Oh my god! People are smiling for the camera! It couldn’t be a lifetime of conditioning causing that...

A slightly different take: how long can you sustain hard-core anger at Saddam’s crimes? Do you think that if you went to a Saddam execution party (or some such) that you would stay grim for the entire event? Or to put it in slightly more personal terms: how long was it between when you heard Reagan died and your first smile? Is that because you were celebrating his death? Of course not...

Andrew, what are you talking about, "a lifetime of conditioning"? Not everyone is posing for the camera in the photos I've seen -- some of them seem to be candid shots. The fact is these people seem to be treating this as just another occasion to get together and have a good old time. There wouldn't be anything wrong with that except for the fact that they are gathering, not as a general anti-war protest, but specifically to mark what they have been proclaiming as the useless, meaningless, pointless, innocents-killed-in-Bush's-meat-grinder-for-oil deaths of 2,000 soldiers in Iraq. War supporters have been lambasted for being heartless and bloodthirsty and lacking in sufficient hair-shirt-wearing -- so one would expect more of a funereal attitude on the part of the anti-war protesters at this particular "milestone." But the obvious jollity on display reveals them as inherently unserious, not worthy to follow in the footsteps of their heroes of the antiwar protests of the past. Well, maybe in some of their footsteps -- the partying faces put me in mind of terrorist-molls like Bernardine Dohrn, who famously said, of the murder of Sharon Tate by Charles Manson's followers: "Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"

As for rejoicing at the possible future execution of Saddam Hussein, well why shouldn't there be rejoicing? The man was a ruthless dictator who caused the deaths of millions of innocent men, women, and children all because he had a fantasy of being the new Saladin. Are you saying that these people are rejoicing at the deaths of their fellow countrymen, who died to bring freedom and democracy to a foreign country? Are you saying that our military is the equivalent of Saddam Hussein? Or are you agreeing with us that these "mourners" at the 2000 Dead Soldier parties are actually our enemies and the enemies of free people everywhere?

>Andrew
>how long can you sustain hard-core anger at >Saddam’s crimes?

Longer than you, because I care about people more than you do. Someone in you life made you a hollow monster, hate them also.

I wouldn't mind them smiling if they would just be honest and admit that it is a political event, and they are happy for the same reason they would be if Karl Rove had been indicted or Condi had slipped on a banana peel.

It's the phony pose of being all sensitive and spiritual and holier-than-thou that bugs me, especially when the deaths of few hundred-thousand Kurds doesn't even make a blip on their radars...

Actually, strictly speaking, it would be wrong for Democrats to publicly celebrate the indictment of the President's right-hand-man during war time, just as it would have been wrong for Repubicans to celebrate the fall of, say, Harry Hopkins during WWII, or Colonel House during WWI. (Some private nods of satisfaction over brandies at the University Club would have been permissable.)

But standards of behavior and decorum have fallen so far since then, that even mentioning such things now seems quaint. Imagine telling today's Democrats (and a certain few Republicans) that they should act like ladies and gentlemen!

Also, a Secretary fo State does not slip on a banana peel. If you see such a thing you were hallucinating. The Secretary of Commerce, maybe.

Norden
I am going to say this as nicely as possible:
Fuck you.
You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. Are you Dr. Frist, able to make a diagnosis over the internet?

As it happens, I’ll be at a Saddam execution party. I’ll probably even do a happy dance of joy. If I ever see his grave, I’ll piss on it...

>>>...I must oppose this war. ...
>>>Posted by: Andrew Cory (2003)

> I’ll be at a Saddam execution party
>Andrew Cory (2005)

Did your teachers fail to read to you The Little Red Hen?

"I have found myself over these last several weeks hoping for war, craving it, wanting to see this man utterly destroyed for his crimes against humanity. I had hoped that this could be accomplished by means other than war. I had hoped he might be brought to trial, or even that the war could be delayed until someone other than Bush was president. I had hoped for a lot of things. There no longer seems to be an option to get the ends I desire short of open warfare. So be it..."

http://www.punningpundit.com/archives/2003/01/new_direction.html
13 Jan 2003. Do some research

I must oppose this war....
Posted by: Andrew Cory on January 11, 2003 08:10 PM
www.dailypundit.com/archives/008678.php

Research, you can't hold a firm opinion from one week to the next. You are a weak and foolish thing. E.g. "brought to trial" without a war, child wake up! There is no trial of a king without war against him and his lackeys first.

So to recap:
On 11 Jan. ’03 I thought that Saddam was evil, War would be necessary to overthrow him, but Bush was incompetent. Against the war.

On 13 Jan ’03 I thought Saddam was evil, War would be necessary to overthrow him but Bush’s incompetence wouldn’t matter so much. For the War.

On 29 October ’05 I think that Saddam is Evil, War would be necessary to overthrow him and Bush’s incompetence has made our job more difficult. For the War.

It isn’t that you and I don’t agree. It’s that You’re an ass.

>I had hoped that (Saddams overtrow) could
> be accomplished by means other than war

Becuase you were incompotent.

>For the War

But you voted for Kerry, who helped win Vietnam for your side and would have won Iraq for the terrorists by now, given the chance.

Norden:
I repeat: you’re an ass.

Andrew,

Are you sure you aren't being "trolled"? If you are, don't encourage Norden by stooping to his level.

And if Norden isn't a troll, well....

To Norden,

Yes, Andrew is sometimes misinformed and foolish. If you'd ease off on the vituperation, you just might get somewhere with him. As it is, you're only pissing Andrew off (as well he should be) and if your purpose is persuasion.... dude, it ain't workin'.

. . . except the NYT cut out the rest of the paragraph . . . .

I hope you don't think that this is anything new. I have seen and heard "In Flanders Fields" quoted more than once at memorial events, and in a Peanuts cartoon TV show, if I recall correctly. I'm working from memory, so this may not be perfect:
------------------
In Flanders fields the poppies grow
among the crosses, row on row
that mark our place. And in the sky,
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
over the shattered ground below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
loved and were loved.
And now we lie in Flanders fields.
---------------

I finally looked up the poem. And I discovered that it has a third verse. Strange that you hardly ever see that one quoted:
---------------
Take up our quarrel with the foe.
To you from failing hands we throw
the torch. Be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with those who die
we shall not rest, though poppies grow
in Flanders fields.

I know it's nothing new. And I suspect that there has been a large amount of WWI literature that went down the memory hole, simply because it didn't fit the template of the literary elites: that wars are not worth fighting, Western civilization is not worth defending, and patriotism is for deluded fools...(Of course the calamity that was WWI certainly gave them some convincing ammunition)

The first line is "In Flanders field, the poppies blow." Blow as in bloom. Unfortunately, the meaning of "blow" has become a bit twisted as of late, so the line, "the poppies blow" might easily be misremembered by somebody who doesn't think the poppies are all that bad, really.

Don't remember why I learned that. It's not as though that's one of the poems I've committed to memory. I think I was just intrigued by the no-longer-current word useage.