Pro-war left site Harry’s Place links to a rather equivocal piece by Christopher Hitchens on the Bush Administration’s backing for the Uzbekistan dictator Karimov, and picks out the following quote, among others
The United States did not invent or impose the Karimov government: It “merely” accepted its offer of strategic and tactical help in the matter of Afghanistan.
This sounded familiar, and I thought it would be interesting to see what happened if “Karimov” was replaced by “Saddam” in a Google search.
No exact matches, but “US did not create Saddam” pulls up a bunch of links from sites like Martin Kramer and billhobbs.com defending or downplaying the Reagan Administration policy of support for Saddam during the 1980s, when his foreign wars and internal oppression killed vast numbers of people. “Did not install Saddam” gives more, and no doubt other variants can be found.
Even now, I doubt that Hitchens would accept “the US did not invent or impose Saddam” as a justification for the aid and warm embraces (literal and metaphorical) given to Saddam in the 1980s. But, given his current trajectory, I think it’s only a matter of time.
I am disappointed though, that Harry’s Place, which has generally taken a principled line of opposition to all dictatorship,s should give a favorable link to this weaselly piece, which is more concerned with scoring points against Hitchens’ former allies than in advocating any particular response to Karimov.
PS: Mark Bahnisch is a little kinder, calling Hitchens “confused”.
To clarify my own position on this, I don’t think the US should attempt to overthrow Karimov by force, for the same reasons as I opposed the Iraq war: the use of force is likely to do more harm than good. But it should close is base in Uzbekistan, even if this means using less satisfactory alternatives elsewhere, and it should cut off all aid to Karimov’s government.
John Quiggin 
John:
First of all please don’t invent the myth that the US created Saddam. Saddam did that all by himself by taking out the previous leader. I think by taking over and then executing him. Wasn’t it Cassim?
US policy in the 1980’s was to ensure Iran did not win the war against Iraq. The US didn’t like Saddam, who was closely aligned to the Soviet Union. This was a war the US wanted both to lose. Iran because of it’s threat of infecting the rest of the region with Islamic fundamentalism . Iraq because they were an odious regime aligned to the Soviets.
At a certain point in the war Iraq looked like it was going to lose against Iran. Rather than seeing those Islamic bastards gain territory in the region the US began it’s support of Iraq but only to tilt the odds ever so slightly against an Iranian win.
As you seem to be criticising this policy I would love to know where you think the US was wrong? Would you have preferred an Iranian goal? Without knowing the future, wouldn’t you have also preferred a stalmate in a war normal people would hope both come out losers?
S Brid – Saddam rose to the top of the Ba’ath Party with active help from the CIA. This is well known.
It’s also ironic to read Hitchens using the language of “moral equivalence” which is usually the favoured term of abuse of the right.
“Rather than seeing those Islamic bastards gain territory in the region the US began it’s support of Iraq but only to tilt the odds ever so slightly against an Iranian win.”
Delicately put S Brid.
Ironically, it seems that the Bush clique’s ham-fisted policies are achieving everything that the 1983 vintage Rumsfeld, armed with his placatory bible and cake was attempting to avert.
Here is what is happening on the ground in Iraq. The Shiite Islamic revolution in Iraq proceeds apace while hanging, for the moment, to the belt of the “Coalition” Armed Forces.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0601/dailyUpdate.html
Of course, the Chimp may argue that they are “Islamic Bastards”, by their our “Islamic Bastards”.
Oh, hang about, it seems they’re not the Chimp’s Islamic bastards after all.
The Chimp’s goal turns out to be the Iranian goal. It’s an own-goal!
Of course, the Chimp may argue that they are “Islamic Bastards�, by their our “Islamic Bastards�.
This should read:
Of course, the Chimp may argue that they are “Islamic Bastardsâ€?, but they’re our “Islamic Bastardsâ€?.
Sorry.
Katz:
I have no disagreement with you on current US policy in Iraq. It’s a mess. It’s a mess because rather than following the origional goals to rid the world of Saddam etc. and prevent WMD abuse, the neo-conservatives decided we/ they were going to build a Jeffersonian democracy in the sand. Sadly these are not conservative values as they resemble more the principals of the Democratic Party of old, before this nihilistic 60’s crowd took over.
But we are not talking about this are we. We are talking about US policy in that region during the 80’s. If John disagrees with the “policy of tilt” he needs to explain why he would have preferred Iran to have won and taken over Iraq: the second largest oil reserves in the world.
