Yet another Democrat sucking up to a murdering dictator

[ProfJohn]

You guys need to read some Kissinger books about Geo-politics.

We used both Mao and Saddam as tools against other enemies that were a greater threat to our well being. Russia and Iran were far greater threats to our long term political goals than China or Iraq were. It was a smart move in both cases.

Syria is a different story though because we have nothing to gain by be friending Assad.
1. He is one of the main reasons Lebanon remains a total mess.
2. His support of Hezbollah and their actions destabilizes the entire middle east and prevent long term Israel Palestinian by creating the idea that Palestinians can win via armed conflict.
3. His fingers prints are all over the deaths of hundreds of Americans during the Iraq War.
4. He is Iran's largest and most important ally.

Removing him and his regime from power would be a huge step in the right direction towards a peaceful middle east.

And yet here is Mr Kucinich showing up and legitimizing his rule, great job Dennis.

 

[BoomerD]

You guys need to read some Kissinger books about Geo-politics.

We used both Mao and Saddam as tools against other enemies that were a greater threat to our well being. Russia and Iran were far greater threats to our long term political goals than China or Iraq were. It was a smart move in both cases.

Syria is a different story though because we have nothing to gain by be friending Assad.
1. He is one of the main reasons Lebanon remains a total mess.
2. His support of Hezbollah and their actions destabilizes the entire middle east and prevent long term Israel Palestinian by creating the idea that Palestinians can win via armed conflict.
3. His fingers prints are all over the deaths of hundreds of Americans during the Iraq War.
4. He is Iran's largest and most important ally.

Removing him and his regime from power would be a huge step in the right direction towards a peaceful middle east.

And yet here is Mr Kucinich showing up and legitimizing his rule, great job Dennis.

Professional John, if Iran was such a terrible threat to us, why did the Iran-Contra affair even happen? Shouldn't that thread have precluded us from doing any business with them?
Not only was Iran an embargoed nation for the US, the administration was barred by the US Congress from funding the Contras...TWO clear violations of US law...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Contra_affair

During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo.[2] Some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.

 

[ProfJohn]

why did the Iran-Contra affair even happen?

Because Republicans started thinking like Democrats i.e. if we just talk to them then they will like us...

 

[BoomerD]

because republicans started thinking like democrats i.e. If we just talk to them then they will like us...

ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!

 

[umbrella39]

But, But, But the <fill in the blank>

Perhaps a career in moving goal posts is in order?

 

[ProfJohn]

Let's try to stay on topic which is a Democrat congressman making a propaganda tape for Syria.

 

[BoomerD]

Let's try to stay on topic which is a Democrat congressman making a propaganda tape for Syria.

Ah...the old "If we do it, it's OK, but when you do it, it's wrong" dodge...I get it now.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Let's try to stay on topic

We are, the topic being you constantly posting misleading posts and then not being able to defend them. And doing this on a daily basis for a long period of time. Does always being wrong bother you? Perhaps it should motivate you to try harder and actually post accurately?

There are plenty of links to articles about this that people have posted.

And there are plenty of times D's and R's have supported dictators over the history of the US, so what is your point?

Do you have some magical glasses that block out all R's that do this, so you can claim that only D's do? LOL. Talk about no objectivity.

 

[ayabe]

Still haven't seen any evidence of him apologizing or making excuses for Assad. I am also a little disappointed in my left-ish bros on here automatically accepting that narrative.

He called it as he sees it and Assad has pledged to work towards the requested reforms - they have changed their tune completely. Calling him a vicious murderer and insisting that he step down isn't going to help the Syrian people - because he won't and further meddling by us is going to push him towards cracking down again.

Those are the facts.

 

[werepossum]

I will not meddle in the affairs of leprechauns.

LOL!

Kucinich is a piece of shit. Why is he Jane-Fonda-ing it up with Bashar al-Assad? And what do his far-left fans think of this?

Let's look at our progressive check list:
Strong central government? Check. Assad, like all dictators, has a very strong central government.

Government health care? Yes, the Ba'ath Party places a high value on health care, second only to maintaining power, supporting the take-over of Lebanon, funding terrorists to kill Jews and other infidels . . .

