(V): [ Because some events keep happening, it's not new. Will it really infringe on your liberties.. no. ]

But if we sit back and do nothing about it.. yes.

Liberties are not determined by random events. They don't just pop into existence for no apparent reason and for our convenience. It takes effort to get liberty if you don't have it, and effort to keep it once you do have it.

Iamon lyme: Yep... we just end up with messes like 9/11... It's nice that training given to kill Russians kills Americans.... NOT.

Bwild: Because some events keep happening, it's not new. Will it really infringe on your liberties.. no.

(V): I didn't say it wasn't or couldn't be used. I said it's usefulness is limited.

(V): then why ask me? It still didn't matter..it was now then

Bwild: Death of Americans kinda now... it's not new that it's happened.

(V): how much more specific can now be,Jules?

Iamon lyme: It was used significantly at the time of the American revolution.. The French helped you. It has been used throughout history, by various groups.. Like when the Dutch became allies with great Britain regarding the Spaniards.

Throughout the cold war it was used by various governments.. even in the NI troubles, it was significant that the UK army was passing on info regarding IRA members and supporters to the loyalist paramilitaries.. who then 'executed' them.

When the US peeved off Gaddafi, he got back by supplying the IRA with weapons.

Shakespeare in his plays you'll find instances... The stories of the Greek Gods are laden with "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

By the way, Hillary did an interview in Peru (why there?) and took "responsibility" for the failure to respond to the potential threat of violence against the emabassy in Libya. But then she cleverly buried that same "responsibility" into the thousands of people who work for her, suggesting it was a screw up by someone in that big pile of thousands of people who answer to her. I didn't hear the whole interview, but I'm pretty sure she didn't say "And by golly, I'll get to the bottom of this and find out who screwed up if it's the last thing I do!"

Apparently it's in her job description to deflect criticism of the president whenever she's asked to, this time by absorbing that criticism and then passing it along down the chain of command until it can made to stick to one of her underlings. The Clintons, both of them, used tactics like this during Bill Clintons tenure as president. They didn't just fire someone in the White House travel agency, they intentionally lied about him and tarnished his reputation, and for no other reason than to give themselves a reason for firing him.

Bwild: "here and now" encompasses alot of things.. your gonna have to be more specific.

Übergeek 바둑이: [ It is not the first time that Western intelligence agencies completely fail in using this style of foreign policy. ]

I believe you already know that the purpose of intelligence agencies are to gather information, and it's the politicians responsibility to make decisions and formulate policy based on that information. The Benghazi disaster was not an intelligence failure, it was a failure to respond to that intelligence and take measures to insure the safety of our people in Libya. No one needs a comprehensive history lesson to understand that if you get information about an attack being planned on your people in a country like Libya, where simply being an American means you are at risk, then it would be wise to take that information seriously. The diplomat was advised to NOT make that request, because it was known beforehand that it would be turned down, but he did it anyway. And it's a good thing he did. Because even though he is now dead, the request is a part of the record and everyone knows that the request was made and what happened as a result of the request being ignored.


"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is more of a rule of thumb if you will than any kind of useful proverb. IMO it's a machiavellian principle that has very limited usefulness. If the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy, then that would be like saying the mountain lion fighting the bear that was trying to eat me is my friend. The mountain lion is only your friend because he has engaged the bear and given you an opportunity to escape. It doesn't mean the mountain lion is your friend, and wouldn't harm you if he manages to defeat the bear. The idea of the enemy of my enemy is my friend has an extremely limited shelf life, and doesn't always work even when those limited circumstances are well understood.

(V): basically it's not history..it's the here and now.

Bwild: Which vital facts.. sorry, but so many get used it's hard to keep track.

"and because of history..its ok for the current administration to pass the blame on our civil liberties?"

Your liberties have been eroded for years... decades, to some degree centuries.

Are you talking about the video, free speech?

"does that make it ok for your neighbor to drag your wife out of your house to his by the hair screaming and kicking?"

No, nor does it make it right for the husband to do it, but we hear of abuse cases going on around the world.

Iamon lyme:

> There is absolutely no intel to confirm the Benghazi attack was a peaceful protest
> (inspired by a video) that somehow erupted into violence. The Libyan leaders knew it
> was a planned attack and our state department knew it was a planned attack.

The Benghazi attack is the result of a foreign policy which follows a failed principle: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". The Obama administration is using a foreign policy principle which had its birth during the Cold War and which was refined during the Reagan administration.

