And the Proggs came so close to being able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and teach Amerikkka a lesson:
Liberal opinion in America and Europe may have scoffed when President Bush drew a strict moral line between order and radicalism – he even inserted into the political vocabulary the unfashionable notion of evil – but this sort of clarity is in the nature of things in that Greater Middle East. It is in categories of good and evil that men and women in those lands describe their world. The unyielding campaign waged by this president made a deep impression on them.
Nowadays, we hear many who have never had a kind word to say about the Iraq War pronounce on the retreat of the jihadists. It is as though the Islamists had gone back to their texts and returned with second thoughts about their violent utopia. It is as though the financiers and the “charities” that aided the terror had reconsidered their loyalties and opted out of that sly, cynical trade. Nothing could be further from the truth. If Islamism is on the ropes, if the regimes in the saddle in key Arab states now show greater resolve in taking on the forces of radicalism, no small credit ought to be given to this American project in Iraq.
We should give the “theorists” of terror their due and read them with some discernment. To a man, they have told us that they have been bloodied in Iraq, that they have been surprised by the stoicism of the Americans, by the staying power of the Bush administration.
There is no way of convincing a certain segment of opinion that there are indeed wars of “necessity.” A case can always be made that an aggressor ought to be given what he seeks, that the costs of war are prohibitively high when measured against the murky ways of peace and of daily life.
There’s a learning opportunity lost. Such a shame.
HOPE and CHANGE
translation:
I HOPE the war fails
I want CHANGE Success into Defeat
You’ve got that. I missed your reaction to Larry the Legend’s super secret Michelle Obama video.
Apropos
-Its a debate the Left cannot afford to lose, and a lesson they cannot afford to learn, so in the typical Socialist way, they’ll hang on until it doesn’t matter anymore, and then they’ll go quiet and regroup.
Don’t nobody tell Baracky that change is what we just did in Iraq, and that the hope train is rolling.
– I guess Pelosi’s head is so far up her ass that she thinks that on days when Iran isn’t hoping we’ll be destroyed they’re helping us in Iraq.
– She’s a living example of what happens to people when they sellout to the Left.
Dan
I’m dancing on his grave.
– I guess Pelosi’s head is so far up her ass that she thinks that on days when Iran isn’t hoping we’ll be destroyed they’re helping us in Iraq.
BBH
I have to guess that when she says this crap it isn’t all that inspiring to the jewish vote. Especially given she tried to plant that the jew on the intelligence committee she hate was under investigation.
They sure have a tight rope to walk.
Give me a break, Republicans fostered the jihadists (giving 4 billion to the Taliban before 9/11 with our stupid drug policy money), kissed Saudi’s butts, and make them trillionaires with a stupid energy policy banking on Hummers and Suv’s forever and you want to cry victory over a sandbox.
Iraq’s not the issue, America is. If the Republicans couldn’t beat a dinky li’l insurgancy w/o killing half a million or more Iraqis in a country that was already on its knees (a country with less people than New York state) with more than $2 Trillion wasted…then it’s time to throw the bums out. Republicans ruined our economy, stole from Social Security, swore the Dow would be 30,000 and gas would be a dollar a gallon, and said we’re living on a shiny hill. Now Americans are worried if they have enough to eat at the end of the week after their cars take all their cash. People are fed up with the bad management.
I suspect President Obama would give the proper military leadership a better management style….get out of their way and let them win the peace while the getting the troops out in time for Christmas, 2009. Tell the Military, Win this thing in 6 mo.s with Iraqis doing the heavy lifting…and get out. And file treason charges against Dick Cheney for outing a CIA agent for political gains. (Pres. Bush will get a Presidential pass of course.)
not to dump on you all too heavy.
But why are the Republicans so ready to throw Scott McClellen under the bus? I listened to him talk on NPR: the essence of his complaint was that major players in the White House Lied point blank at him. That CIA bullshit stuff (and it goes deeper than just Valarie Plame….) and the manufacturing of evidence of WMDs.
anyone believing a highly partisan Pravda of the Right needs a little self-knowledge: “The claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were to prove incorrect, but they were made in good faith.”
good faith…..is like Karl Rove’s religion. hoot.
dataless dave: I must applaud you for writing several paragraphs of partisan, strawmen marching complaints and managing in a fundamentally startling way, to not address the central point of the article. Not. Even. Once.
I believe that you have reached the eighth level of Partisan Irrelevency with Patchouli Cluster and the Non-Seeing Eye. Congratulations!
yeah, sure.
Pure bolshevism.
Conservatives….? Nah, give me a break.
Who are the next beneficiary of our liberation(if they survive)?