Socialism? Yes, or at least what Assad terms as socialism. Legal parties are: National Progressive Front, which includes Arab Socialist Renaissance (Ba'th) Party [President Bashar al-ASAD]; Socialist Unionist Democratic Party [Fadlallah Nasr Al-DIN]; Syrian Arab Socialist Union or ASU [Safwan al-QUDSI]; Syrian Communist Party (two branches) [Wissal Farha BAKDASH, Yusuf Rashid FAYSAL]; Syrian Social Nationalist Party [As'ad HARDAN]; and the Unionist Socialist Party [Fayez ISMAIL].) No conservatives allowed!

Christianity? Only 10&#37;.

America-hater? Yes, including widespread government support of terrorists.

Jew-hater? Yes, a primary sponsor of anti-Jewish terrorists.

Opponent of Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Ya gotta ask?

Why on Earth would Kucinich's far-left fans object to his palling around with Assad when the guy presides over a progressive wonderland. Besides, he promises he's going to stop killing protesters and enact some reform any day now.

 

[fskimospy]

LOL!


Let's look at our progressive check list:
Strong central government? Check. Assad, like all dictators, has a very strong central government.

Government health care? Yes, the Ba'ath Party places a high value on health care, second only to maintaining power, supporting the take-over of Lebanon, funding terrorists to kill Jews and other infidels . . .

Socialism? Yes, or at least what Assad terms as socialism. Legal parties are: National Progressive Front, which includes Arab Socialist Renaissance (Ba'th) Party [President Bashar al-ASAD]; Socialist Unionist Democratic Party [Fadlallah Nasr Al-DIN]; Syrian Arab Socialist Union or ASU [Safwan al-QUDSI]; Syrian Communist Party (two branches) [Wissal Farha BAKDASH, Yusuf Rashid FAYSAL]; Syrian Social Nationalist Party [As'ad HARDAN]; and the Unionist Socialist Party [Fayez ISMAIL].) No conservatives allowed!

Christianity? Only 10%.

America-hater? Yes, including widespread government support of terrorists.

Jew-hater? Yes, a primary sponsor of anti-Jewish terrorists.

Opponent of Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Ya gotta ask?

Why on Earth would Kucinich's far-left fans object to his palling around with Assad when the guy presides over a progressive wonderland. Besides, he promises he's going to stop killing protesters and enact some reform any day now.

/facepalm

 

[Macamus Prime]

You mean like, Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican?

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/04/inhofe_hearts_african_dictator.php

Good job, you disease minded slime.

 

[woolfe9999]

LOL!


Let's look at our progressive check list:
Strong central government? Check. Assad, like all dictators, has a very strong central government.

Government health care? Yes, the Ba'ath Party places a high value on health care, second only to maintaining power, supporting the take-over of Lebanon, funding terrorists to kill Jews and other infidels . . .

Socialism? Yes, or at least what Assad terms as socialism. Legal parties are: National Progressive Front, which includes Arab Socialist Renaissance (Ba'th) Party [President Bashar al-ASAD]; Socialist Unionist Democratic Party [Fadlallah Nasr Al-DIN]; Syrian Arab Socialist Union or ASU [Safwan al-QUDSI]; Syrian Communist Party (two branches) [Wissal Farha BAKDASH, Yusuf Rashid FAYSAL]; Syrian Social Nationalist Party [As'ad HARDAN]; and the Unionist Socialist Party [Fayez ISMAIL].) No conservatives allowed!

Christianity? Only 10&#37;.

America-hater? Yes, including widespread government support of terrorists.

Jew-hater? Yes, a primary sponsor of anti-Jewish terrorists.

Opponent of Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Ya gotta ask?

Why on Earth would Kucinich's far-left fans object to his palling around with Assad when the guy presides over a progressive wonderland. Besides, he promises he's going to stop killing protesters and enact some reform any day now.

This is one of your more partisan and disengenuous posts. Progressives don't believe in dictatorships. Cut the crap.

The problem with many far left progressives is that their ultra-dovish and anti-war attitude leads them to blame America for almost everything, and they end up getting into bed with people who they would not support if they came to power here. Consider the jihadists versus progressives who often make excuses for them:

Treatment of women? No.
Treatment of homosexuals? No.
Separation of church and state? Emphatically NO.
Support for literacy and education? No.

