Did we get a major attack of the shills after Zarqawi hit or what?

I noticed an unusual number of cheerleading the death of Zarqawi posts, including several of the black and white, glad or sorry he's dead variety.

The natural discussion here would have been more along the lines of how big a difference that would make since outside of propaganda circles, even the military admits foreign fighters are a small percentage of the insurgency, and al Qaeda is a very small percentage of that.

Sometimes I think we have sleepers here who are all called to duty when the Bushies need a big propaganda push.

The time when it was most obvious was when the Jeff Gannon story was ever so briefly in the news, and we had a million posts here about how it was homophobic to even point out that he was a gay prostitute and might have a customer in the White House. They sounded a hell of a lot more like the GOP talking point on Mary Cheney than the kind of discussions we have here with actual gays in the mix.

PR firms do astroturf blogs, so it's not a stretch to see them paying people to flood boards.

I'm just glad that that dirtbag Zarqawi is dead. Yes, I know he's not the main guy, and that people are making more of a big deal out of it than he actually was, yadda yadda yadda. But he's one dirtbag that won't kill any of our troops anymore. If that makes me a Bushbot, then I'll have to trade in my ACLU and Democratic Party cards.

Not that it's good the cheer the death of anyone, it isn't, but I'm not sorry to see him gone. Nick Burg had his head sawed off as he screamed, the idea that the person behind that won't be doing it again doesn't strike me as a bad one. Why is it that every time there's a difference in how to read an event we're all the sudden on a sleeper hunt? I'm a lot more tired of the paranoia than I am of any trolls. The trolls are easy enough to ignore, but the paranoia and fast accusations divide us more than any troll could.

It seemed like people had a lot invested in that spin of events.

That Nick Berg thing was odd. If Zarqawi thought he was helping out the insurgency, that pissed people off and drew attention away from the Abu Ghraib scandal, which made whatever Bush did after that look justified for a while.

A lot of the violence attributed to him seems to be directed at Iraqis themselves--an odd choice if you are there to "liberate" them.

I think Zarqawi was largely a creation of the media and the administration, we'd hardly heard of him before the war and all the sudden he's running things. Before then he was a small time criminal/terrorist who didn't seem to impress anyone too much.

But, creation or not in the extent of what he was behind, he had a record as a true bad guy long before Bush came up with a use for him. I figure after that he was like a kid in a candy shop, took the publicity we offered him and went about doing what he'd always done. Being destructive.

On the troll aspect, I can't blame anyone for wondering on occasion, I do too, but I doubt it's helpful. Better to ignore and hit the notice button for the mods. Take me for example, for years I stood outside both parties and figured they were both just self serving and damaging. The drug war and prison growth has caused immense damage and both parties drove through parts of it. When I first came here that's the view I had of things still, it wasn't till after I'd been here a while and saw that you guys weren't the same as your leadership that I realized there might be something here I could work with and agree with. I sure don't agree with what we've seen and done in the past.

We've got others out there too, the DLC is what they know but it's not the whole of the party. When someone comes in here and doesn't sound just like us we too often nail them, and that I think is a mistake. We don't have so many voters on our side that we can afford to throw them away through pure paranoia rather than bring them around to our side. Most of us probably have a story to tell about some jerk who read a few words and assumed they knew all about us, with that in mind we should probably try to avoid being one of them.

Just my take on trolls in general :)

others here agree with you?

Oddly, our drug policy is a lot like NAFTA, health insurance, and a lot of other things--the majority of the public disagrees with the majority of their elected officials.

At the very least we should legalize pot. The problem is if we did, if would be hard for a business to make money selling a product that can grow anywhere like a weed.

I've been doing the anti-drug war thing for ages, read my journal and it explains it a little bit. Pot is an easy one, people have agreed there for ages, but till the group LEAP and others of the sort came along most of the rest was an uphill battle. One of my first posts here about a year ago was in a thread about legalizing/regulating all drugs and there were more problems than solutions.

Solutions are out there though with some great test cases done already and as that message has got across I've seen some change. Both here and on other boards. Some places are easier than others and when you start off on a sensitive subject like that you've also got the paranoia aspect which was a problem here till I got a couple hundred posts.

1. liability (a lot of them are dangerous)

2. taxes (you don't pay any on black market products, do you?)

I wouldn't be surprised if some MBA hasn't worked out a formula to determine whether it's more profitable to sell a product legally or on the black market.

Why the hell is the media obsessing over one incident we all know has occured for many days now, but it ignores many IMPORTANT THINGS our congress is voting on and discussing right now? Or are those things not worth talking about, it's better to continue to glorify Zarqawi's death incessantly?

automatically a signal that the poster is a 'shill'?
Zarqawi was a killer of Iraqi's and other's.
I won't miss him! Glad he's gone!

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S16808.html?cat=1

Political reaction to Zarqawi's death

"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a brutal terrorist and his death strikes a blow to al-Qaida in Iraq.
This ruthless thug who abused the true meaning of Islam was an intruder on Iraqi soil
and it's good news that he's dead.
Our troops did an incredible job hunting him down and destroying him,
and all of America is proud of their skill and commitment."
- Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

