Is THIS what conservatives mean when they boast about American 'exceptionalism'?

I missed this yesterday.

I don't want you to think you made some kind of point I could not argue with, and that is the reason I did not respond.

Listen you phony 'classic liberal' lying sack of shit. I was saying the same things back in 2002 and 2003, from the beginning of Bush's lying intel run-up to his Hirohito sneak attack in 2003, before anyone knew who Barack Obama was.

You know how you can tell when you are losing an argument?

When you resort to name calling and profanity.

Condemning atrocities are not enough. It's TOO LATE. Intelligent people understand that atrocities IS the definition of war.

Really?

Let me get this straight.

When the Nez Perce attempted to leave the country and move to Canada because the people that were invading their land where killing them, that was the definition of atrocity.

Glad to know where you stand.

Yea, this is just like NOW all the 'conservatives' SAY they spoke out against Bush spending like a drunken sailor. Many, many, many more liberals than conservatives were against the immoral invasion of Iraq, Gitmo and torture.

Why was it immoral? Just because you did not like it, or was it immoral because Bush lied, even though he didn't? By the way, even if it was immoral, it was both legal, and justified, under the UN imposed terms after the first Gulf War.

I spent many a nights arguing with conservatives and Republicans on other message boards all during the war, I was called every name in the book, from anti-American, bleeding heart, liberal wimp, to being a traitor because I was against the invasion of Iraq, Gitmo and torture & I spoke out against atrocities that occurred. I can count on one hand the conservatives over all those years who were against the war.

You need a tissue?

Here is something I posted a number of years ago after 'Shock & Awe' and then the 'Mission accomplished' fiasco...why don't you show me how YOU spoke out you fucking windbag?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Just shock, no awe

The people of America looked on in AWE from the comfort of their homes.

The people of Iraq sought comfort from the SHOCK and grief of searching the rubble for remnants of their homes and loved ones!

America’s billion dollar war machine annihilated Iraq’s military; sons and fathers forced to serve under a man they had no allegiance to. But, we gave them a choice; their executioner: the US war machine or Saddam.

But even with billion dollar war machines, there are the residuals: innocent mothers, children, infants, nieces and nephews, neighbors, teachers, store owners and bus drivers. Every Iraqi lost someone they loved or knew.

NOW Americans wonder WHY the people of Iraq didn’t place flowers in the end of our rifles. We were told this would be a “cakewalk” and we would be welcomed as liberators!

We destroyed ANY chance of success in Iraq when we wiped out the Iraq Army. THEY WERE the trained security the government of Iraq can not provide.

I could make up a quote if I wanted to, but why bother? That has absolutely nothing to do with what we are discussing.

I recall the sickening images of human beings being blown to 1000 pieces by helicopter cannons. AWE!! America says. WE ARE good at this killing stuff. Americans wondered if X-BOX 360 will come out with THIS game in time for junior’s Christmas.

Would you have felt better seeing videos of Saddam using chemical weapons on his own people? Is the problem here that we are so good at killing, or that he was?

Maybe the President can send his mother to smooth things over. "They're underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them"

I suppose you think that is witty.

Now a million good citizens of Iraq flee at a rate of 3,000 per day!!! (AP)

This horrible war and conditions that were BETTER under Saddam drive them from their homeland!


”Mission accomplished?”

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, they were so much better off under a government that was arbitrary, existed only to line the pockets of a single family, and routinely tortured anyone who disagreed with it.

I think it’s just crazy. It's part of that worldview that led us to where we are. Think about it. The United States went and negotiated with and supported Saddam Hussein himself against Iran under this notion that sometimes my enemy is my friend. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. That emboldened Saddam Hussein and allowed him to invade Kuwait. It made us go to war that we did not finish and did not take Saddam Hussein out.
Former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) 12/11/06 (The Hill)

Maybe we should institute a dictatorship rather than being handicapped by a democracy where the foreign policy changes based on who sits in the Oval Office. Would a consistent hatred of everyone who offends you be more palatable?
 