Which country?
I’d say, let’s do Cuba, love the beaches, and no muslim suicide bombers with 40 virgins awaiting…..
What a naivete, what a pure BS.
Not our business- other people lives!
Especially if some of those other people may not live to see the glorious future, thanks to our generosity with our lives.
Jeez….
WSJ author is fucking asshole. Was that pen name for Chalabi?
You go do Cuba sashal, have fun. All the Cubans worth a shit are already here. In ten years anyone will be able to walk in there and buy the place. Got change for a nickle?
“Not our business- other people lives!”
Then why do reactionary leftists want to control mine, idiot?
Geez, lots of anger on the port side. No hope, kids?
you ask those reactionary lefties, O’brain
And file treason charges against Dick Cheney for outing a CIA agent for political gains. (Pres. Bush will get a Presidential pass of course.)
The stupid … it runs deep and wide in that feller.
I dunno Sashal … the democrats in my state are doing their damndest to control my life. I’m being taxed to death up here in Michigan. The newest scheme? We’re gonna pay film makers to make their films in michigan. PAY ‘EM.
And, we’re on the verge of passing a no smoking ban throughout the state.
yes, carin, I hear ya.
So, don’t behave like that outside of USA borders.
WSJ author is fucking asshole.
—
Old saying – “takes one to know one”
Don’t behave like what?
Not our business- other people lives!
Am I my brothers keeper? Not according to sashal. Let the fuckers rot, even if they are a danger to themselves, their neighbors and to some extent, the world. Talk about naive.
Right on , Education Guy. And those kids in the ghettos of Detroit? NOT my PROBLEM. And old people. They get on my nerves. Slow driving cranks.
You know, once we cut loose the chaff, I think we’ll start humming right along.
You know, that great liberation flame in our hearts, that desire to help other people BY INVADING THEIR COUNTRIES.
We should tone this down. That cavalier attitude with human life is more suited for a revolutionary or Hitchens type asshole(why would he embrace military part of neoconservatism, any wonders?)
Our generosity and helpitude is great human feature of the civilized nation. That’s one of the great reasons why we were loved around the world right around before Bush administration.
did anybody ever bothered to ask Iraqis if they would accept our help? Poll or something. With the question like that,:
“Would you accept prolonged intervention and occupation by USA troops in order to get rid of Saddam even if it will cause multitude deaths , refugee problem and unleash deadly insurgency and terrorism in your country?”
Say we get 2/3 say “Yes, fuck it, invade us Americans, help us to get rid of Saddam even if we lose my brother, sister, momma or pappa, even if I will have to flee my house and live in the fucking Syria in the fucking tent”
Then we go in, hah?
How about to be even interested if “other” people’ need our help? And fucking Chalabi corrupt faction of exiles does not count
carin, 21
deciding what other people should do and how to live their lives , when it is outside USA borders acceptable?
You know, I bet those people in North Korea would rather live out their pitiful lives starving, and participating in bizarre public displays of athleticism (dedicated to their dear Leader) than be invaded by Amerikkka and have a chance to breath a breath of freedom.
Yes indeedy. Who wouldn’t rather live their life in chains?
It’s kinda touching. Hollywood should make a movie about it.
But, you’re supporting a government that wants to say how I live my life. It’s gonna fill out the tax forms for me (unless I notify it not to.)
Regarding Iraq – I think you’re fucked in the head about that, and it’s really pointless to discuss it. Do you think most of the world TREMBLES at the notion that we’re about to invade? Canada’s really sweating bullets about it, I bet.
Wow. sashal and idiotdave are in rare form. You would think they would be happy about Baracky’s annointment last night.
Carin – Screw the North Koreans, and while we are at it screw the South Koreans and the Japanese as well. I have seen the light and the light is saying that it isn’t our business. If there are dangers in the world to us or our allies (which we will thankfully no longer need), then we will either pay them off or let someone else deal with it.
In fact, let someone else deal with it should be our new national motto.
“… be invaded by Amerikkka and have a chance to breath a breath of freedom.”
Some will, and some will not live to do that.
Gosh, how is that simple thought keep flying right pass you?
I am not talking about invading to enslave, I am talking about invading to help. Canadians do not have dictator. Try to keep up ,carin.
Or whatever, don’t discuss…
And, you know those women and children raped in Africa by UN workers? I think they were asking for it. NOT our PROBLEM.
EG , if there IS a danger to our allies , then we do help, no?
Was anybody talking about that?
The top post regarding WSJ article , the main discussion here is: “invading to help local people, who live under oppression of the dictatorship”
ome will, and some will not live to do that.