""This is a good day for the Iraqi people, the U.S military and our intelligence community.
Zarqawi was a cold blooded killer who got what he deserved. Yesterday's mission and its
successful outcome are a testament to the courage and skill of all those serving on the front lines."
- Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada."

~~~~~~~~~~

""Sooner or later evil people meet their just desserts.
The entire world of people who believe in freedom and peace can take solace in what happened."
-Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I think the world has rid themselves of a very evil person. I think of all his assistants
and gofers and people who support him, I hope they meet the same fate."
- Paul Bigley, brother of Kenneth Bigley, who was kidnapped Sept. 16, 2004, and beheaded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"An evil man is dead, and what more can you say?"
- Cyndi Armstrong, speaking for the family of Eugene Armstrong,
a 52-year-old Michigan contractor who was beheaded by al-Zarqawi.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"George Bush is more of a terrorist than Zarqawi is. Zarqawi is attributed to the deaths
of a couple hundred people, including my son. George Bush is responsible for 150,000 deaths
and another one every 12 minutes."
- Michael Berg, whose son Nicholas of Pennsylvania was believed to have been beheaded by al-Zarqawi.

---------------

I only cross posted the Dem statements.
Are they shills too? (probably a loaded question!) ;)

...my bullshit meter pegs.

Don

Depends on if you believe the story about Zarqawi personally beheading Nick Berg, and somehow you took that personally.
I guess that perhaps those who bought that line, and took part in the psyops operation by "al qaeda" by downloading and watching the beheading, are now able to gain closure on the that part of the WAR ON TERROR narrative.

details.

How's that for a "non-shill" thread title?

as I said in the original post, he was a bad guy, but even the military admitted he played a small role in the insurgency.


On the plus side, since he is a foreigner, we probably didn't piss off any new Iraqis by killing him.

at "left leaning" DU and posters indicated they were "glad he's gone". By 10 to 1.

114 to 117 voted "yes" indicating they were "glad Zarkawi was gone".I didn't use the word "dead". There were about 11 or 12 "no" votes. The "no" voters gave principled reasons for their responses.

My idea in holding this type of a poll was to minimize the freeper element. Voters could not hide their identities. It was not meant to be a "cheerleading" exercise.

I was satisfied with the results.

but one cannot consider it a fair representation of DU as a whole.

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Their own way? YES the final frontier of DU taboo topics.

Rinse and repeat until brainwashed.

I've come to expect irrational outbursts on DU in response to stories about certain subjects. But I think the point you're trying to make is that the way many were "dancing on Zarqawi's grave" implied a kind of blind acceptance of the stories surrounding the event. It is remarkable, given the track record of lies the media has dutifully reported as fact, only to be "corrected" later (if at all) in 2-pt type on the back pages.

With all the front pages carrying framed portraits of a dead man, this has all the earmarks of propaganda (like the "heads on a post" campaign following the killing of Uday and Qusay three years ago.)

SO don't count me as one of the "I'm glad he's dead" crowd. Why? Because saying that implies your belief that:

1. Zarqawi actually existed.
2. Zarqawi had a leg amputated.
3. Zarqawi didn't have a leg amputated in photos taken after it was supposedly amputated.
4. Zarqawi wasn't captured as was reported in October, 2004.
5. Washington did not exaggerate the threat from Zarqawi to disguise the strength of Iraq's homegrown insurgency.
6. Zarqawi wasn't killed in the Sulaimaniyah mountains of northern Iraq as was reported in March, 2004.

And the list goes on and on.

One thing for sure: The domestic media's orgy of coverage isn't happening by accident. This is being orchestrated for bush's maximum political benefit.

Opposing views will do that to some people, I guess.

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You went from Zarqawi to Gannon in like 5 seconds, wow!

was mentioning that Bush had NO SUBJECTS to talk to the public about, he couldn't discuss Iraq HADITHA, or the Economy, lots of things that most of the public were disgusted by, so he came out and let us all know that being married was a good thing, trivial bullshit..

THEN, BANG.. the latest HITLER, like this guy was HITLER.. lots of groovy "Your Troops at work" footage, Bush praising the troops, the NSA is doing a fine job, because them going through YOUR SOCK DRAWERS, and making sure you weren't masturbating was the reason they got this BASTARD..

and gee, WHO COULD ARGUE that he wasn't a BAD GUY (nevermind they'd killed him 4-8 times ALREADY), just like the old "Drugs are Bad" meme the Contract with America Repigs threw about, can't argue with that, thats for sure..

The timing is just TOO COINCIDENTAL, Congress had NOTHING TO DO, Bush couldn't SAY anything without pissing anyone off, and NOW he can put on another GI JOE uniform and NO ONE needs to talk about the little "mistake" those troops made SLAUGHTERING innocent people..

BULLSHIT. PR, Propganda, PRESPIN created a "monster" for all these years someone who would take the heat instead of having to actually catch or kill Bin Laden, another "patsy"...

Does it end the 'war'? NOPE. Does it provide talking points for the REPIGS up to and including the MidTerms? YEPPERS.. not only that, but Bush may no longer have LEAD COAT TAILS, maybe some of the Repigs running for office might actuall SHOW UP when Bush slides into their state or district, all shouting HOO HAAA all the way..

PR and nothing more, fits like a glove, whether it's him or not, whether he existed or not, and sorry to say, this is not racist or meant to be, but a lot of those folks in Iraq, middle east DO look so similar to me that I WOULD have trouble telling one dead guy from another -- I have the same problem with the latest crop of Hollywood BLONDES, Britney and Jessica Simpson are as interchangable to me as Barbie Dolls..

Killing someone who didn't exist for political reasons, and to give those Nascar folks some "Blowed 'em UP REAL GOOD!" footage sure ain't gonna HURT the REPIGS who will RINSE, REPEAT this HUGE WIN for the TEAM USA..

I hate these fuckheads, CONSTANTLY messing with our very REALITY until they make it so cheap that none of it matters anymore, until you're shooting squirrels in the park to feed your family..

Just for general information, these kinds of threads are generally not productive create disruption and become forums for call outs

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