If "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", then I can give this "friend" money, weapons and training to attack my enemy so that I may achieve my foreign policy objectives.

Some 15,000 posts ago I mentioned that at the time the government in Chad had claimed that western intelligence agencies were recruiting mercenaries out of Chad's insurgency, a paramilitary group organized by Al Qaeda to overthrown governments in North Africa. Al Qaeda in the Magreb had been trying to overthrow the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Lybia and Chad for the better part of 8 years. At the time nobody paid heed to Chad's claim and my post went for the most part unnoticed.

I also posted something alarming that had happened in Lybia. The opposition claimed that a lot of weapons were disappearing. Nato was supplying the oppositiong with weapons and those weapons were vanishing into thin air.

I also posted another thing that said that there had been two incidents of "friendly fire" in which Nato forces bombed opposition forces "mistakenly" thinking that they were part of Gaddafi's army.

Adding two and two together it is obvious that Al Qaeda had infiltrated the Lybian opposition, it had stolen weapons from them, and in an attempt to solve the problem Nato decided to bomb the culprits. Obviously Nato failed.

Now Al Qaeda is free to roam Lybia since Gaddafi is not there to stop them. People forget things easily. Not long ago (3 years?) Prince Andrew was havily criticized for going to Lybia and signing business deals with the Lybian government. Both France and the UK were eager to do business in Lybia and to buy Lybian oil from Gaddafi. Why would they have been willing to do so when Gaddafi was the enemy? The reason is that Gaddafi was not the enemy. He was an ally in the War on Terror. Part of extraordinary rendition was sending detainees to third countries to be tortured and interrogated. Two of the main destinations were Lybia and Syria. Gaddafi was quite happy to crush Al Qaeda because Gaddafi wanted to maintain his secular government.

So we see the great intelligence failure: the enemy (Al Qaeda) of my enemy (Gaddafi) is my friend. Now that Gaddafi is gone, Al Qaeda sees an opportunity to attain their objective and destabilize the Lybian government until it collapses.

The attack in Benghazi was carefully planned. It is impossible to attack an American diplomatic mission without a plan because American diplomatic missions are heavily guarded.

It is not the first time that Western intelligence agencies completely fail in using this style of foreign policy. The Moujahaideen were America's allies against the Soviet Union. Now they are the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The US used opposition groups in Iraq against Saddam Hussain. Now Al Qaeda is alive and well in Iraq, even though it had never been Iraq prior to the war. In Lybia Al Qaeda is now armed and dangerous and the Benghazi attack is probably not the last. The Syrian and Lebanese governments are now claiming that the Syrian opposition has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda. In spite of that western intelligence agencies are giving money and weapons to the opposition.

The pattern is clear, and the Obama administrations failure is in repeating the same pattern that started with Ronald Reagan, continued in full with George W. Bush, and now is turning the Middle East into an even bigger mess under the Obama administration. The question is whether Obama will change his approach or whether Romney would do any better.

(V): "You could, but then history becomes a rather fragmented oddity."

so history makes it ok for the current administration to ignore vital facts and allow the deaths of its fellow Americans?
and because of history..its ok for the current administration to pass the blame on our civil liberties?

most of us have neanderthal genes...does that make it ok for your neighbor to drag your wife out of your house to his by the hair screaming and kicking?

Artful Dodger: You could, but then history becomes a rather fragmented oddity.

Like the House Republicans cutting the budget on embassy security funding by over $400 million dollars over the last two years, that the Obama administration warned that the cuts would be “detrimental to America’s national security”.

See, that is a fuller picture we have now.

(V): well Bush is no longer president so perhaps we ought to focus on the one who is!

Artful Dodger: Just like 9/11 ... Clinton warned Bush, others before the attack (as in other country's intelligence agencies) warned Bush... he went on another holiday.

Iamon lyme: this was a well coordinated attack and planned for a long time. Obama is over his head.

Iamon lyme: I think Hillary will stay on but there will be bad blood between Obama and the Clintons (more than there already was).

Iamon lyme: I think someone got the boot. Something about TOS violations.

There is absolutely no intel to confirm the Benghazi attack was a peaceful protest (inspired by a video) that somehow erupted into violence. The Libyan leaders knew it was a planned attack and our state department knew it was a planned attack.

And it happens on the anniversy of 9/ll shortly after we took out their most beloved poster boy for inspiring new recruits to commit acts of terrorism.
Knock knock, Hello? Anyone there? Who's minding the store?

