I KNEW I liked that guy...

i'm sorry, but why does it matter what the soldiers think about the war? they're the aggressors; why aren't we asking the victims instead? why aren't we asking the Iraqis if they want us to continue bombing them and occupying Iraq?

Belzer's point about the dismissive blow-off of anyone who "disses" the war was good. Just remember, more people want us out, than want us in. Now, when this fact is married to WHY some people want the U.S. in Iraq permanently (the four huge permanent military bases are not going anywhere), when someone can make that point like Belzer did, that will move the conversation forward. That congresswoman is irritating; her grasping of the soldier to prop up her rhetoric is pathetic.

why is it whenever they try to hide behind "the troops' it sounds like they're talking about 'special olympians'?

"They're so brave and everyone is a winner!"

Hey, let's have Ice Cream!!

It is the duty of the military to fight. Nothing more. It is not their job to question what they are doing.

That responsibility is almost exclusively reserved for the civilian citizens of the nation. If the mission is wrong, then it is for the civilians to declare it so, not for the soldiers on the front line.

They are apolitical, and they must be, in order to do their job. Anyone who attempts to use a line of reasoning similar to "the soldiers know what they are doing" has completely invalidated the Constitution , by making deliberate attempts to exploit the military for political gain.

And need I point out that the right-wing idiot begs and screams and stomps her feet, and makes a big hissy fit about how she needs silence to make her points, but absolutely refuses to offer a similar quiet to anyone else? What a fucking hypocrite.

These people need to be dragged away from their cameras and given serious medical treatment. Every one of them is mentally ill, as evidenced by their utter lack of logic or empathy.

"Hey, let's have Ice Cream!!"

They have over 31 flavours at Camp Anaconda in Iraq. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/view/

Where's -BEEP- ? Isn't there supposed to be a -BEEP-? And why is Maher so concerned when the guy curses?

Belzer may be right, but if he doesn't shut up and let her express her point, he's no better than the people who talk down about Cindy Sheehan.

[pix], it's HBO, so no bleep.

Also, I was serving in the military until my knees broke. While active, I never would have said anything negative about what I was doing. For one thing, it brings down morale, and low morale spreads like poison. For another thing, if my negative opinions reached my CO, there would be a bit of a problem. Also, Belzer is right - they don't have time to really sit back and ponder/research the war...I know I didn't.

I think Maher had to quiet Belzer down. It was not so much his curse words, but the fact he was intimidating her was losing his point.

She is a woman and a congresswoman. She deserves some repect even if she is a twit that uses her son to emotional backup her bankrupt arguements.

Ask any laywer.. browbeating someone to the point they look sympathetic is the sureest way to lose an arguement.

After Abu Ghraib, it should be pretty clear that soldiers on the ground shouldn't be used as the arbitrers of American foreign policy.

So Richard Belzer is an expert on war and a man or woman who's being shot at on daily basis is not. Wow you learn something everyday. I suppose we can expand that logic to say that anybody who can read a newspaper is automatically an expert on foreign policy as well.

What is it, some 70% of the soldiers in the field think Sadamm was directly involved in 9/11 and many of the hijackers were Iraqi. Certainly someone with access to an uncensored internet and press and not dodging bullets each day is in a better position to know the overall progress or lack of progress of the war. In addition I believe soldiers are not allowed to speak freely on the subject of the war.

I like to see those statistics for themselves rather than taking your word for it.

The point is not that a soldier is a scholar on all the aspects of the war, rather my point is that it is absurd for an actor who has only carried a gun on a TV show to infer that he knows what war is and the average line grunt doesnt. Its BS.

Soldiers really cannot speak out freely against the war. Listen for the phrase "George W. Bush is my Commander-in-Chief, and I support the decisions of my Commander-in-Chief." This is the closest thing to public dissent a member of the military can utter without getting written up.

However, Belzer should have let her speak her peace. She didn't need his help to sound ignorant.

SNA

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075

Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11, most don’t blame Iraqi public for insurgent attacks

I agree with AsinineAmerican.

Whether the troops want to be there or not isn't the issue, because they never make the decisions. They must always do what is asked of them by a civilian government (although I do think the majority are certainly misinformed regarding the politics of the situation, as Norm's poll has documented).

Instead, it's about the ethics of the thing, which exists entirely free of popularity/unpopularity within any demographic. We must look at the pretenses, the methodology, the human cost, the corruption, and the politics post-invasion for an assessment of whether the war was a good idea. On amlost every count, it seems like it was not.

This video clip was eerie and pathetic when I saw it on a Conservative media watchdog website, and it was even more eerie when I saw it on this, ostensibly left of center blog. Both websites drew different things from the same clip.

