"I'm Going to Miss the Hummer in the Same Way I'll Miss Dick Cheney"

by Robert Farago

July 31st, 2008 11:27 AM

i m going to miss the hummer in the same way i ll miss dick cheney

Why would anyone gloat about The Great American SUV's spectacular fall from grace? Why wouldn't they? As for San Francisco Chronicler Mark Morford's gleeful epitaph, the main question here is, "Dude! What took you so long?" Whatever your take on the topic, you gotta admit MM dances on the SUV's grave with pugnacious panache. "Who didn't note the beginning of the end when, five years ago, the world's worst consumer vehicle ever took its place as the poster child for all that went wrong with the condescending American ethos, the oil-sucking war-drunk Bush-mauled mind-set? Ah, the Hummer H2. Has any consumer product embodied our misguided arrogance better? The ridiculous scale, the horrible handling, the contemptible road manners, the false machismo, the Cro-Magnon design, the ability to traverse 60-degree rockslides in a hurricane even though all you ever really needed to do was run over those little concrete bumps in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Dude! Righteous!" And here's the really scary part: Detroit Free Press' Matt Helms' po-faced, mea culpa response. Has Motown's mauling put it into a terminal funk?

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Ret on Aug 01, 2008

@philipwitak O.K., I was going to stay out of this but your last comment was just too much: how can you possibly conclude that illegally initiating a pre-emptive war-of-choice, under false premises Illegal? How about more than a dozen UN Security Council resolutions, culminating in 1441, which clearly indicated that Iraq had to cooperate and comply or face consequences? How about regieme change in Iraq being official U.S. policy since 1998 (under Clinton)? How about congressional authorization of use of force to enact the above mentioned regieme change? Illegal my a$$! against an innocent people Sorry pal, the war was against Hussein's dictatorship, not against the Iraqi people. primarily for the purpose of stealing their natural resources Since we're "stealing" all that oil, that must be why the price of crude is still only $45/bbl... Right? manipulating their government for our own imperial objectives Setting up a democratic system of government which is now, quite rightly, pushing to have U.S. forces out of thier country doesn't really seem to be that great for our "imperialist objectives". The Iranian Shah (you know, the one that Carter abandoned, allowing the radical muslim mullahs to take power) was what you get when the U.S. manipulates a government. It's called 'history'. Learn it... how would you feel if any other country did the same thing to us? You mean freed us from a tyrranical crazy person who fancied himself the modern Nebuchadnezzar? I guess I'd feel pretty good about it. ------------------ I feel better, but I thought this website was "The Truth About Cars"... not "Random (and easily de-bunked) Bullshit About Politics".

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TexasAg03 on Aug 01, 2008
how can you possibly conclude that illegally initiating a pre-emptive war-of-choice, under false premises, against an innocent people, primarily for the purpose of stealing their natural resources and manipulating their government for our own imperial objectives, will somehow be judged more positively in a few decades? especially once you take into consideration all of the lives lost and/or shattered and all of the treasure squandered? Congress approved the war, so I don't see how it was illegal. The war was not against "innocent people" it was against Saddam Hussein and his terrorist friends (yes, there were links between Saddam and the terrorists). If by "imperial objectives" you mean setting a country free from a murderous dictator so that they now vote in elections, then yes. how would you feel if any other country did the same thing to us? If we were living under someone like Saddam, who loved nothing more than filling mass graves, then I would be grateful.

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Phil Ressler on Aug 01, 2008
how can you possibly conclude that illegally initiating a pre-emptive war-of-choice, under false premises, against an innocent people, primarily for the purpose of stealing their natural resources and manipulating their government for our own imperial objectives, will somehow be judged more positively in a few decades? especially once you take into consideration all of the lives lost and/or shattered and all of the treasure squandered? how would you feel if any other country did the same thing to us? "International Law" and law within a country's domain aren't the same thing. The "illegal" nature of the Iraq invasion won't be much of a factor in the eventual historical judgment of the consequences. As for false premises, we did not go to war in Iraq for WMDs. This was simply the argument the Bush administration chose to use publicly, in part because Bush didn't have the confidence to sell the real reason, and in part because there was sufficient common belief of Iraqi possession of WMDs to be a credible reason at the time. It was a lamentable mistake to use this as cover for other, more sound reasons. The best proof that the invasion of Iraq was not undertaken to "steal their natural resources" is that we've done no such thing since. More to the point, we're going to leave in time and we're actively helping them build up their own military and are transferring security responsibility to them. No oil or other resource has been stolen by the US in this endeavor, nor will it be. If we had gone there to steal oil, we could have used our military to secure a few prime oil-producing regions and left the rest of the country to sort itself out. We didn't do that. The Iraq invasion was also not an imperial undertaking, nor does the United States behave as an imperial power would. We certainly try to maintain a sphere of order in the world, but the long-term occupation behavior of imperialism just isn't sustained by the American record. Notwithstanding the high value of individual lives, history doesn't judge wars good or bad, nor the conduct of specific combatants, on the body count. Saddam Hussein was killing hundreds of thousands of his people at will. What apalled people in Dafur or Somalia, was overlooked in Iraq. Why is that? The Iraq War had an infinitesimal body count on our side. The Iraq Occupation's body count by US forces has been small or moderate by historical standards, while the civilian casualties suffered by Iraqis has unfortunately reflected the consequences of guerrilla and terror tactics willfully conducted amongst the civilian population. The American conduct of the occupation and suppressing the insurgency has involved many excesses and expensive mistakes, but no war is perfectly executed. Our campaign in Iraq will be judged by the consequences over an extended period of time. We're too close to it to know, at the moment. Phil