Mark:
Please! That gang at the CIA couldn’t shoot fish in a barrel for God’s sake. I think you have been watching Al Jazeera too much. Those idiots were still telling Carter that the Shah would be able to hold the fundamentalists at bay on the morning he fired up the engines of the jet and took off.
You know, I go into hysterical laughter when I read tripe about the CIA inferring how smart the Organization is. There are 33,000 people working for US intelligence services and they are useless.
Mark:
The reasons for Hitchens split with the left is well known. Unlike you I didn’t get this from Al Jazeera. He told us why. In sum he felt that the attack on the WTC represented an attack on all the principals the left hold dear. This happened when parts of the left seemed to have sided with the fundamentalist fascists he had enough. I am paraphrasing of course.
Please, don’t come back and argue with me about Hitchens as I personally don’t give a toss about him. He is your boy, not mine.
I guess he must have listened to Bin Ladin when he told us, he wanted to world to look like the Taliban or he would blow us up.
Of course Katz is correct, it appears that Iranian involvement in Iraq is and always was strong. An outcome that still remains a possibility as a result of this war is a greater Shiite hegemony spread all over the Middle East.
Far too many Iraqi Mullahs and Imams spent their exile in Teheran, and lets not mention Ahmad Chalabi the Iranian AND Pentagon proxy within the Iraqi puppet government…….what’s up with that weird connection? Iranian influence in Iraq is here to stay now that the Shiia are in the drivers seat.
The sad fact remains that US policies will, on the balance of probability, deliver that which they say they would like to avoid.
As for Hitchens take on Karimov? The less said the better. He is wrong. But I’ll also be wicked and ask how many of Saddams crimes has the US also committed over it’s history, current and past?
He has not invaded neighboring states, or committed genocide, or subverted the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or hosted international gangsters
I reckon that at some point in its history the US can place a tick against every one of these. For example, Saddam stopped subverting the NPT after 1992, the US is doing that right now.
Phil:
Why don’t we for the sake of brevity all assume the US is
tyrannical, genocidal, subverting NPT, hosted internatial gangsters, killed off the African bee, introduced aids to Africa, supports satinism, pollutes the Danube, eats Muslim children, drinks Muslim blood, and sells nuclear weapons to North Korea and stole the coke formula from the Nepal. Lets agree it does all that and move on.
Yes, let’s.
>
And most of us on the left agreed with him. Which is why I and many others on the left supported the invasiona of Afghanistan. (But that wasn’t too great a stretch for me having also supported Kosovo and the Gulf war).
Hell, abotu a motnh after 9/11 I was writing about the need for a response on the scale of World WAR II, of the need for a massive all-out effort by the west to promote democracy (and free economies) across the free world.
My problem with the Bush regime isn’t their publicly announced ultimate objectives, so much as its the staggeringly stupid and counterproductive policies they’ve adopted in Iraq in alleged pursuit of those objectives, together with their incredibly irresponsible economci and environmental policies.
Looks like this has been argued to a stalemate. I think I saw the dummy fly from over here.
While I disagree with the good professor on Iraq, I agree on Uzbekistan and I just wish the US would stop making friends on pure expediency. Unfortunately, this is not the way it works and, unlike places like New Zealand, we need to live in the real world. If he who is without sin was to cast the first stone then no stones would be cast – I remain convinced that somewhere, at some time, even a Kiwi has committed a war crime. I may have to do some reading on the Maori wars.
Representatives of the government that has, by both action and inaction, killed more than any other in history regularly visit our shores. I do not hear many voices saying that we should cut off relations with the People’s Republic of China.
I too had no problem with whacking Afghanistan. The first Gulf war was a clear cut case as well, even though I kinda thought Ross Perot had a fun theory going when he suggested that we let Saddam have Kuwait and cut a deal with him for oil access. Now there’s an idea that would have changed the political landscape. Clearly that is also the Bush response to Kariamov, he can cook up as many Uzbeks as he likes as long as we have strategic access. Man, these populist conservatives sure have nutty ideas about freedom, democracy and open markets.
Ian:
As a conservative, I don’t really get the left’s hate of the current president. I am not being a smart alec here. Seriously, I just don’t understand why he is so hated by the left: at least by objective standards.