Some observations :

1 - The blonde hispanic lady from Florida (who did she marry to get a Finnish surname?) is a supporter of Scientology, and thusly deserves neither the time nor energy of her fellow citizens.

2 - Richard Belzer is an irrational overemotional hot air balloon. His point that the troops aren't scholars of the war is such a disgusting generalization. The "pawns" aren't the only pieces on a chessboard, Belz, and I'm sorry to tell you that despite your self-conscious freedom of opinion, you Belz, the viewers and producers of that show, the readers and writers of this blog are also all pawns.

Of course the troops are going to say positive things about the war. Remember this?

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7918.shtml

And while I agree with Richard Belzer in this case, Bill Maher is right in that he's coming across as an asshole and that no matter if you're completely right, people won't listen when you talk like that.

Dionysus,

I don't know if you watched the entire Bill Maher episode, but if you did, Belzer goes on to apologize for getting too worked up and retreating a little from his overzealous attack.

I do agree that he went a little overboard, but it is really hard to understand how people like Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen (and many Republicans) get away with making deflecting statements that Dems/Liberals wish Saddam was back in power and that they hate the troops, etc., etc.

It's hard for there to be rational discussions when they start from such an irrational place - where one side has to defend their patriotism before they get to make their point. Ridiculous.

By the way, if readers and writers of this blog and Real Time are pawns, doesn't that make you a pawn too?

Chris,

I'd prefer to count myself out of the chess game, merely a spectator, laughing, mocking, crying and sometimes vomiting at the obscene design of the game.

Someone above wrote: "So Richard Belzer is an expert on war and a man or woman who's being shot at on daily basis is not."

Yes, a man being shot at is not an expert on the validity of the war, in the same way that a murdered person's parents are not experts on the guilt or innocence of the person who committed the crime. Soldiers are dodging bullets and shooting people. They're not impartial observers. Fuck, even George Bush isn't an impartial obvserver because he wont watch anything but Fox News and wont listen to anything that doesn't confirm his narrowminded misconceptions. The more we know, the more informed we are, the more we can make reasonable and rational decisions. That's the sorely lacking scientific method. People who conduct their lives based on one antiquated book or conduct a war based on one biased "news" source or the opinion of a 19-year old soldier should not be making decisions that affect the lives of millions of people. I wouldnt ask a 19-year old sophomore in science his opinion on my cancerous tumor. I ask a doctor. And then I ask a second doctor. And if they dont agree, I ask a third. Until I have enough information to make a valid opinion.

Dionysus,

If you really consider yourself just "a spectator" isn't that just another way of saying that you are unwilling to participate? I would suggest that if you don't like the game, find a way to help change it. Because this "chess game" effects us all. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

You know, I liked that Richard got emotional like that and personally, I don't give a shit if people think he went overboard or if people think he was being an asshole...maybe that's just what you have to do.

Whether you like him or not, Bill O'Reilly simply yells and screams and bitches and moans and people listen. Maybe getting worked up like that sometimes is the way to go.

To me, it seems that people don't listen whether you're being calm and rational or emotional like Belzer. So my theory is, if people aren't going to listen any way, at least make your voice heard so they'll have no choice but to hear it.

THE BELTZ baby!!

This clip is a gentle lullaby compared to what is going on on right wing talk radio or Fox News. If that poor Congresswoman cannot come up with some short sentences to make her point or raise her voice accordingly it's her problem. People critizing the war are constantly given the "Saddam" treatment as if critizing the war and cheering for Saddam were the same thing. If this was 1988 it would be the exact same Congresswoman rooting for "our" Saddam, remember?

And what's that about going after Charlton Heston? I love his movies, too. But I still think he's an old idiot. And Moore was absolutely right to point that out.

What's the matter with Maher?

This is not exactly relevant to the above clip, but I'm exasperated by the continual avoidance of the central topic of our involvement in this war: our foriegn policies. We have a long list of thugs we have helped come to power for the last 50 years. People like Hussein, Marcos, Noriega, Samosa, to name a few. This war's legacy goes back 35 years, from the CIA's support of the Baathist rebellion to the Regan era support for Hussein's war machine to the WMDs that WE SOLD to Hussein (which he then used on the Kurds), etc... The debate should be on the imperrative that we change our policy of control through the use of gangsters. I've no doubt that there is a wish for stable democracies, but our government keeps thinking they can wave their magic war wand and make these maniacs, and the mess we've made with them, go away. On very rare occations, in all these media debates, do I hear that Hussein was OUR mistake and that the bloodshed in Iraq could have been avoided if we were a little less paranoid and not so damned desperate to CONTROL the world "for the sake of democracy."