See other Editorial Articles
Title: Jack Bauer for president
Source:
World Net Daily
URL Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53986
Published: Jan 29, 2007
Author: Joseph Farah
Post Date: 2007-01-30 11:54:58 by SmokinOPs
Keywords: Jack Bauer, torture, fantasies
Views: 350
Comments: 22
There's a reason Fox's "24" is the most popular show on television. It's not just the suspense. It's not just the action. It's not just the great premise, the great writing, the great performances and the great production values. It's because America loves Jack Bauer. We recognize we need him. If you have watched even a few episodes of "24," you realize it's not decisions by the president of the United States that save Americans from disaster after disaster. It's individual initiative and courage displayed by Jack Bauer – the man we're constantly reminded is "expendable." Viewers understand Jack Bauer is the one indispensable character. They recognize without him, or others like him, all is lost. Presidents come and go. Jack Bauer remains – and, as long as he remains, there is hope the bad guys will continue to be foiled in their efforts to kill Americans and destroy their country. To say Jack Bauer's methods are "controversial" would be an understatement. Quite frankly, his methods would be illegal in the real America – and not only in the way they are employed inside the country against citizens, but even on America's battlefields and in foreign places with names like Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay. Back in the real world, President Bush is hoping to win his war in Iraq by sending in 20,000 more U.S. troops. But what he needs, figuratively speaking, is Jack Bauer. He needs new tactics. He needs intelligence. He needs information extracted from captives on the battlefield and enemies picked up on the streets of America. Actually what he needs is a dose of common sense – not really anything new. He needs to turn our brave fighting men loose. He needs to free their hands of the restraints he and the Congress of the United States have placed on them with regard to interrogation techniques. He needs to return to the rules of engagement that made the American military the envy of the world. Prior to November 2004, there was little question anywhere that America was accomplishing its mission in Iraq. It was destroying the enemy and transforming the country into a U.S. ally in the Middle East. But what happened in November 2004 changed all that. It wasn't a victory on the battlefield by al-Qaida. It wasn't a spontaneous uprising by America's enemies. It wasn't any failure by U.S. troops. It was a public-relations disaster called Abu Graib. That media coup for the enemy set off a chain of events that ultimately led the politicians in Washington to handcuff our troops – ensuring the quagmire that followed. Abu Graib spelled the end of coercive interrogations. Now enemy captives know they don't have to talk. They know exactly what U.S. interrogators will and won't do to get information. They have no fear. They know Jack Bauer isn't coming. That's why Bush's plan for more troops won't work. It's not more troops we need. It's taking the handcuffs off the troops already on the battlefield that is needed. When we stopped performing coercive interrogations, we no longer had the ability to prevent attacks before they happened. We no longer had the human intelligence we had prior to November 2004. What we get from prisoners now is nothing, nada, zilch, zip … bupkiss. Does anyone in Washington watch "24"? Does President Bush? Does Nancy Pelosi? Does Harry Reid? What do they think of it? Do they cheer on Jack Bauer? Or, do they scream at the television: "Arrest that man!" I really wonder. Because America needs Jack Bauers. We will lose Iraq if we fail to recognize war is a dirty business that must be waged with the understanding that anything short of victory is unacceptable. There will be a presidential election in 2008, God willing. I hope there will be a Jack Bauer among the candidates.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
What an idiotic statement. I used to have respect for Farah.
Wow- I am not sure what to pick on first- his belief that Federal police state bureaucrats "keep us safe" or his call to make to make the US army one big SS Death Heads unit - complete with classes on how to torture and murder people. I also love his claim that the war was being won- until Abu Gharib was exposed and the torture stopped. Farah claims to be some sort of "Christian". He is a diseased evil man.
Oh my- that would so crush me if "We" lost Iraq. The consequences are just to horrible to imagine if "we" lost Iraq. Why that would mean I wouldn't be robbed by DC to pay for a couple hundred thousand troops to be there for eternity so they can get in more wars that profit me and mine nothing at all and serve no interest for me whatsoever. Yeah, that would really devastate me. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that Iraqi goat herders are no longer being tortured by "Jack Bauer". Oh my- what would I do with myself if "we" lost in Iraq? That Moslem flotilla would be right off our coast lobbing shells into downtown Boston. Oh my oh me! Save me from the goat herders fictional character Jack Bauer! I am a giant idiot pussy who likes to have half his paycheck stolen to protect me from Mooslems who have less of a chance of killing me than does lightening. Eeeeeeeek. Save me. "We" must win in Iraq.
