Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Jingoistic Assholes Ruined V-J Day For Everyone


And other stories.

Not The Onion:
INTERVIEW: Jeremy Scahill Accuses US Government Of Executing Bin Laden - 'An Unarmed, Elderly Man'

“My personal opinion is that they executed Bin Laden,” begins Jeremy Scahill, unblinkingly.

“If you strip it down, what you had is an unarmed elderly man, in his bedroom, shot in the face by the most elite force in the world. Almost everything that the White House officials told us that happened in the compound that night turned out to be a total fabrication.

“I would have loved to have seen Bin Laden put on trial for his crimes. He had been indicted, in the 1990s, and was a reprehensible criminal, but I don’t believe for one second they were given orders to capture him, I think the whole point was to kill him.”

He sighs.

“I wasn’t like, boo hoo, Bin Laden’s dead, but I wasn’t jumping. America’s a very nationalistic country, and in episodes like that of his death, it becomes jingoism. People are drinking, dancing in the street, chanting USA like they’re at the World Cup, like they won it… It’s sick that we turned it into a sporting event.”
 "We"?

I remember the President of the United States making a very sober announcement.

I remember some people being very happy and relieved.

I remember some people cheering, although none of them within earshot of me.

I remember that, like most people I knew, I was glad the SOB was dead

I remember the Fox News/Hate Radio "Mission Accomplished" crew mounting a massive campaign to bash the President of the United States for his unseemly "spiking the ball"


The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

and arrogantly smurfing up all the credit for killing bin Laden.


And, much later, I remember idly wondering just how long we would have to wait before the Purity Caucus concocted a way to morph this into something they could slot into their "As Bad As Booosh!" narrative.

I guess I don't get out enough.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

There were people dancing and partying in the streets of DC and NYC. There was drinking, chants of "USA, USA", showing of nipples, people swinging from trees. It was rather similar to your run of the mill sports riot.

I have no idea how wide spread this was, and I doubt anybody cares how people in places like Kansas reacted because those people don't count for shit. On the other hand given that DC and NYC were the cities that were attacked, and given that East Coasters are a loud and boisterous lot by nature... I don't see what's so shocking that people were partying in front of the White House and in Times Square.

gratuitous said...

I remember how everyone from the President on down soberly and seriously proclaimed that something they called "justice" had been done.

And I was a very early arrival from the Purity Caucus, because I recall thinking that the official accounts - even if they could be credited, which it turns out they could not - certainly didn't fit any notion of "justice" that I had prior to this episode.

I really have to get over this whole "due process" and "entitlement to trial" hang-up I have, and just learn to wave Old Glory with the rest of y'all. I'm sure I'd be much happier trimming my ideals to fit the latest fashion.

Grung_e_Gene said...

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Forever and always it was the Hippies fault*.


One caveat during the glorious World War IV, aka GWoT which George W(orst President Ever) Bush, Dick Cheney and Conservative Keyboard Commandoes won despite the Evil Left a new group emerged as anti-american traitors who almost lost us the Wars;

IT MAY BE TYPICAL OF THE PRO-OBAMA DUNGEONS & DRAGONS CROWD TO DISPARAGE A FELLOW COUNTRYMAN'S MEMORY OF WAR FROM THE COMFORT OF MOM'S BASEMENT.

Unknown said...

"We"?

There is no "we" in the Scahill comments quoted by Droneglass.

But of course Droneglass freely uses "we" to associate HIMSELF with official acts of murder, torture, surveillance etc. (provided they are authorized by Democrats).

He tellingly displays far more hatred towards journalistic exposures of Washington's crimes than of the crimes themselves.

Anonymous said...

@Lumpy

“I wasn’t like, boo hoo, Bin Laden’s dead, but I wasn’t jumping. America’s a very nationalistic country, and in episodes like that of his death, it becomes jingoism. People are drinking, dancing in the street, chanting USA like they’re at the World Cup, like they won it… It’s sick that we turned it into a sporting event.”

There is the WE right there.

Anonymous said...

One reason the right loves to trot out that "Democrats want to read Osama his rights"-canard is because there is a small kernel of truth to the accusation. Any time this topic comes up (like now), you can see how reflexively some on the far left reject the mere idea that a guy like Bin Laden might just be a legitimate military target.

-- Nonny Mouse

Horace Boothroyd III said...

Golly. It looks like we have a few escapees from the Daily Kos asylum. Why don't you guys go home and club a few infiltrating NSA disruptor trolls, for old time's sake.

DeistPaladin said...

QUOTE:
"...I don’t believe for one second they were given orders to capture him, I think the whole point was to kill him."

I can only wonder if there was the same angst and sanctimonious Monday morning quarterbacking when "Baby-Face" Nelson was killed during a shootout with FBI agents.

When you've got a dangerous murderer on the loose who has no intention of surrendering to face justice, you do what you have to. Bin Laden was hiding in a bunker in hostile territory. Just going in after him was incredibly dangerous. If OBL wanted a fair trial, he could have turned himself in. Thus, I'm perfectly willing to give the soldiers and our government the benefit of the doubt barring the revelation of actual evidence to support Jeremy's murder accusation.

