Watching CNN at the barbershop -- it's like fucking Groundhog Day

[phantom power]

Al Qaeda training camps!
Plotting against The West!
We might have stopped an attack against America!
American firepower!
Tomahawk missiles!

We haven't learned a goddamned thing.

[LawDeeDah]

1. I don't expect anything other from CNN so this doesn't bother me at all.

[riversedge]

6. Actually--I had msnbc on and off today--same thing....

they were comparing the grainy images of shock and ah from irag with today's images. still talking of missiles, guns. showing images of the targets. ect. I was waiting to hear Pres Obama at the UN earlier but just war talk!! very disappointing. the attach last night took over any and all climate talk. so sad

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Rinse and repeat.

And the Cable Twits are parading all these Retired(mouth pieces)Generals out telling us FEAR FEAR. Military Industrial Complex at it's best. Remember what Powell said:you break it you own it. Boy,ain't that the trought.

[Louisiana1976]

3. I don't have cable but I remember from when I used to watch CNN that it was repetitious.

[villager]

4. And now... Clinton vs. Bush, in 2016!

Some days you think, the collapse of Empire just can't come fast enough...

[BrotherIvan]

40. Just so

But if we clap loud enough, we won't hear it tearing itself apart.

[merrily]

5. When we figure out how to make peace profitable, we'll

have peace.

Maybe we can also have it if we grow a spine and vote out anyone who votes in a way we disapprove.

[tecelote]

7. Profit. It's the American Way.

I agree. No peace until war is less profitable.

Morals have nothing to do with it anymore.

[merrily]

10. Not only American, by any means.

I should have mentioned, as I usually do, that we apparently can make a "peace process" profitable for some people. But, not actual peace. Apparently, that is to be avoided. No amount of suffering is too great a price to pay for war profits.

[sabrina 1]

9. 'Vote out anyone who votes in a way we disapprove'. That IS the only way.

Keep on voting for them and nothing is going to change.

[merrily]

11. Why should it change, as long as they keep their

comfortable salaries and many perks, their power, their support from donors and lobbyists, etc.?

[Maedhros]

24. This bears repeating, over and over.

We can't have change as long as we vote for the status quo.

[VanillaRhapsody]

28. YOU are not a majority.....sorry

I hate to tell you this but the numbers do not support you....just as I was telling you over the weekend

[dixiegrrrrl]

52. And yet, Sabrina....we DID vote for "hope and change"

TWICE.
And here we are.

[sabrina 1]

58. I don't think many of us understood then how the system works. We thought

speaking for myself, that we could end the bad policies of the Bush years by electing Democrats.

Now that we know this is not true, the best way, perhaps the only way, is to focus on local elections, and Congress. It took THEM decades to take over and it will probably take as long to reverse the system back to where elected politicians actually work for the people. But we have to start somewhere. Close to home is probably the best place to begin. If anyone has any better ideas, I would be interested in hearing them.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. One of the best comments of the day, IMHO.

[font style=color:#FF0000;]"Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on." [/font]
Kurt Vonnegut

[merrily]

50. Quite a compliment. Thank you very much.

[brooklynite]

8. What breaking news story should CNN be covering?

[sabrina 1]

14. How will this benefit the American people?? How did Iraq and Afghanistan benefit

the American people? Just curious, since we are told by the heads of the House and Senate committees that we are in 'more danger than ever'?

So could you explain how all these wars benefit the average American?

[VanillaRhapsody]

29. did you see the arrests in Australia? 800 of them last I heard.....

[sabrina 1]

31. Great, they didn't need to go bombing anyone, they ARRESTED THEM. That is how to deal with

terrorists.

Just as we always said, treat it like a police action as every country in the world has done for eons.

[phantom power]

32. +1000

[VanillaRhapsody]

33. You do know we do have Americans in that area right?

The Yadzidi thank you for your concern!

[sabrina 1]

41. My concern is that once we get the war going, no one will give a damn about the Yadzidi

anymore, no one will even remember them.

They are being used as pawns to get a war going. Just as we used the Kurds, not once, no twice, but we are doing it again.

Anyone know what happened to the people we went to liberate in Iraq from 'Saddam's Torture Chambers'?

Any remember ONE SINGLE NAME of those people? Wait, we took over those torture chambers didn't we? We tortured and killed and raped and sodomized the very people we were SOOOOOOO 'concerned about.

Please, tell this to someone who has been asleep for the past 13 years.

If those of us who opposed that travesty in Iraq had any say, the Yadzidi people would be safe in their homes and living their lives as they were BEFORE the Western Imperialists destabilized that region and endangered the lives of every single human being who lived there.

I will ask you a year from now how the Yadzidis are doing. They are already forgotten, the war is ON.

[VanillaRhapsody]

44. why should they care about the slaughter of

Yadzidi and Kurds....you obviously dont. Did you care about Rwanda like you care about the Yadzidi?

[leftstreet]

16. Obama Admin giving the nuke industry $1 trillion

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/us-ramping-up-major-renewal-in-nuclear-arms.html

While Americans can't find jobs, or livable wages, or silly things like that

[phantom power]

17. CNN could be asking why we're back there, bombing cities and arming rebels.

I'm so old I remember when news media didn't think it was their job to catapult the propaganda.