It was also the failure to find "WMDs." The deeper problem is the contradiction between means and ends. "Liberating" or exporting "Democracy" is incompatible with the ruthlessness and sense of superiority required to invade and pacify. You cannot invade and pacify a people who, even if you don't particularly like them, you bear no ill will towards. No, you have to be willing to shoot Gandhi.
Does moving from FR to LF to LP to 4um count as white flight?
We've totally lost it when the most "inspirational" figure is a television character. Even during the ColdWar did Buckley ever pine for Superman to wipe out the Soviets. To take an action show and extrapolate it into reality is well - words fail to describe the bemusement and incredulity of Farah's proposition. Since 911, we've been unable to describe and identify the enemy, using the rhetorical cover of a war on a tactic, unchallenged by anyone in the political spectrum and now, hell, enlist Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd and Daffy!
Excellent observations!
The thing that is striking about this torture business is how much of the American population embraces it- demands it and how it is actually even discussed in our public forums. Totalitarian regimes in the past never did this. They used torture quite extensively but this wasn't public fare. They didn't advertise the fact that they use torture. It was a dark shameful secret of the regime- that they tried to keep hidden from view from the populace as much as possible. But here- in this country- Americans are so amoral- so degenerate- that we actually have pundits who publically call for killing mass amounts of civilians and instituting the widespread use of torture. And they are not hounded off the airwaves by outraged citizens. Our soccer mommies drop off their kids to practive while listening to the local reichwinger radio call for nuking Mecca and "killing them all". Indeed- half of this country is so utterly amoral and degenerate that they would support killing the entire world to "keep them safe".
He's a Lebanese-Christian so maybe he holds some personal animosity toward Arab-Muslims. He is a diseased evil man. Most certainly. And the disease is quite prevalent, at endemic levels even. I also love his claim that the war was being won- until Abu Gharib was exposed and the torture stopped. We know it didn't stop. In fact it probably accelerated at it was moved more underground. But Farah doesn't even have his chronology straight. He tries to assert that Abu Ghraib tied the hands of the military somehow starting in November 2004. I believe this is a deliberate lie on his part. Abu Ghraib broke in April of 2004 and Farah knows damn well that no hands were tied in the razing of Fallujah that November. I also want to know what these cretins mean by "hands being tied". How many foreigners should the US military kill a day? 100, 200, 5,000? And in how many countries? Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan aren't enough? Should there be a kill quota imposed on the Marines like a Sheriff's Department does for traffic tickets?
Farah means carpet bomb the cities, killing hundreds of thousands, and then starving them into total subservient submission. He wrote a column like that about Fallujah- how it should have leveled completely. That was a year after the "Great victory" he wrote about when he blessed the Iraqi people. The man makes me want to vomit.
The flip side of that is little resistance to dispossession by immigration. The neocons have the other end of that cleft stick. A people that can be easily led in any direction will not move strongly (in the behaviorist sense) in any direction. On the other hand, a people with strong behavior can be led in only a few directions. Both support and opposition for the war is quite weak. If we strongly opposed immigration, or strongly supported it, then we would also strongly support or oppose the war. Though there are rather high percentages of opposition to both, it's not right to characterize this as strong opposition. It's mostly been strong minorities that have made big changes in history. Percentages matter at the voting booth, but only when the votes are a proxy for non-voting consequences. There is no magic in voting booths. Since there are no non-voting consequences for our rulers, our votes don't matter.
Does moving from FR to LF to LP to 4um count as white flight?
Even during the ColdWar did Buckley ever pine for Superman to wipe out the Soviets. To take an action show and extrapolate it into reality is well - words fail to describe the bemusement and incredulity of Farah's proposition. Combat fantasies is all most of the wingnuts have. I have 4 close family members who served in combat units in WWII. I can't say as I ever saw any of them watching war movies. Mostly watched baseball with too much to drink.
It's pathetic. Does Farah truly believe that "24" is how our government works? That our government is filled with men who work tirelessly 24/7 "saving" us from nuclear bomb plots at the last minute? Does Farah actually think that it is routine for the police to be in a situation where they have to torture someone or else a ticking time bomb will go off and kill people? Is Farah a complete dolt? Is he a complete naif? I understand he sometimes claims to be a "libertarian" of some sort. Isn't he embarassed by this moron state worship? This rumpswabbery to not even real government employees but a friggin TV show that shows such people in situations that NEVER occur in real life- that are completely fantastical? This is one of the most embarassingly stupid columns that I have read from a reichwinger.