Gosh, how is that simple thought keep flying right pass you?
I wouldn’t start patting myself on the back if I were you.
I am not talking about invading to enslave, I am talking about invading to help. Canadians do not have dictator. Try to keep up ,carin.
Or whatever, don’t discuss…
They don’t? Huh. Learn something knew every day.
Some will, and some will not live to do that.
Gosh, how is that simple thought keep flying right pass you?
Amen brother. It really is better if we allow their leaders to decide who gets to live and who dies. The rape rooms, the political prisoners, the constant wars with neighbors, the mass graves, the use of wmd on enemies foreign and domestic, the bounties payed to suicide bombers in Israel, the friendly relations with some of the worlds terrorists are simply none of our business.
Say it with me brother, Let someone else handle it.
Hey, JD, i am not that excited.
BHO is certainly better choice then others, if he only would shed some utopian populist rhetoric about birthright for college education etc,,, he would be even more acceptable to me…
The top post regarding WSJ article , the main discussion here is: “invading to help local people, who live under oppression of the dictatorship
Exactly. And your opinion is FUCK ‘EM. Right? Not our problem.
Now, I know you’re flying right past me thought-wise, but a little thought experiment (cringe – so nishi like) …take any hell-hole on earth and ask them if they wouldn’t mind if another country liberated them from their asshole leader and attempted to create a democratic society. You think they would say no?
You think if they could have their pick of liberators, which country would they choose?
What’s with the stupid UN then? Not our problem. Let someone else deal with it. I hear the EU is righteous and enlightened. Let’s take the century off and let them deal with….whatever.
sashal
Not that it matters anymore, because we are going to work to set this bold new policy of “fuck em, who cares”, but we invaded Iraq because of our interests being at risk. We allow dictatorships to go unmolested so long as they don’t mess with us (or our allies), and under our new policy even this won’t bring us to arms.
Besides, the several years immediately following 9/11 was not what we can call a normal time for us. Perhaps we overreacted, perhaps not.
great, carin, I already mentioned that in #24, remember?
But the question should be correct one:
…”did anybody ever bothered to ask Iraqis if they would accept our help? Poll or something. With the question like that,:
“Would you accept prolonged intervention and occupation by USA troops in order to get rid of Saddam even if it will cause multitude deaths , refugee problem and unleash deadly insurgency and terrorism in your country?â€Â
Say we get 2/3 say “Yes, fuck it, invade us Americans, help us to get rid of Saddam even if we lose my brother, sister, momma or pappa, even if I will have to flee my house and live in the fucking Syria in the fucking tentâ€Â
Then we go in, hah?.
EG, I see, you would rather be that guy who decides death and life question. Sorry, not me, that God-like decision is beyond my humble soul…
Pablo, fuck UN, militarily they are largely useless, let them at least keep up with food supplies to hungry
BHO is certainly better choice then others, if he only would shed some utopian populist rhetoric about birthright for college education etc,,, he would be even more acceptable to me…
Sorry, it’s a package deal.
The Utopia AWAIT! Hope and change.
EG,38. …”we invaded Iraq because of our interests being at risk”
Better.
Spare us the premise of the WSJ article of invading to help…..
y we get 2/3 say “Yes, fuck it, invade us Americans, help us to get rid of Saddam even if we lose my brother, sister, momma or pappa, even if I will have to flee my house and live in the fucking Syria in the fucking tentâ€Â
Then we go in, hah?.
Yes, they were much better under Saddam. My mistake. He was an asshole, but he was THEIR asshole.
I love the whole “We’re one World, One Planet” bullshit. I’m supposed to give a fig about the polar bears and trees, but people living under the boot of oppression with leaders that invade other countries and endanger regional Peace? Fuck’em.
Of course we didn’t because they loved Saddam. Didn’t he win his last election with 103% of the vote on 110% turnout? Don’t be silly.
I’ll take package deal.
Better then discount clearance item with expired date, especially if i had the similar one in my basement for the last 8 tears
Right. Let ’em have it. They don’t need us, and it really isn’t any of our business.
sashal
I tend to agree that it is not enough that you being an asshole to yours allows me the right to smack you in the mouth, however, one of the lessons of 9/11 is that assholes who aren’t sometimes reminded that we do have the capability to beat you to a bloody pulp if we so desire, do sometimes decide that being an asshole to their own isn’t enough. Had Afghanistan not backed Osama’s play on that move, they would likely still be executing their undesirables in soccer stadiums. If Saddam had better understood our resolve to ensure he didn’t have the means to repeat his wmd usage, he also would likely be gifting his sons with large screen plasmas for their rape rooms.
As it is, history took a different path.
