I think you answered your own question when you called him a dick. :)

Yes, Lord knows that Syria's de facto occupation of Lebanon for the past 20 years, plus their at least tacit approval of foreign terrorists entering Iraq to kill both Iraqis and coalition troops isn't a problem.

Nope, no problem here. Move along, folks.

It may be easy to call someone you don't know in any way a dick, but I think there's someone a lot closer who's being a dick.

Assuming that the problems you've outlined are true, Boyd, the question posed by Tas remains valid. You certainly didn't take a stab at it in your "apology". How many people have died at the hands of the Syrians in the last year compared to how many have died in Darfur? In terms of human life, what's the priority, and WHY?

If the Bush Administration had put Sudan front and center on their agenda, the BDS crowd would whinge about something else he would be "ignoring." Of course, in order to do that, the BDSers would themselves have to ignore something else, just as in this case.

If one wants to find fault with someone else, it's easy to do. And neither Tas, Zen nor Angel can claim objectivity.

Nor can I, of course.

Sorry, I let a Brit word into my text of the last post that some may not be familiar with.

From Bartleby.com, whinge: To complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.

Oh, and I neglected to respond to how you started your comment, Zen:

Assuming that the problems you've outlined are true...

This phrase betrays a lack of understanding of the recent history of the Middle East, or a seemingly willful disregard for inconvenient facts. Or both.

Sorry, Boyd, but dicks don't let 400-500,000 people in Darfur die without trying to draw attention to the situation. Nor do they make excuses for Bush's ignorance of the situation.

I mean, really. The thing I always heard about you, Boyd, is that you're a Republican but you can have conversations with liberals and blah blah blah. Honestly, I've never seen it. And now you come out and defend the Bush administration for not taking action in Darfur? You know, wasn't it people like you who stipulated that Saddam is an evil mass murderer and we have to take him out? You seem very selective in your beliefs about which mass murderers we should take out, Boyd. Any reason for that? Anymore excuses you can pull out of yourr ass to defend your president?

No wonder our country is in the shitter. It ain't my fucking fault, I'll tell you that much.

#1: I'm a Republican? No, you misunderstand. I'm a Conservative, but I'm definitely not a Republican.

I don't defend the Bush Administration. I point out your selective perspective of what the U.S. Government should be doing. From your posts, you make it clear that what you're concerned about is blaming Bush for everything that's wrong with the world. You're eager to jump on anything you can blame on the people you hate. You've never shown a shred of objectivity in anything you've ever written, tas. You're so consumed by your BDS that you can't recognize reality.

And at least I admit I'm self-serving. I'm more concerned about what may affect the US (and by extension, me) than what may affect others. Syria allowing terrorists to come into their country for the express purpose of entering Iraq to kill Americans is more important to me than what may happen in another country that doesn't affect us here.

At least I'm honest about my motivations.

Well,Boyd, I guess you've answered the question "In terms of human life, what's the priority, and WHY?" Thanks for the vignette on "The Culture of Life".
"BDS" means "Bullshit Detection System" right?

Nope. It used to mean "Bush Derangement Syndrome," but your attempt to make a joke makes me think that "Bullshit Dissemination Syndrome" might be more appropriate in this context.

tas, I'm gonna do the unexpected here and take you seriously. OK, you've "called attention" to the genocide in Darfur. Everyone pretty much agrees it's horrible. But what do we do next?

I took a hard look at it over a year ago, and the conclusion I had to draw (and I hated doing it) was: not a goddamned thing. There simply isn't anything we can do about it. And since the folks committing the genocide are Muslims, you can pretty much forget about the UN doing a goddamned thing about it, either. In the UN, Muslims aren't ALLOWED to be the bad guys; they're the perpetual victims.

Go and take a look at my Darfur piece from August 2004, and tell me if I was wrong at the time, or if things have changed significantly since then. I don't think I was, or they have, but I freely admit I could be wrong.

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/003271.php

J.