Last edited:
How did you get what you said out of what he said, which was, "Took the "initiative" in creating the Internet"?

I get that because I would mock Bush if he said the same thing. Since you would be the first in line for mocking Bush for this, but somehow think Gore deserves a pass, you loose.
 
The blue line? WTF is wrong with you? What are you saying, he should adhere to some 'collectivist' code??? I guess that whole 'individual responsibility' mantra is just BULLSHIT dripping out of your mouth, eh asshole? I don't care what branch of the military it is or isn't. Those men & women represent you, me and our country. Joe Darby saw human beings being tortured and abused and the man did the RIGHT thing. You are really a scum bag, not a wind bag.

I am the guy that gets a shitload from conservatives almost every time I mention police because I think they need to be reigned in, and now I am saying that they are right to have a code where the bad cops should keep quiet.

Right.

Grow up and start acting like an adult, and people might start respecting your opinion. Keep mouthing off because people who essentially agree with you call you on your factual errors and everyone will continue to treat you like the child you portray.

Pointing out your factual errors is not supporting the people you are attempting to dump on, it is just defending the people who did not do what you are talking about. Or do you have a problem with not smearing everyone with the same brush?

Go back, read my post, and point out anywhere where I spoke out against the man who reported the abuse, or even spoke up in support of the people who abused those prisoners. If you can find it I will retract what I said. If you cannot, I would like an apology. I do not expect one, but I would like one.

I will take your failure to point out where I said anything like you think I said as an admission that I did not say it, just in case you pull the typical position and refuse to mention this again.

Yep.

He ratted out a bunch of cops who were breaking the law, and is a pariah because of it. He crossed the Blue Line.


Nice of you to blame this on the Army though. Being the person you are, you probably haven't educated yourself to the extent that you would know that the regular Army thinks that reserve units are their biggest problem in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The worst are the ones that are police officers in civilian life, because they are trained to think like cops instead of soldiers. Do a little research on the militarization of police before you blame the Army for what cops did.]

Spc. Joe Darby
United States Army

It sure as hell looks like you are calling out Army Spc. Joe Darby, who followed the proper chain of command reporting the torture and abuse. And that Darby crossed the blue line. If that is not what you are saying then you have my apology.

BUT, I don't agree with you passing the buck here. It's an Army officer's duty to keep everyone under their command in line. If not, there is chaos, lawlessness and men & women that want to do the right thing are not safe from retribution. I believe the biggest travesty with the Abu Ghraib crimes is that no one in a command position was held responsible.

Your article about the abuses of reserve units and people who in their civilians lives were law enforcement is A) an indictment of the growing number of 'thugs with badges' we have in America and B) those abuses pale in comparison to private murderers like Blackwater, who are not bound to US law or Iraqi law. They ARE a Gestapo.

It does?

Please spell out how you jump to that conclusion when what I am clearly doing is mocking your assertion that the Army had anything to do with this, or that any active member of the Army threatened him. I will admit that it is possible that some members of the regular Army might have had issues with what he did, but the reason he cannot go home is he ratted out cops, not soldiers.

What I am doing here, since you seem to have trouble following basic logic, is explaining what happened. I am still awaiting either an apology for you saying I oppose what he did, or support those who threatened him. Failing that, you can just run away with your tail tucked between your legs.
 
I am the guy that gets a shitload from conservatives almost every time I mention police because I think they need to be reigned in, and now I am saying that they are right to have a code where the bad cops should keep quiet.

Right.

Grow up and start acting like an adult, and people might start respecting your opinion. Keep mouthing off because people who essentially agree with you call you on your factual errors and everyone will continue to treat you like the child you portray.

Pointing out your factual errors is not supporting the people you are attempting to dump on, it is just defending the people who did not do what you are talking about. Or do you have a problem with not smearing everyone with the same brush?