I’ll take package deal.
Better then discount clearance item with expired date, especially if i had the similar one in my basement for the last 8 tears
Honestly, how anyone can claim to have conservative leanings and vote for O! is just beyond the realm of my (limited) thinking. Perhaps Sashal can explain it to me, since he’s my intellectual superior. Try not to let those ideas fly over my head though. Perhaps if you type slowly?
One result of the reaction to Iraq is that we are far more likely to just bomb the holy hell out of the next country we need to tangle with. Good for us perhaps, not so good for those on the receiving end.
Right. That’s just ridiculous. Maybe if the authorization to use force in Iraq had said something like “Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population…” or “Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people” or “that Iraq’s repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and “constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,’ and that Congress, ‘supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688’;” or “Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;” then you might convince me that helping the Iraqi people had something to do with going in there.
Hey, wait a minute.
Honestly, how anyone can claim to have conservative leanings and vote for O! is just beyond the realm of my (limited) thinking.
You can take the boy out of the Commie, but you can’t take the Commie out of the boy.
Did we poll the French before deciding on D-Day? Or the Dutch and Belgians before Market Garden? The Italians before Anzio?
Did we poll the Filipinos before Leyte? Or the Koreans before Inchon?
Oh,c’mon, carin.
Did I hurt your feelings?
Why the snark?
I did not want to, sorry.
To answer your question, I don’t know,- may be because i am sick of republicans?
May be the claim that conservatives and GOP are the same is not exactly correct,
may be because conservatism left GOP ?
May be invading Iraq and the partisan approval of it?
May be the desire for strong omnipotent executive which did not find any resistance in “conservative” GOP ?
Just from the top of my head.
P.S. I was typing slow…
Rob, did we have a choice ? Or we were attacked by Japan and it’s ally first
Look, Baracky and Harry Reid told me we lost in Iraq, so we should just quit trying, surrender immediately. sashal told me that too. And they know better. They feel things.
But that wasn’t the main premise of the story, sashal. You took a piece of it and made it the main premise. That would be more suitable to our adventure in Bosnia, a place where we had no, none, zippo national interest and bombed the crap out of Serbia to get them to stop killing muslims. A task, BTW, the mighty EU was unwilling to perform.
Iraq was in our national interest even beyond the WMD kerfuffle (BTW, where did they go? Many are still unaccounted for and the rumor of trucks to Syria seems a bit more interesting now that they got their butt slapped for attempting to go covertly nuclear.) Saddam, in addition to being a Stalin wanna be was open and clear about his threats to his neighbors and in his support of terrorists with both money and training (see Salmon pak and watch The History Channel documentary about Alpha Company. You get to see them engaging foreign fighters along the road to Bahgdad.)
It is in our best interests to stabilise and secure the Middle East because we have the goofiest, most idiotic energy policy from top to bottom in the history of energy. No, sashal, it wasn’t blood for oil it was intervention in a country run by a thug who had not only proven time and again that he was a regional threat to all but was loudly proclaiming and planning to be a threat to us and our allies. Thus the 82 billion UN resolutions.
So, yea, it’s not primarily about the long suffering Iraqi people but about confronting terrorism both state sponsored and asymetrical. It was about establishing a clear concept that terorism in all of its forms is unacceptable to liberal western democracies and that the “free lunch” of missiles lobbed against asprin factories and squishy, non response to consistent, ongoing attacks against our national interests spanning decades is, once and for all, unacceptable.
Thus while the Iraq adventure is expensive in money and costly in casualties (although the military cost has been far less than other, similar conflicts) it is also proving expensive for radical jihadists in both men and material. That’s right, sashal, while you bemoan the whole original concept even the reluctant CIA and State department are acknowledging that the word has gone out that being a retro suicide splodey dope is a bad career path. This works because deeply ingrained in the Arab/Islamic/Middle East culture is a deep, deep respect for power. Even the Qu’ran details what to do when one is obviously on the short stick, militarily speaking.
The end result is that the jihadists have largely lost the support of the people of Iraq and the main threats are bottled up in safe havens in the Northwest Frontier Zone, just as they were in the 1800’s. Once Iraq is sorted out we’ll deal with those areas with or without Pakistan’s help.
The only way to deal with radical jihadists is not to engage in fruitless negotiations with Theocracies and dictatorships or to build barricades to our own country and hope that they protect us (except for the Mexican border BECAUSE OF TEH SOCIAL JUSTICE!!) We needed to make it crystal clear that we will not tolerate a group of middle ages religious thugs dictating to us how we conduct our affairs and continuously threaten our citizens and interests. Check out the worldwide decline in terror violence and the rank amateur attempts at attacks of late and I would put forth that the strategy is largely succeeding.