The list goes on and on. There is essentially nothing about jihadists, other than the fact that they blame the US for all the world's ills, that progressives agree with. By arguing that the progressives are the same or similar to our enemies, you are not only being dishonest, but you're denying the real heart of the problem, which is a contradiction in progressive logic.

The progressives have a problem with this, but it isn't what you claim it is.

- wolf

 

[cliftonite]

thread title is about sucking up to a dictator.
90% of the op is about sucking up to a dictator.
3 lines are about the lack of media attention.

Only four responses so far has addressed what kucinich said. Two of them apologized or tried to deflect and two of were concerned with what he said (woofe) being one of them.

But the vast majority of posters in this thread have completely ignored what kucinich said and instead focused on the side show issue.

its the mediiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

 

[nobodyknows]

We are, the topic being you constantly posting misleading posts and then not being able to defend them. And doing this on a daily basis for a long period of time. Does always being wrong bother you? Perhaps it should motivate you to try harder and actually post accurately?

There are plenty of links to articles about this that people have posted.

And there are plenty of times D's and R's have supported dictators over the history of the US, so what is your point?

Do you have some magical glasses that block out all R's that do this, so you can claim that only D's do? LOL. Talk about no objectivity.

LOL, tell a lie often enough and people will believe it.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

LOL, tell a lie often enough and people will believe it.

You mean PJ's lies? That's the problem. He posts them daily.

 

[ProfJohn]

Still haven't seen any evidence of him apologizing or making excuses for Assad. I am also a little disappointed in my left-ish bros on here automatically accepting that narrative.

He called it as he sees it and Assad has pledged to work towards the requested reforms - they have changed their tune completely. Calling him a vicious murderer and insisting that he step down isn't going to help the Syrian people - because he won't and further meddling by us is going to push him towards cracking down again.

Those are the facts.

Speaking about the violence that has taken place:

Kucinich: Any time you have ferment in a nation. Anytime you have masses of people coming together, there is always the possibility that someone may have an agenda that is different than most of the opposition, and that may be an agenda that is different from the government’s. So one must be aware of the possibilities. I don’t have any information about this, but it’s something that is a cautionary thing, just to be aware of, that is always possible. One must be aware, so that when you see events unfold, you know if there’s anything… if there is any catalyst for an event that could not have been predicted because it is like a third party intervention.

Reporter: It caters to a different agenda.

Congressman Kucinich: Yes, and so we have to be aware of that, that it is possible. Do I know that it happened? No, I don’t know that. That is why you have an investigation, in Syria, that the government has supported, to find out how the violence occurred.

Kucinich is essentially helping Assad to cover up the violence with these statements.


To the Syrian people Kucinich is not a nut job congressman, but a representative of the US government. In their mind he speaks for America. Remember this is a totalitarian country. They don't have "Meet the Press" where people from both sides come on the air and debate topics. Instead they have "Meet the Dictator" where a member of the government comes on the air and tell the people what to believe.

Stop looking at this through the eyes of someone living in a country with freedom of press and think of it through the eyes of someone who is only given the government version of things.

 

[ProfJohn]

This is one of your more partisan and disengenuous posts. Progressives don't believe in dictatorships. Cut the crap.

Are you sure about that?

Kucinich in Syria
Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Danny Glover and Jimmy Carter have all visited or helped out Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez.
For years liberals have defended Castro and said all kinds of great things about.

I think it is more about socialism than dictatorship. These fools on the left seem to think that socialism creates this wonderful society where everyone is equal and the flowers bloom all year etc etc. Which is why they run around and support socialist dictators.

Of course not everyone on the left or all progressive support socialist dictators, but they are certainly out there and at least one strong supporter on this site.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Perhaps BoomerD or PJ will reply to this:

PJ quote (bold mine)

And where is the media? Sarah Palin screws up the story of Paul Revere and the media has an orgasm. A sitting congressman goes to Syria and says "the government is listening to the people" and it is hardly reported. Pathetic. And yet another example of the overwhelming naivete present among so many progressive liberals. "If we just talk to and engage with these people they'll change..."

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

10 seconds with Google news. Looks like over 2000 news articles. Hmmm...."hardly reported", riiiiiiight.