Go back, read my post, and point out anywhere where I spoke out against the man who reported the abuse, or even spoke up in support of the people who abused those prisoners. If you can find it I will retract what I said. If you cannot, I would like an apology. I do not expect one, but I would like one.

I will take your failure to point out where I said anything like you think I said as an admission that I did not say it, just in case you pull the typical position and refuse to mention this again.

Yep.

He ratted out a bunch of cops who were breaking the law, and is a pariah because of it. He crossed the Blue Line.


Nice of you to blame this on the Army though. Being the person you are, you probably haven't educated yourself to the extent that you would know that the regular Army thinks that reserve units are their biggest problem in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The worst are the ones that are police officers in civilian life, because they are trained to think like cops instead of soldiers. Do a little research on the militarization of police before you blame the Army for what cops did.]

Spc. Joe Darby
United States Army

It sure as hell looks like you are calling out Army Spc. Joe Darby, who followed the proper chain of command reporting the torture and abuse. And that Darby crossed the blue line. If that is not what you are saying then you have my apology.

BUT, I don't agree with you passing the buck here. It's an Army officer's duty to keep everyone under their command in line. If not, there is chaos, lawlessness and men & women that want to do the right thing are not safe from retribution. I believe the biggest travesty with the Abu Ghraib crimes is that no one in a command position was held responsible.

Your article about the abuses of reserve units and people who in their civilians lives were law enforcement is A) an indictment of the growing number of 'thugs with badges' we have in America and B) those abuses pale in comparison to private murderers like Blackwater, who are not bound to US law or Iraqi law. They ARE a Gestapo.

It does?

Please spell out how you jump to that conclusion when what I am clearly doing is mocking your assertion that the Army had anything to do with this, or that any active member of the Army threatened him. I will admit that it is possible that some members of the regular Army might have had issues with what he did, but the reason he cannot go home is he ratted out cops, not soldiers.

What I am doing here, since you seem to have trouble following basic logic, is explaining what happened. I am still awaiting either an apology for you saying I oppose what he did, or support those who threatened him. Failing that, you can just run away with your tail tucked between your legs.

After reading your last two posts it is crystal clear that you are not a classic liberal. Why do you need to lie? Are you so ashamed of being a right wing authoritarian follower?

The reason Joe Darby couldn't go home is because of sickness that has overcome this country. It is similar to the sickness that permeated Germany in the 20's and 30's. It is a group of nationalists who call themselves 'patriots', but they are really enemies of America. They find ways to justify immoral wars, torture of human beings and turn on any countryman that doesn't subscribe to their sickness. You just revealed you are one of them.

Joe Darby interview

But he didn't get support back home in Cumberland, Md., a military town that felt Darby had betrayed his fellow soldiers.

The commander of the local VFW post, Colin Engelbach, told 60 Minutes what people were calling Darby.

"He was a rat. He was a traitor. He let his unit down. He let his fellow soldiers down and the U.S. military. Basically he was no good," Engelbach says.

Asked if he agrees with that, Engelbach says, "I agree that his actions that he did were no good and borderline traitor, yes."

"What he says in his defense is 'Look. I’m an MP. And this is something which was illegal,'" Cooper remarks.

"Right. But do you put the enemy above your buddies? I wouldn’t," Engelbach replies.

Their hometown held a vigil for members of his unit, including the accused, not however, for Joe Darby.

"These were people who knew me since I was born. These were people who were my parents' friends, my grandparents' friends that turned against me," Darby says.

To prevent any soldiers from retaliating against him in Iraq, the military sent Darby back to the states early, ahead of the rest of his unit.

"I get called into my commander's office at like ten o'clock at night. He said, 'Do you have your bags packed?' I said 'Sir, we live in a tent. I always have my bags packed.' He said 'Good. Be on the flight line. In an hour you leave,'" Darby recalls.