Of course its hard and expensive but so is most everything worth doing and doing well when it comes to the short and long term safety of our national interests. That’s what I got out of the article by the “asshole.”
I was typing slow…
Thinking, as well.
Who had that desire? Quit making shit up, or purposefully misunderstanding the facts in order to convince yourself that voting for the Marxist is the right thing to do.
BOLSHEVIST!
Oh,c’mon, carin.
Did I hurt your feelings?
Why the snark?
I did not want to, sorry.
No, I just found it amusing that you thought I didn’t understand what you were saying.
To answer your question, I don’t know,- may be because i am sick of republicans?
May be the claim that conservatives and GOP are the same is not exactly correct,
They are not the same, obviously.
may be because conservatism left GOP ?
But it sure hells didn’t find it’s way to the Obama house.
There is no way a “conservative” would vote for Obama. No way. Except as a form of protest.
Sashal believes the only responsibility of the free is to enjoy their freedom, while gleefully giving it up to domestic politicians who promise change and hope.
Securing liberty and extending it to others? Well, the only way he wants to do that is for all of them to move here, like he did.
Self-punishment?
Idiocy?
Because if sashal’s upset at the idea of a unitary executive, just wait until the progressives are in the White House. They’re gonna find all sorts of interesting Constitutional concepts. Like the one about a “birthright” to college.
hey, here is my friend, BJTex.
Look, as far as Kosovo you and me are in full agreement.
You are also correct about the WSJ article.
I did turn it into a discussion of the naivete of invading others to help them. But that was the major reason which was sold to us after the first reason turned out to be a fiasco – WMDs and mushroom clouds .
The author mentions this as well…
Your position is more pragmatic then majority’s on this blog.
Like I told to Pablo and EG, this is legitimate theme of discussion,- our interests in the ME and subsequent wars.
Rob, # 60,
and if this will happen, then we will fight that
…..”just wait until the progressives are in the White House. They’re gonna find all sorts of interesting Constitutional concepts”
No, you won’t. For the same reason you’re perfectly willing to put the ‘tards in office in the first place.
Because you’re a ‘tard. By choice.
I mean, Christ, the depth of your willful ignorance on Iraq proves that.
It is one thing to talk emptily, as Obama does, about his opinion, held forth in Oct. 2002, on the question whether to go to war or not. That is talk about nothing in the world today. It is a null set. There is nothing there.
It is quite another thing to talk about what is going on in the world today, in the neighborhoods in Iraq, in the universities in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in the villages and madrassas in Pakistan, in the markets in Syria and Jordan, in the palaces in Kuwait and Bahrain. The question today is ‘what is happening now in the war and what should we be doing about it’? Obama claims to know. He claims to see what is happening in Iraq. He tells us the best thing to do is leave there as soon as is safely possible. He says our leaving will improve the lot of Iraqis and their neighbors and is in fact in the long term interest of the United States. Our leaving, he claims, will please our allies and make us friends in the Arab and Muslim world. How does he know these things?
He does not go to Iraq in order to learn from his own experiences what is going on. No, that would just be a ‘dog and pony show’. He feels he may be too easily manipulated, made to see things that aren’t there or not see things that are. He does not go out of his way to consult with the men who spend their every waking moment working on the US mission in Iraq, making the everyday decisions that will mean life or death to thousands of Iraqis and perhaps hundreds of Americans. Their minds are made up, while his is open to the possibilities of Change. He does not spend his precious time with Iraqi statesmen trying desperately to organize their nation to the extent that it can survive the onslaught to come should Barack Obama’s plans for them take hold of their fate. These guys are only looking out for themselves, the money and power grubbing American puppets.
Yet he does not acknowledge his own failure to correctly foresee the successful outcome of the counterinsurgency strategy implemented in Jan. 2007 (he even incorrectly, and proudly, identifies it as a ‘tactic’, not a strategy!) that we are witnessing in daily reports from Iraq. And have been witnessing for over a year now. He makes no mention of the apparent shift in muslim community opinion toward violent jihadists, seen in microcosm in the green grocers in Mosul markets who can now display their cucumbers and tomatoes next to each other without being killed by AQI for committing a sin of sexual provocation against the faith. Or the barbers who can go back to using electric clippers and shaving faces. And not be killed for doing so.
One advantage of having Obama win the WH would be not having to listen to clowns lie about Jefferson telling us that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism”. On the other hand, “shut up bitch” is not really a great replacement.
Short bus morons should not be given control over the levers of power.
WHEN it happens, Sashal. When, not if.