Even if half are not exactly about him, that is still 1000 articles. Yet another PJ thread troll.

 

[JS80]

Over 1600 articles

Does ignoring reality come naturally or is it something you've had to work at?

All on tier 2 media and blogs loliberals

 

[JS80]

Over 1600 articles

Does ignoring reality come naturally or is it something you've had to work at?

Palin = 11,000 and she's not even running for anything

 

[werepossum]

This is one of your more partisan and disengenuous posts. Progressives don't believe in dictatorships. Cut the crap.

The problem with many far left progressives is that their ultra-dovish and anti-war attitude leads them to blame America for almost everything, and they end up getting into bed with people who they would not support if they came to power here. Consider the jihadists versus progressives who often make excuses for them:

Treatment of women? No.
Treatment of homosexuals? No.
Separation of church and state? Emphatically NO.
Support for literacy and education? No.

The list goes on and on. There is essentially nothing about jihadists, other than the fact that they blame the US for all the world's ills, that progressives agree with. By arguing that the progressives are the same or similar to our enemies, you are not only being dishonest, but you're denying the real heart of the problem, which is a contradiction in progressive logic.

The progressives have a problem with this, but it isn't what you claim it is.

- wolf

I think progressives love dictatorships. You think progressives hate dictatorships, but flock to them (granted, only as long as they are sufficiently anti-American) because of "a contradiction in progressive logic." Unless you can explain why progressives consistently suffer this "contradiction in progressive logic", Occam's Razor suggests that I am correct. Granted, the anti-American aspect is necessary, but it cannot be sufficient in and of itself, simply because the vast majority of these dictatorships suffer the exact same problems with which progressives fault America, only in much greater proportion. I submit that progressives' love of centralized, powerful government and socialism is so strong that it overrides their distaste of the dictatorships' poor human rights, especially given that progressives find America to be equally bad.

There are only so many times one can support that which one purports to hate before others no longer believe in that hatred.

 

[hal2kilo]

I think progressives love dictatorships. You think progressives hate dictatorships, but flock to them (granted, only as long as they are sufficiently anti-American) because of "a contradiction in progressive logic." Unless you can explain why progressives consistently suffer this "contradiction in progressive logic", Occam's Razor suggests that I am correct. Granted, the anti-American aspect is necessary, but it cannot be sufficient in and of itself, simply because the vast majority of these dictatorships suffer the exact same problems with which progressives fault America, only in much greater proportion. I submit that progressives' love of centralized, powerful government and socialism is so strong that it overrides their distaste of the dictatorships' poor human rights, especially given that progressives find America to be equally bad.

There are only so many times one can support that which one purports to hate before others no longer believe in that hatred.

Wow, that took alot of words to spew what is basically stereotypical balderdash.

 

[woolfe9999]

I think progressives love dictatorships. You think progressives hate dictatorships, but flock to them (granted, only as long as they are sufficiently anti-American) because of "a contradiction in progressive logic." Unless you can explain why progressives consistently suffer this "contradiction in progressive logic", Occam's Razor suggests that I am correct. Granted, the anti-American aspect is necessary, but it cannot be sufficient in and of itself, simply because the vast majority of these dictatorships suffer the exact same problems with which progressives fault America, only in much greater proportion. I submit that progressives' love of centralized, powerful government and socialism is so strong that it overrides their distaste of the dictatorships' poor human rights, especially given that progressives find America to be equally bad.

There are only so many times one can support that which one purports to hate before others no longer believe in that hatred.

Progressives don't "love dictatorships." You couldn't prove that if your life depended on it; Dennis Kucinish, who is one progressive, not withstanding. Your Occam's razor is meaningless. There isn't sufficient, non-anecdotal empirical proof of it; and there is plenty of anecdotal proof to the contrary. What you are saying is too nonsensical to merit any further response than that. I could make outlandish, idiotic remarks about republicans to parrellel your logic, but I'm not going to stoop to this level. We could have a serious discussion about what is really going on with progressives here, but apparently not with you.


- wolf

 

[Arglebargle]

I'm pretty sure that historically American politicians supporting nasty dictators is a very bi-partisan affair.

This thread has a lot of 'When we do it, it is smart pragmatism. When they do it, it is a sign they are evile!' in it.