As I see it:
Neo- conservatism is not really a conservative philosophy at all. It harks back to the old Democratic Party. A representation of this would be the Kennedy administration. In fact many neo-conservatives seem to have deep roots in that ideology. Going back further, Truman would be a good example of today’s neo-conservatives.
On economic policy: Ok Bush cut taxes. But that doesn’t really explain the hatred. The bug bear conservatives have with Bush is that he has let spending side get out of control when he ought to have cut spending. In fact as a % of GDP government spending in the US has gone up a little since Clinton in all areas. So this could not cause the hatred: spending has kept up
On environmental policy:
He didn’t do anything about Kyoto because he didn’t have to worry. When the bill was introduced in the senate during the Clinton Administration the senate vote was 98/2 against. There was no hope this bill would ever get through the senate no matter if Jesus supported the bill.
On foreign Policy.
Sure there could be differences. But again the democracy crap is not really a conservative policy as much as it could easily have been an old Democratic platform.
You see the problem with Bush is not that the left ought to have big differences with him. Rather it ought to be the right that should be attacking him.
Again I don’t get it. Can one of you guys please explain it as it has perplexed me for a while, and I am not kidding.
I am perplexed as to why S Brid is lately monopolising comments at this blog asking hostile questions, the answers to which any half-wit could figure out with a little reading. Seriously guys, it has perplexed me since it started. I am not kidding.
“…as it has perplexed me for a while”
Calling everyone who disagrees with you a lefty hater will only seat you at a table of strawmen that I assure you will say nothing to deperplex you,
The majority of people often found here, including our good host and now moi, are left about some things and right about others.
And when it comes to the Bush Junta, I think the prevailing sentiment here is not hate but outrage, contempt and, yes, perplexity about they could get every major policy decision completely wrong. I mean, can you name one of their initiatives that isn’t fucking up? Yep, democratic administrations also screw up and are just as culpable in many ways for the US’s geopolitical bumbling, but just not with the eerie consistency manifested by Bushco,
Personally I reckon this is ‘cos this is one of the most venal and ideological-driven administrations in US history. And that kinda crap always backfires in the long run, ‘cos they shut useful feedback out of their systems in pursuit of nothing but good news and quarterly figures.
And they need folks like you, S Brid, to keep plugging the holes below the waterline. But good luck finding a seat in a lifeboat though when the USS Born Again Oil Freedom Deficit hits a reality-based iceberg.
But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Show me the way out of this mess they’ve got themselves into. I’d love to see a way out . America at its best has been an utterly fantastic, inspirational and transcendentally world-changing place. I’d like that America back again please, not the one that the cheap, shoddy, greedy, idealogically straitjacketed and completely incompetent management team you seem to endorse is trying to palm off on us.
I’m also perplexed.
…‘cos this is one of the most venal and ideological-driven administrations in US history.
Is it ideologically-driven or cynically-opportunistic? I can never figure it out.
Or both? Is it possible to be both ideology-driven and cynically-opportunistic? I guess it is, if your ideology is ‘opportunistic cynicism’.
Oh, and I’m perplexed too, of course.
Is S Brid a malicious caricature by some left wng satirist? Does he really exist?
Jason, Otherwise known as a troll.
Troll or not, S Brid gives a nice illustration of the position implied by Hitchens’ article, one that he (Hitchens) would have rejected with contempt a couple of years ago and one that the writers at Harry’s place would still reject. To add to the irony, Hitchens is being defended by an avowed supporter of Pinochet. Even now, I think that would make him cringe a bit.
“You know, I go into hysterical laughter when I read tripe about the CIA inferring how smart the Organization is. There are 33,000 people working for US intelligence services and they are useless.”
Story from texas today …………..A Texas A&M University student who had been feared murdered after disappearing 7 years ago has been found alive and working in Kentucky, according to authorities. Brandi Stahr went missing in October 1998, and police spent hours searching for her body in wooded areas. They questioned a serial rapist and murderer about her just hours before he was executed last year.
But a telephone tip led investigators to Florence, Ky., where Stahr has been working for the last five years at a Sam’s Club, said Texas Ranger Frank Malinak.
“We thought we were dealing with a missing persons case,” Malinak said. “But, in actuality, we were dealing with a person who did not want to be found and was in hiding.”
Stahr, 27, hid from her family after she and her mother, Ann Dickenson, got into an argument over bad grades she received during her sophomore year and her family stopped paying for school.