Put bluntly, I feel that it's whiney, sanctimonious bleeding hearts like him that give us liberals a bad name.

Unknown said...

Well explain this to me. I was also disappointed that Bin Laden was killed instead of prosecuted. I am also always disappointed when people cheer the death of anyone. It's barbaric and we should be better than that. And all that does not mean I think our President is worse than Bush. I voted for Obama twice and I support him. That doesn't mean he's always right. And it also doesn't mean that when I point out that he's wrong I think he's worse than Bush. Nobody is worse than Bush except maybe Cheney and if I got the chance I'd put both of then on their ass. So pardon me but if I'm not allowed to disagree with somebody just because we're on the same side well then fuck you.
Have a nice day

Unknown said...

Oh and Geese, I'm a Democrat from Kansas and I DO count for shit. So fuck you too. I've been working to get Democrats elected for 50 years. You wanna tell me I'm a member of the purity party then tell me to my face. I'll put you in the same place I put a republican asshole last week. The fucking hospital. He used the term "Democrat Party" at a city council meeting and I knocked out 2 of his fucking teeth. So you don't like me disagreeing with an Obama move give me a time and a place and I'll be there.

Monster from the Id said...

Damn, Geese, you gotta start remembering the snark tags again. People keep mistaking you for a genuine snob.

Anonymous said...

OK, I have to show my ignorance here...

What is wrong with "Democrat Party"? I thought it was "Democrat" was the descriptor form of the noun "Democrat" (as in, I vote Democrat").

It was my understanding that "democratic" described a way of voting, while "Democrat" is the noun, adjective/adverb, and "person-actor" name of the political party.

No snark, honest question.

Mike.K.

Unknown said...

There are good questions raised by Driftglass and Scahill, but Scahill gets something wrong and he knows he's wrong.

He calls bin Laden "elderly." OBL, I think, had he lived, would have been my age, which is just a few years older than Driftglass and Blue Gal. Hey DRIFTGLASS, are you ready to be called elderly? Ready for Social Security?

ELDERLY? My 81 year old Dad wears 3 days stubble worthy of a Breaking Bad extra and he yells at the dishwasher. That's fucking elderly. John "Get Off Of My Lawn" is fucking elderly.

OBL had three wives, including one very young one. He had a stash of porn and viagra. Sure he had kids very young, and his sons married young. Just because he had grandkids didn't make OBL "elderly."

You may believe his killing was "just" or "unjust." Your opinion should not be based upon his age, however. If you believe that his killing was wrong, it shouldn't matter if he was age 2 or 52, and by the way, 52 years old ISN'T ELDERLY!

Fuck you, Scahill, people who are in their 50s ARE NOT "ELDERLY"! The. End.

Cinesias said...

Mike K.

You vote for Democrats. You vote for the Democratic Party.

Or, try the inverse.

The Republic Party is...

What they're doing is bastardizing the language in relation to the Democratic Party. The same way they turned the word liberal into a swear word, they bastardize the actual language in order to kill thought.

You gotta give Republicans credit though. They've really taken to heart the strategy of the Party of 1984 and ran with it.

Sorta gives you an idea of where they'd take us, if we'd just stop voting Democrat (example) and only voted Pure™, like the Saint Glenneth Greenwaldians want us to do.

Jack said...

Mike,
There's a long history of wingnuts calling the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party" to rile up Democrats. I'm kind of amazed you're unfamiliar with it. The reason it's wrong to call the party "the Democrat Party" is pretty straightforward: That's not the name of the party. The party's name is "the Democratic Party."

Jack said...

Oh, hey, check it out: Wikipedia has an article about it:

Democrat Party (epithet)

Anonymous said...

Thank you, all.

And, please let me clarify. I've heard of it, but I don't understand it, and hadn't had a good explanation as to why it was offensive. I always thought there was a hidden reference I was missing, like when fundies say "DEMONcRAT" in their emails (or "EVILlutionist" or "not good enough to marry in your own family"). I honestly thought there was a bad joke I've been missing for decades. I'm actually a bit disappointed.

:-(

Also, I've been called a Satan-worshiper, blasphemer, faggot, sodomite, and worse. I've also dealt with many who find it amusing to pronounce my last name /crap.shit/. I guess I'm just used to insults being a bit more inflammatory. If someone isn't brandishing a crucifix at me (actually happened twice), I don't realize they are trying to insult me.

Oh, and I work in IT. There have been times when people ask me, "Why did you tolerate that from him?"

"Tolerate what?"

:-)

Mike.K.

Anonymous said...

The "elderly" part was an error on Scahill's part, but I saw everything else he talked about.

I've been listening to the Professional Left podcast, and I got the impression that you have good, liberal values, but you get too caught up in partisan politics. Liberals who base their views on issue, not parties, are going to disagree with what a very conservative politician like Obama does the overwhelming majority of the time. Yes, the GOP is worse, but that hardly justifies Obama, the Clintons, Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc.

Professional sports have socialized people to root for teams. People need to turn that off with politics.