Greenspan, of course probably won't matter anymore then. [I think we need someone a little quiker on the ball]).

And far off in the night, one could still hear:

Plastic turkey, keep on gobblin’
Left-wing media won’t you keep on lyin’ to meeee
Plastic turkey, keep on gobblin’
Left-wing media won’t you keep on lyin’ to me!

Do these people think any more? C'mon, take a few seconds to contemplate the absurd conspiracy theory they are pushing...apparently, the White House bought a top-quality fake plastic turkey, and flew it all the way to Iraq, just for a photo op.

Why would they do that? Why not just use a real turkey? How could it be kept secret with hundreds of soldiers there?

Ach, I feel like I need to take the blue (red?) pill and enter the real world.

Thanks all. Thanks Tim for more great analysis.

I think I'll go with 1968 as the turning point when the English-speaking media decided we would lose Vietnam (and brought this about, as I see clearly now), and the anarchic European baby-boomers decided to make war on their conservative parents.

But I remember anti-Americanism amongst British migrants before that. Even before the Vietnam war. Rather ungrateful and atavistic. Tommies jealous at how the Yanks got the girls.

My father, who was a teenager during WWII said to me at the time, 'Don't ever knock the Americans, Bruce, they saved us Aussies during the war'. And he told me how he witnessed the American planes with, I think, Gen Macarthur, arriving in Sydney just after the fall of Singapore which marked the end of 2 centuries of Pax Britanica, when Aussies thought they were doomed and were planning to flee to the hills. Amazing how easily people forgot all this.

Lest We Forget.

American friends, note that even after your nation's great sacrifice in WWII defending the freedom of Europeans, the gratitude was mixed with jealousy. Democrats who don't realise that the haters hate you all, regardless of what you do, are living in a dream.

Better to be respected, even feared, at least by your enemies.

From an American friend, thank you for your encouragement, Bruce.

But your statement "Better to be respected, even feared, at least by your enemies" is similar to what President Theodore Roosevelt once said: "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

In the world of today, I'd rephrase that as "Speak sternly and pack automatic weapons". That's about what it will take.

Quentin, the left does think. It's just that they don't think very well, and are probably locked into some sort of self-imposed mental loop that keeps them from accepting reality. A good smack along side the head won't help any. I wish it would, I'd grab a baseball bat for the extra leverage.

I recommend "Anti-Americanism" by Jean-Francois Revel. He says that Europeans have hated Americans for some time now and that the Iraq War is only a pretext for bringing it to the fore. The hatred is a product of weakness and envy and is a means to explain Europe's loss of status on the world stage.

Tim,

You're aware of Keith Suter also peddling the myth, right?

I thought we were talking about the turkey?

I can't tell the objective truth from my cave in the mines of Moria, but take a look at the
propaganda war and get used to this.

The turkey was plastic. Lost.
Wedding party massacre. Lost.
Bagdad prison snuff porno. Lost
Nick Berg video. Lost.*
War on Iraq. Lost.

War on terror. Bad shape. Must win. Concentrate.

Get with the program guys. Fight the war
that's still winnable. You need a pinko
leftist to tell you this? Move on.

Bob

"Drums. Drums in the deep. They are coming."

*Arab world only. Just 250 million people who
own half the worlds oil, and an unfair demographic of the worlds pissed off heavily
armed young men who will fight to the death because otherwise we will smear them with shit.

Could someone run Robert's comment through a translator?

Robbie, if one side of the argument is willing to lie and smear the other just to score a few political points, there's not much we can do.

We keep telling them there was no plastic turkey, or that the porn abuse video was a hoax but they won't believe it.

It turns out that Mr. Love is an idiot, who apparently thinks that the victims of the Saddam regime didn't exist because I didn't give any of their names.

Sorry Andrea, Bad tempered comment, and I think
we've crossed threads. I knew there was something about Doonesbury, and it just dissapeared.

Taking my own test as humble pie, name's of Saddam's victims, um, that Al-Sadr guy, and I only know him because his son's still around, and helping us prove what a great idea it is to martyr Shia clerics.

Let's try and agree. Plastic or not, it was
a show turkey. It was primped. Ever eaten in an
army barracks? Neither have I. I bet it's like school camp, where you don't get turkeys that look like that.

Bob

Bob rating D

Unrated post Andrea didn't like, DDDC.

Bob rating explained:

D Drunk
G Something to do with green
C Caffeinated

Bob, only fools post when drunk and stoned.

Yo, Bob, I've eaten in many mess halls. Army, Navy, Air Force. Yes, they do serve food like that, especially for holidays.

Now go turn yourself into a detox facility.

To get up to speed on the plastic turkey saga, it is necessary to read all threads pertaining to the plastic turkey at Tim’s December 2003, January 2004, February 2004, etc. archives. December was the Unforgettable Month, but the following months had their moments. At each month’s archive page, do a simple browswer search on the word “turkey” to find all the relevant threads. It is unfortunate that not all further articles linked from within those threads remain. The blog Deeds for instance is gone.

http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/2003_12.php
http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/2004_01.php
http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/2004_02.php
http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/2004_03.php
http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/2004_04.php

What about that repulsive toe rag The Age today.
Under a story entitled Dangers of Fundamental Religon, the gist of the article is about the dangers of, wait for it, Christianity!
What was that guy's name again? Nick er Borg, Birg, ah .... it's on the tip of my tounge.

Be kind, it's possible Bob is a sufferer from Huntington's Chorea or some other degenerative brain disease, or maybe he simply was dropped on his head as a baby.

Or he has been huffing cheap paint again.