For the last five years, Stahr worked under her real name, using her Social Security number. But police said they were unable to locate her that way because they don’t have access to IRS records.
Homeland Security ??????
Karimov is on an ouster, US and USraelie Embassy families and excess atff going US citizens advised to leave Uz. TRuble in Takikistan, Kyrgustan … US forces beefing up. Dushanbe etc., State Dept claiming Ismamofacsiscisticfunedamentalistas causing trubble.
Condi The Whore on terror in Israel sson, AIPAC and Perle demand action…. get ready.
No S Brid does exist. He’s Alexander Downer’s alter ego. His most formative moment was when the dark chappie cut into line at the tuck shop.
S Brid:
“But we are not talking about this are we. We are talking about US policy in that region during the 80’s”
It seems to have eluded your attention that I was also talking about US policy in the 1980s.
Now pay attention:
The Rumsfeld frolic with cake, bible and I now seem to recall, loaded pistol, was to the very lair of those “Islamic Bastards” in Teheran. The pay-off was heroin, which the CIA transported to the Nicaraguan Contras, to be onsold to various US cities, notably Washington DC.
So, S Brid, this example of US Geopolitics during the Reagan years demonstrates just how respectful Reagan’s string-pullers were of the US Constitution. It also serves to illuminate just what sort of collateral damage the US was willing to inflict upon its own citizens in order to achieve its ambitions.
But then again, maybe the 1960s made them do it, so they can’t be held responsible.
Hitchens is following the natural trajectory from romantic to cynic.
Come now. S Brid cannot be Alexander Downer’s alter ego… he’s using long coherent sentences and doesn’t lose focus after 10 seconds. Not at all like Downer.
As for the pish and tosh on Saddam and the US.
The CIA assisted Saddam before and after his coup in order to sway him from Soviet influence. When the US lost the Shah in Iran it provided satellite imagery of Iran’s military positions to Iraq on the eve of Saddam’s invasion – hoping he’d remove the Ayatollah and the US would be able to pop the Shah back in place (or directly control the southern oil fields and Gulf). Saddam’s anthrax was all manufactured in Maryland, USA. Whilst supporting him, the US used the Israelis as proxies to take out his nuclear reactor in 1983. The US also sold arms to Iran to ensure the war became a stalemate. The proxies contained Saddam, while the US actively supported him.
Saddam for his part, kept his ties with the Soviets so that the US would keep trying to sway him back to the West’s camp. A delicate balancing act which came undone after the USSR collapsed.
>
I don’t hate Bush , nor do I subscribe to the popular belief in his stupidity, I think he’s arrogant, intellectually lazy and dangerously incompetent.
Had John McCain or Bush Sr. been in the White House following 9/11, I don’t think they would have attracted anythign like the same degree of hostility. But then I also don’t think either of them would have invaded Iraq.
Social and economic issues are important, personal integrity is important but basic competence and prudence are more important. (Let’s face it, give McCain’s involvement with Charles Keating his own integrity is less than pristine.)
>
but this is also exactly WHY moderate responsible people on the left also oppose his economic record. Conservatives may not liek to admit it but since the election of clinton and Blair there’s been a genuine conversion oon the part of much of the centre left ot the proposition that high government spending is undesirable and that taxes should be cut wherever possible – but not at the expense of creating unacceptably high deficits. The conservaitves were right on this one and we came to accept it. Unfortunately, and this seems to be a natural part of the adversial political process, conservatives have now changed their minds.
Complain all you like about tax-and-spend liberals, borrow-and-spend conservatives are as bad or worse.
On Kyoto – the same Senate that voted 98-2 against Kyoto later came within about five votes of passing the McCain-Leibermann Climaye Responsiblity Act.
Even if there was no hope of getting Kyoto through, Bush’s response wasn’t to try and renegotiate the treaty or to coem up with anther alternative, it was to actively seek to frsutrate further negotiations.
>
The invasion of Iraq was motivated in part by ideology. However it also delivered some very substantial beneifts to Haliburton and to companies associated with Pau; Wolfowitz and to the Carlyle Group (in which the Bush family are major shareholders.)
The Bush leaguers were shamelessly eager in advance to tell peopel abotu how Iraqi reconstruction contracts would help revitalise the US economy and how the invasion would lead to lower oil prices.
It’s one of the reasons I find their latter-day attempts to recast it as an idealistic campaign to promote democracy so distasteful.