And, good luck fighting with dems in control of the house and senate …
“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”
heh.
and then we attacked Africa….
What gets me is that Saddam would still be alive and in power right this minute, if he had simply let the weapons inspectors come in and go where they wanted without interference. After all, there were no WMDs, right? He literally had nothing to hide. And everyone would have been satisfied, and he eventually would have been left to his own devices, and could have then restarted his WMD programs at his leisure (which even the all-mighty UN admitted that from a standing start he could have had his chemical and biological WMD programs ramped back up in a matter of months).
Funny how the sashals and dumbassdaves of the world have no answer for this.
That was the “first reason”? Go read comment #49, and try to read it for comprehension. Maybe even read what Congress actually passed.
“dissent is the highest form of patriotismâ€Â.
I am going to be a truly patriotic American, the absolute pinnacle of patriots, when Baracky surrenders a war we are winning, and then sets his sights on my pie.
You and me both. But, unlike you JD, I will probably be rip roaring drunk.
sashal is infuriating, but I give him a little slack. He spent his formative years listening to guff about “wars of national liberation” crafted by Soviet propagandists in a deliberate attempt to co-opt Western concepts of help for the poor and oppressed in service of their own imperialism. The parallels are exact, because the people in Dzerzhinsky Square and their toadies along Nevski’iy Prospekt took great care to make them so.
What interests me here is datadave, who has no thoughts of his own but can articulate bits of Teh Narrative™ so well — and what’s interesting about Teh Narrative™ is not so much the lies as what the lies reveal. For instance, giving 4 billion to the Taliban before 9/11 with our stupid drug policy money. That’s a lie on several levels. At the top level, aid to the Afghans was intended to support their resistance to the Russians; its association with drugs was a matter of finding a vehicle — blameable, perhaps, but the Reality® of the situation was that the drug trade was the only available mechanism for transfer. At the second level, we gave not one penny nor one round of ammunition to the Taliban; we gave it to the enemies of the Taliban — then, when our purpose was served we withdrew that aid in its entirety but the supporters of the Taliban continued to do so, with the result we see. At the third level, they reveal themselves (simply by telling the lie) that all their “Progressive” support for Little Brown People™ is a total sham, that they have no idea whatever what the aims and intentions of LBP™ might be, how different populations of LBP™ might differ, and indeed whether or not different populations of LBP™ might exist rather than as an undifferentiated mass of Victims of Imperialist Exploitation™; and, at the fourth and deepest level, their entire objection, stated repeatedly, is that of a hyperconservative, green-eye-shaded bean counter from the bowels of the moneygrubbing Hypercorp that exists only in their imaginations — namely, that it costs too much. If it can’t be done on the cheap it isn’t In the Interests of the Stockholders.
Selective truth is even more revealing. “America armed Saddam!” they cry. “Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam Hussein!” The latter is true, the former not so much — I’d link, but the new policy won’t let me — but what they most carefully do not say in that connection is that aid to and diplomatic contact with Hussein-era Iraq was in pursuit of precisely the means they claim, loudly, to be the only Just True & Progressive method of doing things: inclusion, diplomatic efforts, and judiciously targeted aid to turn the bad guys up sweet and show them the True Path™. In other words, they don’t believe their own bullshit. How interesting!
Conversation in a third-world capital, circa 2010:
DICTATOR: The damned Americans want us to sign this. It’s intolerable! We can’t do this.!
DIPLOMATIC ADVISOR: Not a problem, Your Supremeness. You should sign it, and smile.
D: What? I’m not going to do any of this!
A: Of course not, Your Supremeness. Our country will continue as before, under your Supreme Leadership.
D: Then what’s the point of signing?
A [sighs]: Look here, Your Supremeness. They’re going to send us money. Lots of money. We can always use money, can’t we?
D: [frowns]: And what happens when we don’t do what it says? I don’t need Marines on my doorstep [shudders].
A: Oh, that’s not going to happen, Your Supremeness. The Americans have learned their lesson.
D [suspiciously]: So what will happen?
A [shrugs again]: They’ll make a lot of noise, of course, but at the end <sneer>President</sneer> Obama shows up in Air Force One with a bag of money. Won’t that be cool? Oh, a couple of minor villages might get slammed by remote control, but it’s easy enough to make sure all the evidence points to your enemies, and anyway we don’t give a damn about villagers.
D: You’re sure?
A: It’s what they do, Your Supremeness.
D: All right, I’ll sign the thing, and spend the money with pleasure. What if you’re wrong?