I don't defend the Bush Administration. I point out your selective perspective of what the U.S. Government should be doing. From your posts, you make it clear that what you're concerned about is blaming Bush for everything that's wrong with the world. You're eager to jump on anything you can blame on the people you hate. You've never shown a shred of objectivity in anything you've ever written, tas. You're so consumed by your BDS that you can't recognize reality.

Wow, how else can you say "conversation over", Boyd?

Honestly, I'm not ever sure how I can reply to this.. Without profanity or taking it to a level lower than you already went.

You know, Boyd, you don't know me. And from your thoughts on me, you know absolutely nothing about me, my views, or how I feel. Even how I feel about Bush.

I've been blogging for quite a long time now, Boyd. And while I don't tell most people who make these accusations to read all my posts from the past 2 and a half years (since that number is somewhere in the range of 5000 posts total), this is just the suggestion I have to give to you if you're going to make blanket statements and such wrongheaded assaults on my character. At the very least, you could read my Darfur coverage. All of it from this year is located here, and you can use Google to find the rest of it from the days that I was using Blogger. You might be surprised to find that I've actually defended Bush on this issue in the past, and I've had choice words to say about other countries who have been willful ignorant of the genocide in Darfur.

As far as this particular blog post goes, Bush's grandstanding against Syria has been big news this week. That was on my mind when I read the piece I linked about Darfur. Both subjects cover the UN, and so this was the connection that I made. I thought it was a truthful connection, and I decided to express myself. So Boyd, despite this: "You're eager to jump on anything you can blame on the people you hate. You've never shown a shred of objectivity in anything you've ever written, tas", you can't deny the fact that I'm right; the comparisan I made was correct. But instead of paying attention to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, you instead attack me for daring to point it out.

Fuck you, Boyd. You're a shameful excuse for humanity. I may be an asshole, but at least I give a fucking damn about the world around me.

As prolific as your writings are, tas, you're awfully quick to resort to ad hominem instead of supporting your position. And you started off with profanity, and your latest response certainly takes it to a "level lower than [I] already went." And the level I occupied was because I held a mirror to your original post.

We all agree that what's happening in Darfur is horrible. Everyone who thinks about it has a different opinion on what should or shouldn't be done there. Your reaction to the Bush Administration's stance on it, as well as their stance on the results of the UN's investigation into Syrian involvement in the assassination of Hariri, is pretty extreme. But like our various Darfur opinions, we each have our own positions on that, too.

This and other posts and comments you've made have revealed that you have a hard time with people who object to your rash accusations, tas. And as you say I don't know you, you obviously don't know me. But thanks for being ashamed for my failure to rise to an acceptable level of humanity. It keeps me from having to bother with it.

You "give a damn?" Well, you've demonstrated that you feel strongly about the issue. But I don't give that any weight whatsoever -- the fact is, I don't know just what you want done on this issue, and how you expect it to work. I've spent over a year thinking about it, off and on, and I simply don't see a workable solution.

Syria, on the other hand, is a problem where a solution is feasible. The leader (or, as Meryl Yourish likes to call him, "The Dorktator"), is weak inside Syria. The decades-long occupation and domination of Lebanon is finally crumbling, and their attempt to destabilize the anti-occupation forces by assassinating Hariri have had exactly the opposite planned effect. They're in a good position to be squeezed right now, and...

To hell with this. I think this is worth a full posting over at Wizbang.

J.

Boyd, you're an idiot.

"ad hominem," "rash attacks," and venom are all tas has to offer. Do you really expect him to give up his only weapons?

You'd have better luck convincing a feces-flinging monkey to use Charmin, my friend.

J.