When Darby arrived at Dover Air Force Base, his wife Bernadette was there to meet him. He thought they would head back home, but the Army had other plans.

An officer asked Darby what he wanted to do. "I said, 'Sir, I just want to go home. I've always just wanted to go home.' He said, 'Well son, that's not an option.' He said, 'The Army Reserve has done a security assessment of the area and it's not safe for you there. You can't go home,'" Darby remembers. "'You can probably never go home.'"

"They said, 'If you had to choose, where would you want to live?' And you know basically where do you pick, you know? You've lived a whole life in one area," he says.

Asked if it seemed fair to him, Darby says, "No."

"It's not fair. That we're being punished for him doin' the right thing," his wife Bernadette adds.

The Army's security assessment of his hometown had concluded that "the overall threat of harassment or criminal activity to the Darbys is imminent. …a person could fire into his residence from the roadway."

The local VFW commander told Cooper the military was right to keep Darby out of town. "Probably so. There was a lot of threats, a lotta phone calls to his wife," Engelbach remembers.

He says there was a lot of anger in Cumberland. "‘Cause it really did put our troops in harm’s way more so than they already were," Engelbach says.

Bernadette Darby says she heard people calling her husband a traitor, that he was a dead man and that he was walking around with a bull's eye on his head.

To keep Joe and Bernadette safe, the military moved them to an Army base with body guards around the clock. "I couldn't go anywhere without security. Nowhere," Darby remembers.

"Even goin' to a restaurant?" Cooper asks.

"We walk in with, me and her and six guys?" Darby says, laughing. "And all of 'em are armed."

Darby says he was protected by bodyguards for almost six months.

While he was a villain to his neighbors, he was a hero to people he had never met, including Caroline Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, who gave him a "Profile In Courage" award in honor of President John F. Kennedy.

Joe left the Army recently, and he misses it. He and Bernadette miss their hometown as well. They say they'll never move back to Cumberland. Instead they've moved on, but they are still wary.

All Darby will say is that they have started over. He doesn't want to share what he does now, where he lives or talk about his family. "I worry about the one guy who wants to get even with me," he explains. "And that one guy could hurt me and my family."
Asked if this has made him paranoid, Darby says, "To a degree."

And some relatives from both sides of the family have turned against him and his wife.

“Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality”
President John F. Kennedy
 
After reading your last two posts it is crystal clear that you are not a classic liberal. Why do you need to lie? Are you so ashamed of being a right wing authoritarian follower?

Oh no, my life is ruined. The resident expert on liberals has declared that I do not know what I believe.

:eusa_whistle:

The reason Joe Darby couldn't go home is because of sickness that has overcome this country. It is similar to the sickness that permeated Germany in the 20's and 30's. It is a group of nationalists who call themselves 'patriots', but they are really enemies of America. They find ways to justify immoral wars, torture of human beings and turn on any countryman that doesn't subscribe to their sickness. You just revealed you are one of them.

People can justify, or rationalize, anything. no one has to search for ways to do so, it is a part of human nature. Theologians have a name for this, it is called the sin nature. (Some ignorant people think it is because of original sin.) None of this surprises anyone who studies human nature, so you pretending that you have had some incredible insight is just pathetic.

Joe Darby interview

But he didn't get support back home in Cumberland, Md., a military town that felt Darby had betrayed his fellow soldiers.

We already talked about this. repeating the same thing over and over is a sign of weakness, and a poor debating technique. Do you think people will suddenly get a flash of insight if you say the same thing enough?

The commander of the local VFW post, Colin Engelbach, told 60 Minutes what people were calling Darby.

"He was a rat. He was a traitor. He let his unit down. He let his fellow soldiers down and the U.S. military. Basically he was no good," Engelbach says.

Asked if he agrees with that, Engelbach says, "I agree that his actions that he did were no good and borderline traitor, yes."