A: I’m not wrong, Your Supremeness, and I know what happens if I am…
Regards,
Ric
Ric, you DA BOMB…:)
BTW, as regards to the US having sold weapons to Saddam, I remember well when NBC Snooze first broke that story, back in 1990 or 91. Big splash they tried to make…until you got to the details.
It seems that the “weapons” we sold Iraq back were…Compaq computers, Raytheon marine navigation radars, Hewlett/Packard electronic test equipment (signal generators, o-scopes, things like that) and Northern Telecom telephone switching equipment and fiber optic communications gear. (Wait a minute. Northern Telecom is a CANADIAN company! Damned sneaky Canucks, horning in on our action…)
Anyhoo, while you might kill someone if you dropped a Nortel SL-1 PBX on them, it and these other items really do not make very good “weapons”. And never mind that NBC never actually said who sold Iraq this stuff, bearing in mind that they could have just as easily bought this gear from some European or Asian reseller.
But since it was “American made”, and the Iraqi military could have made use of it, then it became “US sells weapons to Saddam”.
The United states Accounted for about 1% of Saddam’s military aid during the decade of the eighties. The USSR accounted for almost 70% with China, France and Germany accounting for almost all of the balance.
Thanks, ric for that clearheaded analysis.
sashal, I must tell you that I find your reasoning for voting for Obama less than persuasive.
It seems to me that you support at least some principles of conservatism and I’d be the first to admit that the Republican Party has dropped the ball big time. It’s also true that Obama has expressed exactly “none” of those conservative principles that you claim to hold dear. In fact, every utterance, association and writing speaks to a left liberal agenda with some serious socialist underpinnings.
Your support seems to be based on a negative, that he’s not a neocon who will cause us to jump in to another “misadventure” somewhere overseas. I’d like to point out that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice will not be running the country after Jan, 2009, no matter who is elected. I have a legion of disputes with John McCain but his commitment to seeing Iraq and Afghanistan through to a conclusion rather than just patching and running is not one of them. I also don’t have any illusions that he’ll be persuaded or railroaded into attempting any inadvisable military adventure. I may be wrong but this worry is way down my list.
In contrast you would like to elect a person with no executive experience with obviously flawed foreign policy credentials who seems more interested in providing Theocracies and pariahs legitimacy in some vain hope that his “good intentions” will cause them to stop working against our interests. In other words, to assure that the dreaded “neocons” have absolutely no hope of doing the sorts of things you find egregious you will willfully elect a big government, program oriented, across the board taxing, unrepentant and inexperienced nanny statist whose foreign policy concerns seem less about confronting terrorism and more about being liked by those who have also refused to confront terrorism.
I’m not snarking. I’m just confused as to your reasoning. Maybe ric’s analysis explains this disconnect.
BJ – Pounding your head against the nearest brick wall is likely to produce better results.
BJTex,
I just saw BHO speech at AIPAC conference.
If I had any doubt(I admit , I did) about his foreign policy, I do not have any now.
He will be great and powerful president, in the Reagan mold in our foreign relationships.
Watch it…
I ‘heart’ Ric Locke! Great comment, Ric.
BJTexs
“I’m just confused as to your reasoning.”
What’s reasoning got to do with it?
If I had any doubt(I admit , I did) about his foreign policy, I do not have any now.
He will be great and powerful president, in the Reagan mold in our foreign relationships
A better demonstration of shallowness has never been displayed.
Nothing about the administration’s strategy to maintain low level instability in the region. It wasn’t just about Iraq, Iraq was simply a push point.
sashal: from the AIPAC speach, March 2, 2007
Not much of a futurist,is he? Does this description in any way match the current reality in Iraq?
Sadly, no!
If the president had been forced to do this, Iraq would be a killing zone. Strike 2.
Because there were no terrorists in Iraq … until we leave … and then we’ll return … if they come back … or if they never leave?
Strike 3
f I had any doubt(I admit , I did) about his foreign policy, I do not have any now.
He will be great and powerful president, in the Reagan mold in our foreign relationships.
You’re delusional.
Give it up, BJ. Sashal “feels” the way that he does. Reasoning has nothing to do with it. I was against the escalation with Iraq at the time, because I thought that Afghanistan was the proper theater and that Saddaam was neutered. I actually understood the myriad of reasons why they were taking Sadaam out, but still thought concentrating our full military front on Afghanistan was the proper move. But, the fact is, we went in. And now, to my surprise, it seems to be taking. It’s not necessarily our version of a democracy, but Iraq is pacifying. That is not debatable only to the sashals and Obamas of the world. One is running for president and needs the moonbat vote, so I understand his pandering. The alleged conservative’s reasoning for Obama love, I have no idea about. Sashal is at least honest enough to admit that Iraqi blood means nothing to him. I can admire that. I think it’s perverse, but it’s honest.