Not that I want to insert myself into this argument. I have a full tummy, great memories of yesterdays baptism, and some great memories of a much needed night on the town with one of my best buds last night... But I will just add that I think arguing this issue is almost ridiculous. We have a disgraceful recent record in dealing with Genocide, but Democrat and Republican. We talk the talk but rarely walk the walk when it comes to dealing with this stuff, EXCEPT when it is politically expedient to do so.
When I see what is happening in Dafur, I am ashamed,but not just of Bush, instead I am ashamed of the WORLD's Leadership, and how despite post Rwanda claims of NEVER AGAIN, we see it happening all over again. It if a lot easier to make statements about Freedom and Democracy, being leader of the Free World, etc. etc., than to actually show some Leadership it seems, and that shames me...
Jay says nothing can be done. I don't know how to fix all the problems in Dafur, but I do believe that if our President and other Prominent World Leaders started applying pressure, instead of Saber Rattling at every opportunity, something would happen...

David, "rattling sabers" means, historically, literally taking one's sword and rattling it in its scabbard. It's a reminder that one is armed and ready to use that weapon. It's a threat.

Funny thing about threats: if you make them all the time, but never follow through on them, they eventually become meaningless. Clinton's use of cruise missiles (most notably, against an Iraqi intelligence building at night, when the people posing the threat were gone, but he might kill a few janitors) was the equivalent -- it showed we didn't really care enough to do much.

So, let's look at the second phrase you used -- "apply pressure." Just how? Economic sanctions? Just how much of an economy does the Sudan have?

The biggest problem is that the people doing the killing are Arabs, and the rest of the Arab world is not only ignoring it, but actively protecting it. There is a blackout on news out of Darfur in the Arab media, so a good chunk of the people in the region don't know what's going on. So if the US suddenly started killing Arabs on behalf of Christians and Animists, you'd see an explosion of anti-Westernism the likes of which you can't imagine.

And finally, I go back to logistics: the reason the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were so successful (note I said INVASIONS, not occupations; I don't know anyone who can dispute that) was that we had somewhere to attack FROM. None of Sudan's neighbors are overly interested in letting us fly over their airspace, let alone base there.

Believe me, I WISH I was wrong on this, but I don't think I am.

J.

You know this argument was a disgraceful display of partisan tripe. And, I can't believe I just read half the sentences I just read. The hypocrisy is amazing, but then I have never been surprised by that coming from the "Culture of Life" corner that only cares about the lives of the unborn. Start talking about the lives of people outside the womb and the story changes big time.

What are you talking about, Angel. Jay Tea has clearly and openly stated that he disagrees with President Bush on abortion, and I'm pretty sure I've never articulated my position on that issue, either, mostly because my opinion is so muddled in my own head. When Roe was before the Supreme Court in my teen years, I specifically took the position in favor of their ultimate decision. These days, as a father, and grandfather, I'm greatly grieved over the loss of a child in the womb, but I'm definitely not "anti-abortion."

So where are you getting the hypocrisy from, Angel? I know you've recently been quick to chastise both sides when a debate erupts here (but, as this time, you only give the specifics of how bad Jay and I are, not your friend tas), but you've fabricated this out of whole cloth. I'm not saying you're lying, but I'm saying you didn't know where Jay and I stood on the abortion issue, so you guessed that we were the standard "conservative idiots."

You should know by now that neither Jay nor I can be comfortably placed in any conservative mold. For me, I'd be a better fit for a libertarian stereotype, but that would still be a poor fit.

So update your opinions based on reality, not on what you've decided (without any justification) is in our minds.

Reality base community, indeed.

P.S. As I reread your comment and think about it, you didn't say you were blaming both sides in this discussion, so I shouldn't make that assumption. It's certainly possible that you only thing Jay and I are disgraceful. If so, you'd be wrong.

Um... what Boyd said.

And where the hell did ABORTION come into this discussion? I'm probably as muddled about it as Boyd is, and my sole action I've ever taken on it was to make damned sure I'll NEVER have to deal with the issue on a personal basis. I've NEVER aligned myself with the "culture of life" (gag, spit over the overblown rhetoric) movement, and somewhat resent being lumped in with them.

My contention all along is that the situation in Darfur is simply one we can't fix, for some very ugly and very concrete reasons. I wish to hell it were otherwise, but I just don't see how we can actually achieve anything.

J.

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