[VanillaRhapsody]

30. ask why so many other nations are joining us this time!

[phantom power]

35. The Mighty Coalition Of The Willing (2002) had 48 countries. Still a Stupid War.

[VanillaRhapsody]

37. Not a "Coalition of the Willing" if WE are not the only ones bombing....

but of course you discount that fact.

[sabrina 1]

46. You mean the five Arab Dictatorships? I am hearing that we must intervene for

humanitarian reasons. Have you demanded that we intervene on those grounds in Bahrain eg? Have you been following Bahrain's dictatorship, yes I know they are our allies, which imo makes it all the more important that people claiming to 'care' about humanitarian violations to pay attention to these ALLIES who are 'joining us' now.

In Uzbekistan where our 'ally' the Dictator burns his own people in oil if they DARE to protest his brutal policies, including genocide?

I have not seen much outrage over any of these Dictators here on DU. We give millions of dollars to some of these dictators allowing them to continue to brutalize innocent people every year.

So if our mission is humanitarian I have a list of places, starting with our 'allies' we need to start doing something about. Like ENDING our financing of Dictators like Karamov eg.

It would be best to not talk about our 'allies' going on any humanitarian missions. It would be almost laughable to make that claim considering what we know about them.

[VanillaRhapsody]

47. we are not waging war on dictators or monarchs this time

So how did you feel about Rwanda? Want to see that again? I think you may be the only one.

[sabrina 1]

48. We're not? So who or what are we and our dictator allies waging war on this time??

How do you feel about the Congo? For decades nothing has been done to stop the massive violence that continues to this day. Rape is used daily as a weapon of war there.

How do you feel about Uzbekistan, Bahrain and the myriad places around the world where people are being killed, tortured and raped?

But you say our mission has changed from worrying about humanitarian issues in the ME to something else? So you are saying that now it's okay for us to ignore humanitarian issues by our allies and others because that is no our mission.

So what IS our mission now??

Why ARE we there, again?

[VanillaRhapsody]

49. ISIS

Wow.....just wow...perhaps you have missed thousands of beheadings.....a Frenchman just today. But if you would rather wait uhtil its another Rwanda. Not to mention we still have american troops in Iraq under a brand new govt....and ISIL have claimed Iraqi land...

[snappyturtle]

51. If it's the beheadings that have caused our intervention, then we'd better

take some quick action against Saudi Arabia. Google beheadings Saudi Arabia 2014....oh wait, we can't do that. S.A. is an ally even though it supports IS.

[VanillaRhapsody]

54. did I stutter?

I don't think so.....if you had read what i said you would see several reasons not JUST the beheadings....

[snappyturtle]

55. ISIL isn't the reason rather the excuse we're using this time around.

The U.S. could remove our troops and let the ME take care of itself for a change. We have done nothing there that promotes peace. Instead, we have more hatred (thus ISIL). You can't bomb out an idealogy. Of course, otoh, we can help ISIL recruit more support....mission accomplished.

[VanillaRhapsody]

57. bullfuckingshit

Ask the fleeing Kurds our longtime allies if they appreciate what we are doing!

Ask those refugees in Jordan and Turkey. BTW we have troops in harms way in Iraq AND in case you havent noticed 5 count em 5 Arab nations participated along with France...OH and by the way even Iran supports this AND GB is voting to join in too..

[Warpy]

12. Nope, there is still vicarious glory in war

When that war comes here (and it will unless the country smartens up), they'll be less enthusiastic about it and find very little glory in it, just mud, misery and death.

[spanone]

13. it worked once....

[Erose999]

15. I haven't learned a goddamned thing because I knew all this in 2002/3. I'm sure most DU'ers did as

well.

And the media and the politicians knew too, and the oil men. But the oil men say jump and the media and politicians ask how high.

[valerief]

18. Who is we? We 99% don't want war. The 1%, who make money off it, do. nt

[VanillaRhapsody]

34. Uh you might want to check your numbers on that.....

I think you may be off this time...

[gvstn]

20. I noticed Northrop Grumman is running commercials on CNN again too.

It's funny that they run so many commercials when one can't really go out and purchase anything they make.

I wonder why they would hand so much money over to CNN for airing commercials when its viewers can't really go out and increase profits at Northrop Grumman by buying their products?

[dixiegrrrrl]

53. I appreciate your info, gvstn. And your excellent point.

One of the drawbacks of no tv/radio is I do not get to see significant propaganda like the Northrop commercials.

MSM manipulation of people is important to recognize.

[morningfog]

21. War sells, sadly.

[blkmusclmachine]

22. CNN is doing what its shareholders (the 1%) want

Lies and propaganda

[hobbit709]

23. CNN - Certainly Not News

[KamaAina]

26. Nope. It stands for Corporate News Network.

[Maedhros]

25. And, of course, no good is coming from it.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/23/nobel-peace-prize-fact-day-syria-7th-country-bombed-obama/

It was just over a year ago that Obama officials were insisting that bombing and attacking Assad was a moral and strategic imperative. Instead, Obama is now bombing Assad’s enemies while politely informing his regime of its targets in advance. It seems irrelevant on whom the U.S. wages war; what matters it that it be at war, always and forever.