“As a conservative, I don’t really get the left’s hate of the current president. I am not being a smart alec here. Seriously, I just don’t understand why he is so hated by the left: at least by objective standards.”
This may be chasing a rabbit down a hole, but what sort of “conservative” are you S Brid?
Are you a Queen and Country sort of chap, a cultural conservative who maintains that East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet?
Are you a social conservative who believes the world is going to hell in a hand-basket and that the scoundrels have to be given a whiff of grapeshot to keep them in line? Is the world a darwinian experiment that proves the superiority of Halliburton Corporation?
Your criticisms of neo-cons suggest that you aren’t liberal conservative who believes that if you scratch a guy he’ll bleed American blood.
Are you, despite your proclaimed disapprobation of GWB, a compassionate conservative who believes that if you have accepted Jesus into your life and are born again then you have achieved a privileged insight into the right path for the world?
Whatever sort of conservative you are, have you successfully asserted your prior right to the term “conservative” over all who claim it?
Perhaps your time would be better spent trolling the reactionary/Fundo/racist purlieus of the blogosphere. You may even find some chums.
One doesn’t need to beleive in the myth of the omnipotent CIA to accept the evidence, from their own documents, that they leant on other arab governments not to jail or extradite the Iraqi Ba’athists prior to their coup; that the provided transport back to Iraq for Saddam himself during the coup and that they provided them with radio facilities which they used to co-ordinate their activities during and after the ocup – including reading out lists of those marked for death.
Of course, at thetiem I’m sure the argument was put that Kassem was A Very Bad Man. He overthrew the constitutional monarchy and killed thousands in the process. He was pro-Russian and anti-Israel. He was spending theo il wealth that was starting to trickle into Iraq on building up a disturbingly large arsenal. He was reiterating Iraq’s long-standing claims to sovereignty over Kuwait and the shatt-al-arab area for Iran. He tortured and murdered his opponents, oppressed the Kurds and the other minorities and tried to overthrow the government of Syria.
I’m sure the boys at Langley argued that anybody would have to be better than Kassem. Heck, the Ba’athists, on paper, were committed to democracy and a secular state (just like today’s Shia/Kurdish coalition.)
Had the internet existed at the time, and had the coup been a major story in the western media, the neo-cons predecessors would have been predicted a bright new dawn of democracy and free markets in post-Kassem Iraq and accusing opponents of the coup of moral cowardice and bland anti-Americanism.
I agree that s. Brid can be quite frustrating at times. however he’s capable of quite interesting and reasonable contributions such as his remarks on the Oil Economics thread.
I just wish we got mroe of those and less of “Stalinist wanna-be” repeated ad nauseum.
I have to say the horrifying part of S Brid’s trolling is that he praises the way the US in the 1980s deliberately fostered and prolonged the Iran-Iraq war (a policy which he described accurately – Kissinger commented at the time that “the worst thing about it [the war] is that it has to end someday”). This is a war in which about a million people died, in which both countries were impoverished and which led to Saddam’s worst atrocities as he tried to keep his country together.
Truly, S Brid is clearly of the “one human death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic” school.
Nabakov Says: June 6th, 2005 at 1:10 am
Nabakov I believe that your wish – for better or worse – will be granted much sooner than you think. I have a theory about the evolution of the US Right and if you dont mind I will share it with you now. Everyone and everything points to the utter societal dominance of the Right in the US:
– financially (greed-is-good for the fat cats of Wall Street);
– fiscally (tax-cutting in the US Treasury)
– culturally (god-fearing in the Bible-Bashing South);
– militarily (empire-building at the Pentagon)
– demographicly (family-values in the Red States)
– bureaucraticly (crony-capitalism at K-Street) and
– politically (accross the board control of the branches of government).
The Bush admins smash and grab attitude towards political policy is occurring because the the Right’s power is peaking in the US is peaking. I think this peak will be followed by a trough rather than a plateau. The social bases for the US Right are not auspicious, and in fact we may be witnessing what John Derbyshire calls “the Twilight of Conservatism”:
Wall Street’s dynastic tendencies will corrupt its legatees and resources are shifting towards the nerd-aholics in the PRC.
The US Treasury is in deep debt and the demand for government services especially health, will continue to rise.
The Deep Souths family values will gradually be eroded by the inexorable spread of consumer hedonism.
The Pentagon’s military advantage is not much use against Fourth Generation warfare in the Gap.