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Philipwitak on Aug 01, 2008

just to set the record straight. re: "If we are stealing natural resources why am i paying 4.21 a gallon to fill up my car?" Bugawho / August 1st, 2008 at 5:10 am you are apparently assuming that getting control of iraqi oil would make it cheaper for americans. that would be wrong. the world's oil companies are not achieving record profits by keeping the retail cost as low as possible for consumers, they are profiting at these historical levels by keeping costs as high as the market will bear. and it is essential to note this: "june 20, 2008 exxon/mobil, british petroleum, shell and total set to sign deal with baghdad ...the major oil companies have been eager to go back to Iraq..." www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-east/oil-giants-return-to-iraq-851036.html in the eyes of cowboy george and the big dick, that is 'mission accomplished.' re: "How many more innocent AMERICANS would have needed to be killed for you to decide going to war was ok? Bugawho / August 1st, 2008 at 5:10 am i have no problem whatsoever with any country's right to retaliate after they have been attacked - that would be an act of self-defense and entirely justfied, as long as the attacked country didn't provoke the attack in the first place and as long as the country attacked retaliates against the actual perpetrators of the original attack. as almost everybody knows - whether they are willing to admit it or not - iraq had nothing to do - repeat, nothing to do - with the 9/11 attacks against the united states. re: "...Illegal? How about more than a dozen UN Security Council resolutions...How about regieme change in Iraq being official U.S. policy since 1998...How about congressional authorization of use of force to enact the above mentioned regieme change? ret / August 1st, 2008 at 10:26 am still illegal, even despite the three, rather weak 'justifications' you site. and immoral, too. waging war against sovereign nations and innocent people - that have done you no harm - simply because you want to and/or you are able to do so, is illegal. re: "Sorry pal, the war was against Hussein'™s dictatorship, not against the Iraqi people." try telling that to the tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent people who have suffered and /or died - or were they just some sort of collateral damage? and once again: "Hussein's dictatorship" had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on the united states. but even so, according to your misguided sense of logic, if we had the right to eradicate "Hussein's dictatorship" because we did not like it or agree with it, then it follows that other countries would have that same sort of right to wage war against united states and destroy the bush administration if they didn't happen to like and/or agree with it - yes? no?. re: "You mean freed us from a tyrranical crazy person...I guess I'™d feel pretty good about it." ret / August 1st, 2008 at 10:26 am me too. 20 january 2009 can't come soon enough. and by the way, you are not any pal of mine. re: "'International Law' and law within a country's domain aren'™t the same thing." Phil Ressler / August 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am agreed. so which would you think prevails in this case? did we launch an unprovoked attack against one of our own united states - or against a sovereign country? re: "As for false premises, we did not go to war in Iraq for WMDs. This was simply the argument the Bush administration chose to use publicly, in part because Bush didn'™t have the confidence to sell the real reason, and in part because there was sufficient common belief of Iraqi possession of WMDs to be a credible reason at the time." Phil Ressler / August 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am quite a lot is now known about all of the false premises bush and cheney employed. they began with the realization that americans would be seeking retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, not with the threat of wmds. then it quickly became wmds. and then regime change. etc. etc. et al. and each time the facts cast reasonable doubt or successfully refuted their claims, bush, cheney and their trusted band of neocon thugs introduced a new reason for why we went to war in iraq. you do realize all of the administration's 'evidence' was false, don't you?. and that they knew it all along. this false information was used, not only to sell the war to a gullible american people at a time they were still disoriented, smarting from the 9/11 attacks and rightfully seeking some sort of justice - but they also used this false information to mislead and convince congress that it should grant the president wide and liberal authority to respond however he wished. huge mistakes all around. but while some were honest mistakes, others were intentionally misleading and deceptive - simply because truth and justice would never justify the response that neocons had in mind all along. for some factually accurate insight into all of this, readers with sufficient intellectual courage should review the 'downing street memos,' the 'iraq hydrocarbon law' and key documents - beginning with the mission statement - issued by the 'pnac' / 'project for a new american century'. google em. any of em. all of em. and expose yourselves to the truth.

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