Posts by Kyle Matthews
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I guess a better comparison was Gallipoli, where we were invading someone elses country.
Gallipoli as an 'away game' would be a good comparison to Iraq if there were thousands of Turks living there when we invaded and it got bogged down in a Civil War and infighting between Turkish factions.
And there was a heap of oil in the Dardenelles.
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I don't think you can slap the 'peer review' big boy on it either. There have been many studies with 'peer reviews' that have turned out to be less than credible.
Peer review is the best method we have for ascertaining that research is correct. It simply means having other people, who are experts in the field, looking at it and making sure that as much as possible, it is correct. It adds authority to any research done, the better the peers, the more authority generally. Of course it's not perfect, and the research and the peers could be wrong, but it's better than non-peer reviewed research.
I wish that the American government had got some peer review on their claims that Iraq had WMDs.
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U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.
Only vaguely related in a 'how stupidly funny is this' way:
Fema official regrets fake press conference
By the standards of Fema, the US government agency that notoriously botched the relief effort after Hurricane Katrina, the attempt at news management following the California wildfires seemed relatively benign. At least it didn't leave thousands of people stranded without food or shelter.
When no reporters showed up to a last-minute news conference on the fires last week, agency staff members simply asked the questions themselves.
Who'd have thought it, posts on how Iraq is a cesspool and James shows up with his pompoms!
If the US hadn't gone into Iraq, then I presume Al Qaeda would have put all their effort into beating the Yanks in Afghanistan, but so what? They had to be dealt with somewhere, and from the US' persepctive, it is better to play an away game than a home game.
I'm sure... wait Russell has posted the figures for me conveniently!... 650,000 deaths are happy that they got to host the 'home game'.
Because if Anton Oliver talking about how the All Black changing rooms smelt like death isn't OK, then I've got a fair feeling that thousands of deaths, displacement, violence, terror, occupation, civil war, disease and upheaval shouldn't really be written off as "Thank god we're not playing Fuck up the Middle East at the Superdome!" A bit repulsive even.
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I must stay away from PAS for a time as penance.
We'll time you. I've got 50 cents you won't last till tea time.
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Yeah, logisticly they could do it no problem but they know darn well what would happen if they pulled out. Absolute civil war. Massive civillian deaths (much worse than now). And that would (will) be on their heads.
I'm with what Ben said on this. I keep finding parallels in Iraq with Vietnam. What America is looking for now is "Peace with honor". They want to get it to a state where they can get out, take a photo, say things are OK, and then what happens over the next 10, 20, 50 years, not their problem, as it was OK when they left.
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Meanwhile, from this blog post on the stoush, an amazing Indymedia link.
Truly. Barking. Mad.
If the person wasn't arguing so hard you'd think they were just drunk and having some fun.
Apparently they're just not sane enough to be allowed on the internet.
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So here was a person arrested on gun charges but then detained on evidence inadmissible under our gun laws but admissible for denying bail for charges under the gun laws. Confused? I was.
That's really interesting. The fact that it's written by Minto has me less all over it than if it was written by a journalist, but still...
I'm with Craig on wondering what Helen Clark was on when she started on that napalm and molotov cocktails bent. And on whoever is giving Key good advice to keep his head under the parapet. I suspect the Maori party could do OK out of this, because they police case is looking shaky and they're protecting 'their people', who will reward them for it if it turns out not to be a big terrorist conspiracy, Greens I think are possibly going to lose mainstream non-activist support (possibly through no fault of their own, just through association), and Labour will be spewing if the police case falls over. Winston Peters will... dammit, can people stop electing that moron?
But every moron in the Green and Maori parties as well as various self important left wing activists have spouted a lot of very stupid and inflammatory BS on this issue so I’m not about to criticise Clark for putting them in their place.
I don't have a list of the morons in the above parties, because I'm not a member. But there's a bunch of morons everywhere who have opened their mouth on this, and I've heard a bunch of left-wing activists and members of those parties say some quite reasonable and sensible things on the issue. The Greens for example, have sensibly kept Sue Bradford away from it and put Keith Locke out in front and pushed the issue of the amendments to the TSA.
Personally I can see where Minto was coming from with his letter to Trotter. Chris Trotter seems as much interested these days as keeping his income as a columnist/political commentator/writer etc, rather than actually being left wing.
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I'm glad you provided a link for that Brent, otherwise I never could have made the link between being below sea level, and having lots of wind.
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But seriously Craig: do you really believe the Maori Party's written claim that the police operation is a conscious attack directed by the Labour government against all Maori? Don't you find that even a little bit crazy?
I think it's pretty far out there, and I'm not aware of any evidence of it.
And I think if it proved to be true, then we'd have our own little mini-watergate. Ruatoki-gate so to speak.
(If the media ends up using "Ruatoki-gate", I want $10 per use assuming I'm first.).
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She hasn't to my knowledge, to be fair, I was trying to get a left/right and gender balance for my list... :) Feel free to disregard.
Ah, an equal opportunity idiot list. How very PC, while also not.