Six weeks of bombing hasn’t budged ISIS in Iraq, but it has caused ISIS recruitment to soar. That’s all predictable: the U.S. has known for years that what fuels and strengthens anti-American sentiment (and thus anti-American extremism) is exactly what they keep doing: aggression in that region. If you know that, then they know that. At this point, it’s more rational to say they do all of this not despite triggering those outcomes, but because of it. Continuously creating and strengthening enemies is a feature, not a bug. It is what justifies the ongoing greasing of the profitable and power-vesting machine of Endless War.

If there is anyone who actually believes that the point of all of this is a moral crusade to vanquish the evil-doers of ISIS (as the U.S. fights alongside its close Saudi friends), please read Professor As’ad AbuKhalil’s explanation today of how Syria is a multi-tiered proxy war. As the disastrous Libya “intervention” should conclusively and permanently demonstrate, the U.S. does not bomb countries for humanitarian objectives. Humanitarianism is the pretense, not the purpose.

Six weeks of bombing hasn't budged ISIS in Iraq: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/world/middleeast/isis-iraq-airstrikes.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMedia&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

BAGHDAD — After six weeks of American airstrikes, the Iraqi government’s forces have scarcely budged the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State from their hold on more than a quarter of the country, in part because many critical Sunni tribes remain on the sidelines.

Although the airstrikes appear to have stopped the extremists’ march toward Baghdad, the Islamic State is still dealing humiliating blows to the Iraqi Army. On Monday, the government acknowledged that it had lost control of the small town of Sichar and lost contact with several hundred of its soldiers who had been besieged for nearly a week at a camp north of the Islamic State stronghold of Falluja, in Anbar Province.

By midday, there were reports that hundreds of soldiers had been killed there in battle or mass executions. Ali Bedairi, a lawmaker from the governing alliance, said more than 300 soldiers had died after the loss of the base, Camp Saqlawiya. The prime minister ordered the arrest of the responsible officers, although a military spokesman put the death toll at just 40 and said 68 were missing.

...but it HAS caused ISIS recruitment to soar: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.616730

The Islamic State jihadist organization has recruited more than 6,000 new fighters since America began targeting the group with air strikes last month, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

At least 1,300 of the new recruits are said to be foreigners, who have joined IS from outside the swathes of Syria and Iraq that it controls.

The United States has launched some 165 air strikes on IS targets since early August. Other strikes have been carried out by the U.K and France, the latest a French attack on a logistics depot in Iraq on Friday.

A number of rebel commanders who oppose IS while continuing to fight the regime of Syrian president Bashar Assad have warned that the strikes are increasing local support for the jihadists.

So why, again, are we making this mistake?

[2banon]

27. I hear ya. I don't even have cable. I'm still being fed the same crap on NPR

I had to turn it off. And now I'm in the process of resolving to turning it all off.

Because it is as you say, it is FUCKING GROUND HOG DAY over and over and over and over again..

But actually it's much worse.

I'm a grandmother of 2 and just turned 64 and I'm so done with this shit.

I can't read about it anymore, or hear about it anymore. I finally get that this country will be in perpetual War forever until a time comes that we will be destroyed as a nation, or the American People will finally wake the hell up and end this shit.

Wake me when that happens, until then I'm so done.

[Fred Sanders]

36. Watching the major media it is like watching a junkie get his fix, and the fix is war.

You can almost taste the relief that America is back doing what it does best, fuck things up in all parts of the world.

[amandabeech]

38. It seems that too many of the leaders in both parties, in the think tanks, in the media,

in the universities and in the high levels of the civil service and the military have completely forgotten any other thought pattern except bomb, bomb, bomb when it comes to the Middle East.

They are all just complete captives of the PNAC mindset.

It is telling that the Brits don't seem to be interested in getting in on this madness. Many in the British foreign policy establishment tried to warn Tony "The Poodle" Blair about getting involved in Iraq, but it seems that Cameron is playing cagey. Perhaps the shock to the British administered by the near-loss of Scotland from the union has shaken them out of their former thought habits.

Maybe we need a similar political shock to knock our leaders out of their pavlov's dog response.

[stranger81]

39. It is so goddamned disheartening to watch.

Bomb! Kill! War!

USA! USA! USA!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

42. You know how we were accused of trying to "relive the 60s?"...

CNN is trying to relive the early 90s.

Specifically Gulf War I (aka Desert Storm) when they were on top in the ratings showing a lot of green night vision.

They were really looking forward during Dubya to filming a mushroom cloud. Didn't matter if it was here or there.

[Enthusiast]

43. Didn't they ever hear of "crying wolf"?

[Capt. Obvious]

45. Did they give up on the missing plane?

[madokie]

56. Quit going to the damn barber shop

just kid'n

On a lighter note I plan to do that very thing and see just how long my hair can get
it's the old hippie in me that makes me want to do it