Yep, some people thought he was wrong. Do you have a new point to make, or are you just incapable of original thought?

"What he says in his defense is 'Look. I’m an MP. And this is something which was illegal,'" Cooper remarks.

"Right. But do you put the enemy above your buddies? I wouldn’t," Engelbach replies.

He is right. Unfortunately, people are self centered jerks. Why don't you do something about it besides whine?

Their hometown held a vigil for members of his unit, including the accused, not however, for Joe Darby.

"These were people who knew me since I was born. These were people who were my parents' friends, my grandparents' friends that turned against me," Darby says.

If the guy thought he would be a hero to his friends he was even dumber than you. Human nature, and the current culture, views ratting people out very negatively.

To prevent any soldiers from retaliating against him in Iraq, the military sent Darby back to the states early, ahead of the rest of his unit.

"I get called into my commander's office at like ten o'clock at night. He said, 'Do you have your bags packed?' I said 'Sir, we live in a tent. I always have my bags packed.' He said 'Good. Be on the flight line. In an hour you leave,'" Darby recalls.

When Darby arrived at Dover Air Force Base, his wife Bernadette was there to meet him. He thought they would head back home, but the Army had other plans.

An officer asked Darby what he wanted to do. "I said, 'Sir, I just want to go home. I've always just wanted to go home.' He said, 'Well son, that's not an option.' He said, 'The Army Reserve has done a security assessment of the area and it's not safe for you there. You can't go home,'" Darby remembers. "'You can probably never go home.'"

"They said, 'If you had to choose, where would you want to live?' And you know basically where do you pick, you know? You've lived a whole life in one area," he says.

Asked if it seemed fair to him, Darby says, "No."

Isn't it amazing how people do not want to take responsibility for their actions? Darby made a choice to do the right thing, there is a price for that. Maybe if more people did it the price would be less, but there is a price.

"It's not fair. That we're being punished for him doin' the right thing," his wife Bernadette adds.

The Army's security assessment of his hometown had concluded that "the overall threat of harassment or criminal activity to the Darbys is imminent. …a person could fire into his residence from the roadway."

The local VFW commander told Cooper the military was right to keep Darby out of town. "Probably so. There was a lot of threats, a lotta phone calls to his wife," Engelbach remembers.

He says there was a lot of anger in Cumberland. "‘Cause it really did put our troops in harm’s way more so than they already were," Engelbach says.

Bernadette Darby says she heard people calling her husband a traitor, that he was a dead man and that he was walking around with a bull's eye on his head.

To keep Joe and Bernadette safe, the military moved them to an Army base with body guards around the clock. "I couldn't go anywhere without security. Nowhere," Darby remembers.

"Even goin' to a restaurant?" Cooper asks.

"We walk in with, me and her and six guys?" Darby says, laughing. "And all of 'em are armed."

Darby says he was protected by bodyguards for almost six months.

While he was a villain to his neighbors, he was a hero to people he had never met, including Caroline Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, who gave him a "Profile In Courage" award in honor of President John F. Kennedy.

Ever wonder why Kennedy did not volunteer to put his hero up in his home? Could it be because he, like you, prefer to hide behind men of principle rather than put his own life on the line?

Joe left the Army recently, and he misses it. He and Bernadette miss their hometown as well. They say they'll never move back to Cumberland. Instead they've moved on, but they are still wary.

All Darby will say is that they have started over. He doesn't want to share what he does now, where he lives or talk about his family. "I worry about the one guy who wants to get even with me," he explains. "And that one guy could hurt me and my family."
Asked if this has made him paranoid, Darby says, "To a degree."

And some relatives from both sides of the family have turned against him and his wife.

“Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality”
President John F. Kennedy

It is amazing the way you toss around quotes thinking those prove something about your character. What really proves a man's character are his actions, not the words of others. What have you personally done to make Darby's life better, and to prevent others from hurting him?
 

New Topics

Forum List

Back
Top