A protestor anywhere but in Western Europe will drop their sign and board the plane to New York, given a ticket and a passport! Dipshit.
Are you in the 4th grade? Did you happen to see the Iraqi blacksmith trying to pull down Saddam’s statue in Iraq during the first days of the war? Dipshit.
Thing is, it also forced the jihadis to divide their efforts. We’re better at logistics than they are, so…
Precisely, and it’s worth taking the time to realize why that is.
The goal of Soviet propaganda during the entire existence of the USSR was to achieve equivalence — to cloak what was in Reality™ naked Russian imperialism in the ideals of the West. Sashal is conclusive evidence that they succeeded, by and large. He rejects “adventurism” because he realizes that the Politburo’s proud claims of “national liberation” were a front for imperialist aggression — but, in the process, he has accepted the underlying goal of the propagandists. If Bush = Stalin and Rumsfeld = Molotov, then by simple laws of arithmetic Stalin = Bush and Molotov = Rumsfeld, which is what the propagandists were working toward.
I wonder what happened to the statue that used to stand in front of KGB. It probably got melted down, or bits sold off to souvenir collectors, but if it still exists we need to recover Iron Felix and erect him in full glory in the center of the Oval. It is, after all, his triumph.
Regards,
Ric
The moral equivalence propaganda arguement was also parroted by the left, who were pro-Soviet, and later on by the Democrats all through the Cold War. It is why they left was terrified of Reagan.
sashal, is a self admitted Lew Rockwell/Buchanan style Conservative, which is more of the “realist” school and decidedly NOT Reaganesque in the foreign policy dept. The “realists” wanted to coexist with the USSR. Reagan wanted to defeat them. Which is what makes sashals position odd. If Reagan had conducted foreign policy back then like sashal wants it now, the USSR would still be standing. Does he not know about the proxy wars fought in South and Central America against Soviet sattelite states to resist Communist expansion, which ultimately resulted in the USSRs doom? Does he think those weren’t worthwhile?
Sahal, you have, unfortunately, revealed the depth of your ignorance. You are, in fact, a black hole of ignorance. We should have polled the Iraqis? As if Iraq is just like, say, Texas, without all the glitter, and the Gallup guys can just wander about, asking questions. How, exactly, does one poll a person who just had their tongue cut out?
Bottom line is this: We removed a threat. We don’t need any other justification than that. If you are representative of the other Obamagasmic libtards, and I fear you are, we are in seriously deep shit.
@ #79
Thar she blows?
#89. Rick, as always interesting analysis.
Your knowledge about the details of Soviet rule and propaganda is very impressive, but interpretation sometimes is not correct.
Adventurism is adventurism, does not matter who does it -communists or neconservatives.
there is no false equivalency here.
Communists were USSR, neoconservatives are small influential group who gained power in Bush administration, when they leave an adventurism will go too, they do not represent the whole of USA( not like commies and USSR were one and the same).
Your thesis can be beat by one simple comparison.
USSR invaded Afghanistan-adventurism, voluntarism, BS , unnecessary Bolshevist war of promoting ideology and friendly regime.
USA invading Afghanistan(which I fully and truly support)-righteous war, revenge for the attack on us and giving shelter to our mortal enemy…
USSR invaded Afghanistan-adventurism, voluntarism, BS , unnecessary Bolshevist war of promoting ideology and friendly regime.
USA invading Afghanistan(which I fully and truly support)-righteous war, revenge for the attack on us and giving shelter to our mortal enemy…
Sashals morality simplified: Promoting an ideology of free people and trade and self-rule=wrong
revenge=okay
B Moe, nothing wrong with promoting, promote away, we always should do that…
But what shouldn’t we do?
What do you think I was against about all this thread?
Okay, sashal. I thought you were bright enough I could save a few pixels, but here it is all spelled out.
Sashal’s morality simplified:
Invading a foreign country to promote freedom and prosperity = wrong.
Invading a foreign country purely for revenge = right.
much better, I know nuance is a bad word in some folks parlance, what the hell is a few thousands lives here or there.
But if you repeat it more often-invading to promote( insert here whatever you want to promote) is bad, it may actually start sinking into your moral view of the God created world
Thank you…
Sorry, sashal, your ideology does not match the American experience. You ought to read American history closely. Isolationism died when USS Arizona exploded. The only isolationists left are on the fringes, the Buchananites who want to protect America from the world, so keep her home, and the Obamaites who want to protect the world from America, so keep her home.
In your eagerness for isolationism you are making alliance with some pretty dodgy people.