The state department and the Libyan leadership and our ambassador to Libya knew it was coming, that is why there was a request for more security. A request that was turned down because apparently no one knew about the request...?? That doesn't make any sense, was it turned down or ignored or no one got the memo? Which was it?

The state department refuses to back up Obamas purely fictional (fic-tion-al) claims because they do not want to commit perjury when called to testify about it. This story about a video and a protest about the video was concocted by Obama and his closest advisors, and Hillary and Rice and others were compelled by Obama and his closest advisors to lie about it.

Artful Dodger: The Benghazi attack cover up is bizarre. I'm not saying the entire past four years has not been bizarre, but Obama has amped up and lent new meaning to word "bizarre" with this latest bonehead maneuver. I've never seen something like this happen so close to an election, so I'm not sure what could happen after the election.

If Obama is re-elected this will follow him into the next four year cycle, and the duration of that cycle will depend on whether the media continues to try supporting him or not. Hillarys best move would be to resign and try recovering some credibility before the 2016 election. There is talk of her resigning now less than one month before the election, but I don't see how that could help her.

But if Romney is elected, then the spin masters might try pinning the inevitable investigation of the lies and cover up on him, and claim Romney is behind a politcally movitivated witch hunt.

My own analysis of what could happen sounds bizarre to me, but after watching politics for as long as I have... I've likely underestimated the bizarre factor.

Did I miss something, or was the number of new messages sitting next to my politics link wrong? It said 16 new messages, but I only see two new messages here since last night. Half the time the number is wrong, and I can believe a handful of messages being deleted, but not 14.

mckinley: The beautiful fall colors are due to global warming.

Bwild: At the moment we are having a string of 'abnormal' weather. Dry winter. hot spring, wet summer.

.. Fuel luckily is cheaper for farmers, dyed red as normal drivers can't use it to stop theft.

"we had our worst drought in 50 years here...but guess what...gardens didnt suffer much..corn fields did..but wine production will have a bonus year."

Yeah I saw on the news.. bloody jet stream was out of position. You got our sun, we got your rain. N' others rain as well, one months worth in 24 hours in several places last week.

.... maybe we can export some if we keep getting it.

...continuing "due" dilligence... where'd the 'nc' come from? I didn't type that. Bush is up to his old tricks again, I see.

By the way, a carbon credit debt can include CO2 emissions from your chain saw, if you own one. Also, we've received reports of heavy breathing coming from Bill Clintons home so anyone with information about this is encouraged to spy on him and report any information they find to a local or national Carbon Credit Authority Board of Inquiry representative.


Thank you for you continuing dunce diligence.

For those irresponsible planet killers among you who have put off paying their carbon offset bills, it's not too late to start flushing some of your hard earned money down the toilet.

Iamon lyme: cartoon characters are much smarter than your average liberal

Artful Dodger: Check out this global warming clip. You won't be disappointed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4Bc2WCsdE

(V): "any droughts or floods this year anyone? Food prices rising through grain and other items harvest being low? Allotments flooded, tomatoes not ripe?"
weather is always an issue for farmers..they deal with most of it. what they cant deal with is the rising cost of fuel.
we had our worst drought in 50 years here...but guess what...gardens didnt suffer much..corn fields did..but wine production will have a bonus year.

... Reliable food production needs reliable weather.

.. any droughts or floods this year anyone? Food prices rising through grain and other items harvest being low? Allotments flooded, tomatoes not ripe?

Guess yet another strange summer isn't having floods here in the UK, houses and roads washed away isn't strange.. as it's becoming more common.

A (former) friend of my is once again going on and on about global warming and the exponential rise in climate change. "Warning Will Robinson!!!" Pure junk. He states that no one should vote for anyone who isn't committed to taking care of our planet. "Taking care of our planet" is of course defined by him and others of his ilk. My response to his nonsense is spot on, as usual.

I've always believed that "global warming" and the ubiquitous warnings surrounding its dangers, are mostly hype and at least in part based on junk science. Climate change is not occurring exponentially no matter how many "scientific" reports you cite. The fact is, there hasn't been a warming trend for 16 years. The climate change bubble burst a while ago but there are a few diehards holding on. That is not to say we shouldn't take care of our planet. We should. But I'd rather read that NO ONE has ANY business voting for ANYONE who is not committed to saving the lives of the unborn. This to me is a real issue and so called global warming is not.

Bwild: I bought my first chain saw last year. My friends wouldn't let me use it until they trained me on how to use it. They were afraid for my limbs! lol. It's fun to use except for the blood splatter.