K-streets corruption will eventually engender an institutional reaction.
Finally the Red State electorates, under the influence of Mexican immigration, will shift towards multicultural rotten boroughs and ethnic spoils distribution.
So Bush and his supporters are following the old saw of making hay whilst the sunshines. I think John Derbyshire had it about right:
Guys:
Aren’t you being a little harsh on me? Getting called a “troll” now. I keep going to the mirror seeing if I am really that ugly. In fact, this morning I asked wifey if her constant squinting was because of my looks! She finally settled me down and brought me back to earth by saying she didn’t marry me for money at the time as I didn’t have much: meaning I must be better looking than you all make out. I then asked her to take a look at this site and she made a comment referring to me as right wing nutcase. Politics is never discussed in this house for obvious reasons.
Anyone else seeing certain observa resonances?
two things.
1) SBRID do not come out when the sun(ni) is out!
2) The US did not want Iran and Iraq arm in arm hence ‘adopted Saddam.
Iran could not export their revolution given they are Shias.
Indeed even to think that is SHIA nonsense. (That was for Jason.)
Homer,
The Shi’a revolution could be exported – there are several other countries in the Gulf area that are Shi’a majority, including Iraq. From the US point of view at the time Saddam looked pretty good – he was nominally Sunni, secular, and non-communist (at least as much as that term means in the area).
At various times since the death of Ali the Shi’a have ruled most of the middle east. It is this that drives the Iranian mullahs – it is also why they have been funding and helping the Hezbollah (Shi’a in southern Lebanon) as well as other Shi’a groups throughout the middle east.
It was also why the US has been consistently on the side of the Sunni. Until 9/11 they were seen as the more moderate.
andrew,
If they tied you would merely get a shia v sunni fight across the spectrum.
given the vast sunni majorities it just wouldn’t happen.
Mark:
I am real. I am not Observa and this is no CIA bullshit. Please Mark, you gotta stop believing these Al Jazeera stories.
I ought to get you together with my personal trainer (yes wifey thinks I will keel over in the next few years with high cholesterol levels if I just sit around doing nothing) as he thinks the CIA killed Kennedy and gave me a book to read prove it.
Don’t get so wound up.
Homer:
Is that fight on pay-per-view. I heard Ali Shia has won on knock-out in 40 straight fights. Vegas is putting him on real short odds.
Homer,
I agree the Sunni are in the majority in most of the muslim world – it is just in some countries that they are not. But this is getting away from Karimov a little bit.
andrew, for most of the arab world they walk to the Sunni side of the street!
Oh, Shi’ite.
Oh god, kari me off.
Sorry.
For what it is worth, the overthrow of the Iraqi constitutional monarchy is directly traceable to US destabilisation of the Middle East at the time of the Suez Crisis. It was clearly spelled out to the USA that the British wouldn’t be able to stabilise the area if they couldn’t act, and that thus the Baghdad Pact would be ringbarked.
And so it came to pass, and the Middle East fell into the hands of dictators just as Eden predicted.
Please note: to explain is not to endorse, and there is a hell of a lot more to be said on the topic of colonialism, but it should be noted that the USA is now reaping what it sowed by way of a simplistic anticolonialism that threw the baby out with the bathwater and refuses to acknowledge and incorporate the lessons of past US mistakes by grasping the nettle now.
Two hallmarks of a troll are a tendency to change the subject rather than concede a point even when they have been overwhelmingly refuted, and a tendency to feign astonishment at statements which are contrary to their opinions but are nontheless widely held and based on arguments that are robust even if they are contested. I’m not offering a judgement, merely some criteria.
James:
When I grow up I want to be just like you and David. sneering, disdainful
and nasty, which I hope people will confuse with intelligence rather than just pedestrian ability.
If you think having a light side to things ocassionally is changing the subject you are even stupider than I thought.
There is not one piece in all you musings where I see an ounce of originality or spontaneity, which could even be considered an original thought. Your pattern is boringly familiar. Wait for the comments, see which way the wind is blowing and then pull the trigger to fire a sneer or two hoping it will hit home.
But thanks for the compliment. Keep up the good work.
When I grow up I want to be an original, spontaneous, entertaining genius exactly like you S Brid.
No need to thank me. You’re welcome.
No chance of that CS. It’s too high a hurdle for you.
Merely an aspiration. I also aim to be as modest.
Ok, I think we’ll call a halt to this one.