Obama presidency would be cause for jubilation among which Muslims?

I think the most likely celebrations among radical Islamists would be caused by the election of another effective recruiting poster for their cause like George Bush has been.

Jim Satterfield = 100% correct!!

Ah, those halcyon days before the coming of the Evil Bush...Cursed be his Name Forever... when the Muslim ummah was moderation itself.

In those days, few were the Islamic radicals, who lived in fear as they ruled entire nations such as Afghanistan.

And the radicals rejoiced as the Evil Bush drove them into caves and the pleasure palaces of Tribal Pakistan, for here is where they wanted to be all along.

And the radicals rejoiced as Bush killed them in great numbers, with his robot planes bombing them from on high.

And so is it that today they long for another, greater and more Evil One than Bush, who will drive them deeper into the caves, for it is only there that they are happy.

And truly, they curse the apostate Obama, and any who offer them peace and return to the power they once wielded...for they curse power and long for the splendour of the caves to which the Evil One (whom they truly love) has consigned them.

I still don't understand how the comments are controversial. If he wasn't a Republican, Steve King would've been forced to resign the second that came out of his mouth. That's not a controversial comment. It's a lie. It's not only a lie. It's a bigotted lie. It's not only a biggotted lie, it's a biggoted lie so based in garbage that any news network that reports about it and doesn't just spend the time tearing into the pure garbage it is (I'm looking at you, CNN) deserves nothing but ire not just from honest journalists, but from the general public. Steve King is an absolute disgrace, and he should be pressured into resignation by Republicans moderate enough to understand the threat he and his ilk pose to the long-term and immediate future of the party. It's men like Steve King, that inevitably, foster situations that can set their parties back decades.

And Macan, Bush drove Bin Laden so deep into the caves that he's still alive today, and the Taliban are making a comeback in Afghanistan, and you've got a failed state developing in Pakistan. So, good attempt at satire there, but it goes just short of the mark when you cut through to its purpose.

HappySurge...

True enough, Bin Laden is alive...and Pakistan is teetering on the brink of collapse as it always seems to do.

My point was to critique the view that Islamic radicals love Bush.

Mind you, I don't think they prefer Obama either (King's comment was, alas, the kind of surrogate crap we can look forward to in this election...like Gloria Steinem's mocking McCain's POW years the other day).

Their war is with America, and what it symbolizes. Folks seem to have forgotten that Bin Laden originally plotted 9-11 under Clinton.

I am sure they would prefer a more restful life...with less threat from Predators and Special Forces etc. Maybe Obama would offer them this...maybe not.

But the Civil War in Islam will not end with the departure of Bush. I remember well the happy chanting mobs across the Muslim world in the days after 9-11
(I especially recall "Evil Bert" in those posters with bin Laden...anyone else remember that?).

But, thanks to Bush I would argue, we have not seen those happy raging radical mobs in a long time.

That's not true. Yes, we have. In Pakistan, actually. In tons of countries after our allies suffered massive attacks. Any time a bombing happens. It may get reported on less, but it's certainly out there, and it's recent. They still burn in effegies. They still appplaud when Americans die.

I'm okay with you saynig that the argument that Bush is liked by radical muslims is garbage, but that's not the same as what you're doing, which is really trying to sugarcoat Bush's afffect on the muslim world, and the radical world. He started off tremendously well in Afghanistan, and the openings of the Iraq War were impressive. But after that is collapse, and after collapse comes a resurgence, and it's already happened.

If we've not seen it, it's because we apparently haven't been looking.

No, but man, I'm fine with what you're saying is your point, but you're missing the mark by making it about liberal bashing or some'at.

To what you're saying is your point, I would argue is a hundred percent correct. I would say that the base of the radical muslims, the people actually doing the fighting, a lot of them have been driven to madness after seeing people around them kill and die, so I doubt they'd see Bush as anything more than another figure in a reclining chair of propagated hate, and I think many of them understand that situation. The only argument to be made, however, is that the funders, the interests of those we would rank with terrorists, have been met by tthe conflict in Iraq. You have two severely destabilized states in Iraq and Pakistan, and a borderline, once again, failed state in Afghanistan. I imagine those interested in letting the economic blood of the United States by prolonging conflicts in the Middle East would find that all to be a reason to rejoice.