That's worth the price of admission. Archaic English can be a delight.
Ugh. Whatafuckingtool.
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
I have to admit, I was relieved when I saw the author was the retard Farah.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
I can dig up some equally retarded Jonah Goldberg pieces with "Simpson's" quotes in National Review or Johnathan V. Last's "Star Wars" references in the Weekly Standard if you want to be more disturbed.
Is that where he said the good guys of Star Wars was the Empire and he defended the "judicious" use of the Death Star to kill entire planets?
SO: He's a Lebanese-Christian so maybe he holds some personal animosity toward Arab-Muslims. Burkeman: He is a diseased evil man. SO: Most certainly. And the disease is quite prevalent, at endemic levels even. Farah is quite a hate-monger whatever ethnic/religious background he may have. He claims he's a Christian of Lebanese and Syrian descent yet he knocks Arabs every chance he gets and the war mongering views he spouts are hardly mainstream Christian. Farah must be one of the few Arab holy rollers that those type of fundie churches ever attracted into their fold. Quite unique old Joe is, I would imagine. He's not just against Arabs - Joe spreads his "contempt" around to cover other groups too - Democrats, liberals, gays, working moms, etc etc. It's not like he's a one trick pony. http://www.counterpunch.or g/heard01112005.html http://www.answers.com/topic/joseph-farah http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/zforum/03/sp_books_farah031203.htm
That would be the one. The Case for the Empire Johnathan Last The destruction of Alderaan is often cited as ipso facto proof of the Empire's "evilness" because it seems like mass murder--planeticide, even. As Tarkin prepares to fire the Death Star, Princess Leia implores him to spare the planet, saying, "Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons." Her plea is important, if true. But the audience has no reason to believe that Leia is telling the truth. In Episode IV, every bit of information she gives the Empire is willfully untrue. In the opening, she tells Darth Vader that she is on a diplomatic mission of mercy, when in fact she is on a spy mission, trying to deliver schematics of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance. When asked where the Alliance is headquartered, she lies again. Leia's lies are perfectly defensible--she thinks she's serving the greater good--but they make her wholly unreliable on the question of whether or not Alderaan really is peaceful and defenseless. If anything, since Leia is a high-ranking member of the rebellion and the princess of Alderaan, it would be reasonable to suspect that Alderaan is a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents like Leia. Whatever the case, the important thing to recognize is that the Empire is not committing random acts of terror. It is engaged in a fight for the survival of its regime against a violent group of rebels who are committed to its destruction. You see, blowing up a planet would just seem like planeticide. It wouldn't actually be planeticide in the post-modern, hermeneutic world of the Neocon.
Oye! A self hating Arab?
Well Farah wasn't always that way. In fact when he was younger growing up in New Jersey surrounded by a strong Jewish community he was very much pro Arab and resented that he was a minority voice in the midst of alot of pro-Israel cheerleaders. It was later when he got older that he experienced his pro-Israel epiphaney. I suspect that because Farah is not too talented in business ( Sacramento Union and Los Angeles Herald Examiner went into bankrupsy soon after Joe became editor-in-chief), he morphed into an Israel-centric Arab "identity" that could earn him and his wife big bucks from the usual suspect "investors." Btw, Farah co-wrote a book several years ago with a guy who had connections to none other than Jack Ambramoff. Hmmm.... The following article gives some insight to the timeline of Joe morphing into a self-loathing Arab - or rather a self serving Isreal-centric media punk. http://chri >http://stia nactionforisrael.org/isreport/jan02/farah.htmlWhen we stopped performing coercive interrogations [torture], we no longer had the ability to prevent attacks before they happened.
#2. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
#3. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
We will lose Iraq if we fail to recognize war is a dirty business that must be waged with the understanding that anything short of victory is unacceptable.
#4. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
#5. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
#6. To: swarthyguy (#5)
We've totally lost it when the most "inspirational" figure is a television character...To take an action show and extrapolate it into reality is well - words fail to describe the bemusement and incredulity of Farah's proposition.
#7. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
#8. To: Burkeman1 (#2)
Farah claims to be some sort of "Christian".
#9. To: SmokinOPs (#8)
#10. To: Burkeman1 (#3)
Oh my- that would so crush me if "We" lost Iraq.
#11. To: swarthyguy (#5)
We've totally lost it when the most "inspirational" figure is a television character.
#12. To: swarthyguy (#5)
To take an action show and extrapolate it into reality is well - words fail to describe the bemusement and incredulity of Farah's proposition.
