DUMB BELL

If anyone else has already encountered this brainless troll, bell_3, you might have warned me about engaging in political melee with such an obviously defenseless opponent. I rely on you people to point out the truly useless thinkers. And yet, I forgive you guys. I just can't stay mad at you.

It has been awhile since I'd stepped over the threshold of 2 Way Street, and immediately I knew why. Over in one corner, LUMINOL had excreted some of his racist manure, and was happily smearing it over his body and licking his fingers. I wondered where S_LINK was. He crowed and burbled when Rep. John Murtha publicly discussed a massacre in Haditha over in Iraq. To LINK and his broiled brain, (the boy sniffs too much airplane glue and spraypaint assembling his model cars) Murtha was some kind of traitor for going public with the kinds of crimes that hurt every honest soldier, the kind of story the Bush cartel would love to cover up. (Like they tried to distort and cover up the stories of Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, and others) Now, of course, charges have been filed against at least 8 soldiers from the incident Murtha revealed. That's right, LINK, you assailed the honorable soldier who tore the cover off of the story Repubs would love to keep hidden. And it goes without saying, genuine soldiers don't want these crimes covered up. Only cowards do.

But instead of excoriating S_LINK, I ended up discussing Neoconservatism with bell_3. He possess the curious quality of being able to sound credible and knowledgable on subjects he has no understanding of. Let me give you the example we got stuck on. I explained to bell that the current crop of neoconservatives were characterized mainly by the idea that America should use its military power aggressively (through invasion or overt attack) to topple dictators and thereby engender the near miraculous birth of stable, western-friendly democracies. Now, any idiot (except apparently, bell, LUMINOL, Archie, Brute, etc) will tell you that that is mindbogglingly foolish, that the problems of invading a country, destroying large parts of it, the various factions, the insurgency likely to spring from the occupation, etc etc etc, means that these ridiculous neocon pipedreams have virtually no chance of success. And the adventure in Iraq has indeed failed, as we liberals predicted long before it began.

But none of that, true as it may be, was what bell got so ridiculously wrong. In an attempt to head off my clearly damaging explanation of Neoconservatism, bell actually was so completely moronic as to claim that ALL American foreign incursions after WWII were based on THE SAME IDEOLOGY, the one that I had explained above. Remember what I said before. Neocon invasions are done to TOPPLE DICTATORS, and designed to CREATE DEMOCRACY. bell_3 tried to foolishly claim that our interventions in South America as being based on the SAME IDEOLOGY!

This bell_3 is a pathetic and simplistic thinker, but even more than that, his own examples prove to be virtually the exact opposite of what Neoconservatism is. In South America, as well as in Africa, the US supported many right-wing dictators, even against popular and populist desire for change. In many cases, these dictators WE supported had roving death squads, which tortured and murdered enemies of the strongman. All this was done to stop the spread of communism, but it was support for tyrants over people. So, bell seems to think that aggressively toppling a dictator like Saddam to bring democracy is equivalent to SUPPORTING a dictator and thwarting the democratic will of the people. Black is white and up is down, because on the planet bell lives, stupidity and ignorance are mistaken for incisive analysis and understanding. How did he even think this argument would pass cursory scrutiny? I get the feeling he was just trying to find some bulwark against the crushing approach of reason, and that was the best he could cobble together.

Look, even our incursions into Bosnia and Kosovo, for example, were based on realistic goals and pressing need to end genocide and ethnic cleansing. Neocons, like bell, have no real conception of measuring action to your capabilities, and recognizing what is a credible threat, and what is an appropriate response. Neocons tend to view every potential threat as a code red crisis. And since they have no understanding of what can reasonably done by the military, and care not at all for assessments that tell you that there is virtually no chance of success in Iraq, they are the worst kind of idealistic dreamers.

With people like bell_3, I often wonder if he is even paying attention to how moronic and ignorant he sounds as the words are coming out of his mouth. Rarely have I met someone so smugly saturated with the joy of hearing his own idiocy.

JC