That, is, I believe the critique people infer, equally crudely as they do it, on George Bush's foreign policy effect on radicals.

That last sentence is mangled, but I think you get its meaning. That said, I'd love for you to continue your discussion wtih me.

It is ironic that this bigot shares the name of a great American writer of fiction. this xenophobic talking-point spouting leaky faucet needs to be censured, and shut off.

The actual point that Macan seems to be ignoring is that there is the core of the radicals and there are those who are successfully recruited in part because of the constant flow of foolish actions from the Bush administration. Muslims could dislike Saddam but look on him as just one more of the tyrants that their part of the world is full of and realize that all of the reasons Bush gave for invading Iraq were BS. They can wonder why he only invaded Iraq when Iran has more to do with terrorism than Iraq under Saddam did. So yes, Bush does serve to help the radicals persuade people to join them by helping to paint the U.S. as anti-Muslim because the reasons Bush cites for the invasion weren't right.

Rumsfeld once asked "if we are creating more terrorists than we are killing". I think we know the answer is yes. We have radicalized an entire generation of muslims in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Pakistan, etc. Each of these countries is a potential powder keg ready to explode.

What are we doing to try to tamp down this potential violence? We claim our war is against Islamofacists. We can't distinquish between an Islamofascist and a regular muslim if ours or their lives depended on it. If you are a muslim male between 15 and 55 you are fair game.

Has Bush ever articulated what America's goals are? What is it that we want for the world and it's people and how do we make it happen? I hear the tripe about democracy for the world but as far as I can see, it's only if they elect people we like. Witness, the Algerian Islamists who won a free and fair election only to have the army, with our blessing stage a coup. Witness what happened to Allende, Mohammad Mossadegh, Hamas etc.

America really does not care about other peoples. We believe in power politics for our own self interest. What we do for them, depends on what they can do for us. Whether it's to give us cheap energy or cheap clothes and electronics. We consider everyone else either a competitor or an enemy and as far as America is concerned if a mutant virus killed off 5 billion "other" people in the world, we would not shed a tear. After all we, like the Israelis, are superior and our lives and needs supercede everyone elses.

Here endeth the rant for the day.

I agree, as usual with jdledell. Radical islamists have found the wars Bush started to be a very useful recruiting tool for their cause. The attacks on US interests have been designed to involve us in a long, drawn-out war that will bring us down as Afhganistan brought the Soviet empire down in the '80's. Obama's election would thwart that goal.

Their view of peace with Obama, Clinton, or McCain is a "hudna," same as it is with Israel: Rather than true peace, it is taking time out (the fake peace) to recover and rearm before continuing the attacks.

* * *

We non-liberals who aren't solidly to the right, much less "far right" [sic] aren't worried about an extremist fringe (same as the pro-torture Republicans and pro-torture conservatives), even they will be exploited to mischaracterize the entire GOP and anyone not in liberal lockstep, among the gullible liberals who believe it.

And finally:

"Has Bush ever articulated what America's goals are?"

Bush -- Articulated Do you see an inherent contraction?

TMV posting guidance item #2 ....when faced with a biased supposition, counter it with more supposition, even if the counter-supposition is not supported by current research.............

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/world/middlee...

DLS - You have to remember that peace agreements are nothing more than pieces of paper. If a party wants to violate it, it is no different from a Hudna. How many "peace agreements" did European countries sign over the past couple of centuries that were later renounced and violated? As long as people think war solves problems, peace agreements as well as hudnas will be trashed.

"You have to remember that peace agreements are nothing more than pieces of paper."

That's what past European aggressors have said, at least. "... A mere scrap of paper!" or "We'll get a peace agreement to keep them out of the war now, and deal with them later."

"As long as people think war solves problems, peace agreements as well as hudnas will be trashed."

In this case the problem lies with the radical Muslims (and enemies of Israel).

Can someone list the various cease-fires between Palestine and Israel from the last 10(20?) years and who broke them and why? I'm guessing the palestinians don't come out looking too rosy from that list. But I could be wrong.