#13. To: Burkeman1 (#12)
rumpswabbery
#14. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
Because America needs Jack Bauers. We will lose Iraq if we fail to recognize war is a dirty business that must be waged with the understanding that anything short of victory is unacceptable.
#15. To: SmokinOPs (#0)
#16. To: angle (#15)
(Edited)
I have to admit, I was relieved when I saw the author was the retard Farah.
#17. To: SmokinOPs (#16)
Johnathan V. Last's "Star Wars" references in the Weekly Standard if you want to be more disturbed.
#18. To: SmokinOPs, Burkeman1 (#8)
Burkeman: Farah claims to be some sort of "Christian".
#19. To: Burkeman1 (#17)
Is that where he said the good guys of Star Wars was the Empire and he defended the "judicious" use of the Death Star to kill entire planets?
#20. To: scrapper2 (#18)
#21. To: swarthyguy, Burkeman1, robin, SmokinOPs, angle, bluedogtxn, Fred Mertz (#20)
Oye! A self hating Arab?
Arabian Knight; Farah 'best friend Israel ever had'
By Aliza Davidovit - January 2002
...Farah is by no means a self-hating Arab American. He is very proud of his Syrian and Lebanese heritage. He has even named one of his daughters Jihan, after Anwar Sadat's daughter. As much as he supports the Jewish state, he would not be pleased if any of his daughters married a Jew. But as a veteran reporter of 25 years, who worked as editor-in-chief of the Sacramento Union and as executive news editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Farah is committed to accurately conveying the unfolding of history, not tapping into the agenda of those trying to reinvent it.
...In his effort to debunk falsehoods that have taken on a life of their own, on Oct. 11, 2000, Farah published an article on his newssite entitled "Myths of the Middle East." The article was reproduced in the Jerusalem Post, the Jewish Press and the Chicago Sun-Times, publications for which Farah now writes on a consistent basis. Coinciding with the onslaught of the now year-old intifada, the article was positively received by Israel's supporters around the world. He received 15,000 emails from Israel alone from those both on the left and right of the political spectrum. The article also earned him thousands of death threats and other nefarious utterances from Arabs all over the world. He was accused of being a Mossad agent, a propagandist for Israel and a covert convert.
...Farah’s beliefs have greatly diverged from those of his childhood days when both his family’s and his own sympathies were aligned with the Arabs. Born and raised in Fair Lawn and Paterson, New Jersey, he was 13 years old during the 1967 Six Day War – and he wanted the Arabs to win. “To me it was a football game and the Arabs were my team,” Farah recounts. “You can’t imagine how I felt growing up with many Jewish friends and watching how excited they were as every day brought Israel a new victory.”
...Farah’s eye-opening journey began when he was a young journalist. His two beats as a reporter, Hollywood and the Middle East, could not have been more different, except in one regard: You just can’t believe what you see on TV.
When Farah came back to the United States, he tried to network in the Arab- American community and write for the local Arab newspapers. Although he was not the staunch supporter of Israel that he is today, the editors would nonetheless cut the conclusions in his articles that they did not like.
...Farah must be doing something right, because WND is a highly visited newssite running neck and neck with The New York Times and USA Today Internet sites. He anticipates that in the next five years it will be the No. 1 newssite. It is hard to doubt Farah in the face of his ambition, seeing that he and his wife Elizabeth created and built up WorldNetDaily from their bedroom each night after putting their four daughters to bed.
And so, despite the threats and lawsuits, Joseph Farah is not afraid. As an evangelical Christian, he believes each man has a divine mission to tell the truth, come what may. He also believes that Israel has a divine mission: to be a light among the nations.
***Aliza Davidovit is a Middle East reporter for Lifestyles magazine and free- lance journalist. This feature story is reprinted from the January issue of international Jewish Lifestyles Magazine.***
Here's a rebuttal to Joe's evangelical screed about Israel and its divine mission. The author has a B.A. from Harvard and a PhD from Columbia and he's a professor of history so I think his academic credentials/knowledge base eclipse Joe's more than a tad bit.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ woods/woods17.html
"The Gospel According to Joe"
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
#22. To: scrapper2 (#21)
Farah is an embarassing low brow. Taking a trip through his archives about Iraq is pure entertainment. Most people- having said and believed what this fool believed (and he was a believer in every souped up reichwinger third tier propaganda lie) would have the sense to effing shut their dope mouths by now. Not this clown. He just keeps on going making an ass out of himself.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest