[note: follow-up post here]
Looks like the National Review itself is the latest to throw the noose around Bill Buckley’s useless, weathered neck:
[…] If Iraq ever descends into a real civil war, we won’t have to debate whether it has happened. It will be clear for all to see. The military will dissolve into ethnic factions, and the government will collapse. That hasn’t happened, and so declarations of defeat in Iraq of the sort our founder and editor-at-large William F. Buckley Jr. made last week  are pre-mature. That view could ultimately be proven right, but there is no way to know with certainty at this point. Throughout the Iraq war, NR has tried to temper the rival fatalisms of the Iraq optimists and pessimists. Victory in Iraq has never been inevitable or impossible. The outcome depends, as is always the case, on the choices made by the players, including ourselves. Even if our influence in Iraq is waning, our commitment  and the specific forms it takes  still matters very much. Defeatism will be self-fulfilling.
[my emphases]
You can see my response to the Buckley article here—a piece that argues largely in line with the NR editorial, yet another irate verbal lynching by Bush Kultists against a conservative they are prepared to excommunicate from the movement in much the same way Democrats rushed to distance themselves from, say, Joseph Lieberman’s Iraq report, or Robert Byrd’s Klan history.
But why be glib? One of the important points made in this excerpt (the entire piece is available to subscribers only) is that a goodly portion of our success or failure in Iraq has ultimately to do with how we react in terms of either lending our support or leveling our criticisms against the campaign.
And this is (and has been) a crucial component of the war—one that many on the anti-war side are loathe to admit: that their constant naysaying, though it is well within their right to voice, has objectively hurt the war effort, particularly when the criticism incorporates carefully-crafted falsehoods many of the war’s critics know for a fact to be objectively untrue
From my perspective, there comes a time when, having registered disagreement with the war, the war’s critics (and here I’m not talking about critics of individual strategical or tactical initiatives, but rather those who have been against the effort from the start) simply wait and—if things fail—rush to brag of their prescience and perspicuity. But in the meantime, actively working to undermine the effort by presenting our enemies with a rabidly partisan divided front (one of their chief aims, remember)—whether it be through suggestions that we are in Iraq “illegally”, or that the President “lied” to take us to war, or seemingly hoping, on a daily basis, that the whole thing devolve into a civil war—matters. And not just rhetorically.
The fact is, the insurgency simply cannot succeed militarily. And Iraqis have voted in spectacular numbers for an attempt at democratic governance.
Which means the only hope of the insurgency from the start has been to break our will by inflicting casualties, staging spectacular terrorist strikes (that serve the dual purpose of recruiting new insurgents and playing to our sensationalist and largely anti-war media), and fomenting a civil war between Shia and Sunni in an effort to sweep aside the prospect of democratic coalitions forming among long-warring sectarian groups.
I disagreed with Buckley’s analysis (fair-minded readers know that Buckley was never much of an interventionalist anyway), but Buckley’s analysis is one more of regional foreign policy than it is of Iraq in particular, and so it no way resembles the kind of administration criticism—cries of imperialism, oil greed, oedipal revenge, lying adventurism, etc—that have been the consistent rhetorical tack of the war’s critics, including many in the major media.
As a reminder, here is what Buckley said:
[…] the administration has, now, to cope with failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do not prevail  in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn’t work. The alternative would be to abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism.
[Again, my emphasis]
Most of those on the right who I’ve read on the subject have criticized Buckley’s analysis by noting that his initial stance on the war was hardly gung ho, and his most recent conclusions seem a bit premature. But they have respected him for making the argument, knowing that his goal, from the outset, has not been to undermine efforts to democratize Iraq either out of some immense hatred for the President or out of some newfound Democratic party / progressivist fealty to foreign policy realism; in fact, it can be argued Buckley has been there all along).
Unfortunately, I don’t think the same can be said for the majority of those most vocal voices on the political left.
(h/t Pajamas Media)
****
update One of today’s commenters sums up the feelings of several anti-war visitors about my essay this way:
Hilarious. Whining about how we lost the war because some folks didn’t clap hard enough. And then complaining of a lack of interest in serious discourse.
And here is another variation, this time with a bit more of that famed liberal tolerance spicing up the rhetoric of healing:
Wah!!! Our Fuhrer is losing the war cuz you libruhl murrica haters didn’t clap loud enough!!!
Truly some of the most pathetic straw grasping I’ve ever witnessed in my life.
Well, leaving aside the curious repetition of the “clap loud enough” meme (wonder who’s sending out that particular talking point?), finer examples of dissembling and responsibility-avoidance you will not find. And in fact, this is precisely the kind of dishonest and intellectually lazy claptrap I’ve been pointing to as problematic—but which I have consistently tried to distinguish from legitimate criticisms (knowing in advance, sadly, that I would receive no credit for attempting to do so).
First, my essay doesn’t concede that we’ve “lost the war”—and in fact, by offering a counter to Buckley, it argues precisely the opposite. Second, it doesn’t “whine” about how some folks didn’t clap hard enough; instead, it makes the observation that relentness naysaying beyond initial disagreement—particularly when those daily critiques involve knowingly perpetuating falsehoods as part of a strategy to undermine the war effort—is objectively damaging, as it meets one of our enemies’ stated goals of dividing the American electorate.
Listen → leftists or paleocons of left-libertarians who have engaged in these tactics can now try to distance themselves from their own complicity in the things I describe by claiming I’m setting up a situation in which I can blame a “loss” in Iraq on committed partriotic dissenters; I would expect no less of a strawman from people who can read the above essay and come away summarizing it the way the two quoted commenters did.
But I must say, it is remarkable to hear people who gather all their news—and form all their unassailable assertions about Iraq as a “failed” campaign—from an undeniably partisan (or at least, “adversarial”) media, then take such pains to deny the very power of that media, suggesting that it has little effect on the way the American public frames and internalizes the situation in Iraq.
Then, for my critics to further claim that such an internalization is proof of both the public’s displeasure and the war’s failure—even as they deny that how we feel at home has any practical bearing on events on the ground in Iraq—is simply stunning.
Critics of my essay are free, of course, to misinterpret or refigure my argument any way they’d like (I envision action figure stories or kitty pictures). But it won’t change what I wrote, nor will it alter what are indisputable facts: namely, that the enemy relied on breaking our will, and it relied on doing so by applying the kinds of pressures to which many on the left—already predisposed to disagree with the intervention of US forces—would succumb.
It is also true that, regardless of what we each felt about the wisdom of the intervention, showing a united front against the terrorists (who are now fighting against an elected Iraqi government and the vast majority of those Iraqis who voted for democracy) would weaken the insurgency and show solidarity with a fledgling democracy. Doing so at a time when civil war is possible thanks to the provocations of terrorists is particularly important if our goal is to win the war in Iraq (and not just political control of a future, toothless foreign policy).
Face it: my critics know this. And so all these smarmy and utterly tranparent attempts to suggest that I am trying to “blame leftists” for a loss in Iraq is simply the manifestation of guilty consciences bursting like boils and oiling up the internet with so much pus-thickened epiphany juice.
My post was about the rectitude and benefits of showing a united front during war as a strategy for helping win it (and save lives)—not about the rights of people to protest. And to be fair, it should be read in the context of all the discussion I’ve given to the philosophies (linguistic and sociopolitical) and social prescriptions (policy arising from those philosophies) that underlie much of the current internal western debate over the rectitude of the war. But even without that context, it is clear that the post took issue not with critiques of the particular strategies and tactics (which I note quite clearly in the piece proper), but rather with those whose hatred of the campaign and the current administration turned them into de facto propagandists for the enemy, especially insofar as they were willing to repeat lies as truths (because, as Glenn Greenwald argued) the ends justify the means.
Of course, there is nothing in any of what I’ve written that diminishes the administration’s responsibility for running the war—and I’ve discussed and critiqued on any number of occasions (as have many war supporters), both the successes and failures of the campaign from that particular perspective. That I don’t do it in this post—which was about another dynamic operable in a war setting—is taken by some (increasingly simplistic) ideologues to suggest that war supporters are unwilling to acknoweldge problems in Iraq caused by strategic or tactical decisions made by the Pentagon / DoD. This is (idiotically) being framed as “not taking responsiblity” for support of the campaign—which is silly, as I defend it nearly every day, even as I’ve criticized certain of its components (I’ve been particularly disturbed by the administration’s failure to fight the ideological war effectively).
So to suggest that I’ve somehow handed off “blame” for a “failure” that I don’t admit to—and more, that this silly line of argument has taken hold en masse—is simply a testament to how unserious many in the anti-war crowd have become.
But whatever. I guess many of these lefty hive sites got tired of citing Atrios over and over again. After all, it gets rather embarrassing after a spell when you go to pick up your daily talking point, only to find it’s “Open Thread” (pass it on!). So ALL HAIL THE GENIUS OF GREENWALD!
CRUCIFY HIM !!!
I would say Buckley has long been a pessimist as to our effort in Iraq. His recent article came as no shock to me. I say this as a longtime reader of NR, who was first attracted to the magazine by Buckley himself.
BECAUSE WAR IS SO DAMN PREDICTABLE!
Wow. Those left wing sites you linked are illuminating (once again). I still do not fathom how peolple can go through life like that. I’m guessing that some are not rooting for the outright defeat of their own country, but it sure appears that SOME are. All over the hatred of the POTUS. Amazing, indeed.
Or devolve into a debate on the meaning of “civil war.”
Because it so matters and because we’re so leisurely up to our eyes in time and self-importance.
I guess it’s obvious now that Buckley’s a paleocon, but did anyone ever really consider him a neocon? I’m not sure why this “Murtha Moment(tm)” is a big shock to anyone.
The fact is, the insurgency simply cannot succeed militarily. And Iraqis have voted in spectacular numbers for an attempt at democratic governance.
See, there’s that wacky “we’re winning” talk again, as though facts and logic should shape our perceptions or something.
Hey! Thanks for the link up and the compliment!
When the US left Southeast Asia, the consequences were:
* 1 million plus boat people fled South Vietnam
* About 250,000 South Vietnamese were put into “re-education camps”
* About half of them died there
* 2 million Cambodians (30% of the population) were murdered
* Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have spent the last 30 years under brutal dictatorships
Anyone who suggests that the US should leave Iraq immediately needs to suggest a way to prevent a repetion of these events.
The true moral of Vietnam is that the bad guys won. We need to prevent the bad guys from winning in the Middle East.
Yep, the defeatists in the US won in Vietnam. Do they care about the consequences? Nope.
Amen Jeff.
I don’t have the writing skills to add much to what you wrote.
We can’t waste an internet second on that crap!
Buckley is senile at this point. He simply refuses to face the fact that civil war might be the best thing that could happen to Iraq right now. It could change the political dynamic and that can only be good. But that senile Thurston B. Howell wannabe wants us to cut and run. What a loser.
Way to swiftboat WFB, Jeff. Way to swiftboat.
The perpetual question posed to actus: What exactly are you trying to accomplish?
Try it sometime. No matter the inanity, it always fits.
I’m agreeing with you. There is no time to debate civil war.
As improbable as it sounds, you’ve actually found a way to shill yourself.
Beautiful. lmfao.
nikkolai,
Some are indeed. In fact, some are also looking to take matters their own hands.
*into*
Bah!
I feel like the guy in the bunker who looked out at the leading edge of the Battle of the Bulge and couldn’t get the other folks interested enough to take a look.
Islam is coming. The West can demure comment, much less action, all it wants. Islam is coming.
TW = “read”. We didn’t read our history; now we are going to live it.
Woo-hoo. Glad to see the last vestiges of the ultra right are all about finger-pointing.
Two reasons why we continue to slide down the slippery slope in Iraq. Neocons are self-delusional by definition and therefore chose to wage a war on the cheap against the best strategic advice from our military and, Abu Ghraib.
Newsflash – the next subway to irrelevance is pulling into the station. Go on, neo-boys, hop the turnstiles and grab a seat.
Sure Jill. But I think what you meant to say was:
Don’t mention it. I do it out of love.
and… Abu Ghraib? I love how you worked that into the sentence. “You’re wrong because you’re wrong, and Abu Ghraib.” If I didn’t know you were just a fucking idiot, I might have accidentally read your sentence to mean that those nasty neo-cons had ignored the best strategic advice from Abu Ghraib.
I can’t believe people waste time making random text generators to come up with spew like yours when you give it away for free.
I figured it’d only be a matter of time before Jeff trotted out this Vietnam-redux talking point: that the incipient failure in Iraq is, at least in part, the fault of liberals who undermined the war through criticism.
Why not? It’s a cheap and easy rhetorical CYA ploy. I mean, it’s not as if Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld had a free hand to conduct the war exactly as they saw fit, with all the funding they asked for, a pliant Republican Congress, and a military leadership of their own preference. Not to mention a Democratic minority with minimal political power—power they certainly didn’t or couldn’t use to materially affect Iraq policy—for the entire duration of the war.
All part and parcel with the inability of all persons on the Bush train to take any responsibility whatsoever for any of the policy failures of the Administration.
Remember—whatever happens in Iraq is the liberals’ fault. And don’t you forget it.
Rather bewildering how people whose only tactic is propoganda seem to believe that propoganda has no effect. One might question their intelligence.
MF, among the most important assets in any national effort, including war, are public support and the morale of those who are going to be doing the heavy lifting.
Leftists and the media (but I repeat myself) have been engaged in a years-long attack on those very assets.
So if you’re going to claim that these factors are irrelevant, after your side has gone to so much effort to use them, you can feel free to kiss my ass.
Do you sleep well knowing how badly you want your country to lose this war?
I don’t find Buckley’s stance (in which he’s probably joined by George Will) surprising at all. Old-school Conservatives/Tories have always condescended to the Third World’s ability to fashion western-style democracy, and generally speaking, they’ve been right. Their thought is echoed in the words of humanitarian/missionary Dr. Albert Schweitzer when he said, “The African is my brother, but he will always be my younger brother.”
What is fascinating is the way the Liberal/Left have joined in the Conservative scepticism with regard to Arabs’ political maturity, while concurrently pushing “diversity” and “multiculturalism” at home, when according to their principles, only bringing Arabs here and subsuming them in American culture will allow them to become civilized.
Oh, and BTW, here’s Bill Roggio’s latest (today) from Iraq:
The bombing at the Golden Mosque has not instigated civil war in Iraq.
After the daytime curfew designed to limit sectarian violence in the wake of the demolition of the dome of the Golden Mosque was lifted in Baghdad, the city returned to ‘normal’, a relative term as Baghdad is a dangerous place to begin with. Reuters lists the Developments in Iraq for February 27, and the picture it paints is just another day of the insurgency in Iraq. It’s less than optimal but far from civil war.
I take it there’s not going to be a lynching after all?
Damn.
Anyone want to buy a rope? It’s brand new…
Rememberâ€â€whatever happens in Iraq is the liberals’ fault.
I know that was meant as snark, but in fact it is true. If the liberals had gotten behind this war instead of stabbing the president and the troops in the back, the insurgency would have been crushed months ago. The insurgents are undoubtedly emboldened by the division that they see in this country.
The less of Vietnam should be this: America only loses when it cuts and runs. If we stay the course in Iraq, we will prevail, just as we would have prevailed in Vietnam had we stuck it out there.
I mean, thats exactly why we want Bush replaced. Because we think he’s doing a *terrific* job.
There were problems with the conduct of this war, and a lot of the blame goes to those who ran it. And those concepts have been documented on this and many other right-wing sites.
However, this is still a straw-man argument, MF. You guys were against this war from the beginning. And even if the war had been conducted perfectly – no civilian casualties, no US casualties – you would have been against it then as well.
This gets back to Jeff’s point above about waiting for things to fail, then bragging about prescience. In other words, it wouldn’t have made any difference to you either way.
TV (Harry)
tw: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Dang – this thing is GOOD!!
Look, Bush might be doing a terrible job (in many or even most ways, I think he is). But you’d have to have a pretty serious case of naivete to think that the enemy doesn’t view cutting into Bush’s political capital, and public support for the war, as a paramount strategic objective. In fact, it’s almost certainly the only way they can win.
I’m just trying to suggest that the people who *do* know that this is one of their objectives probably have a very different view of the public griping going on. They sense it prolongs the conflict and emboldens the enemy, among other things. Is that so unreasonable?
Going beyond this, it may or may not be unreasonable to observe that some making public their displeasure probably would be perfectly satisfied to see the U.S. diminished in ways that are similar in character to what the terrorists want.
Anyway, just because you can bitch doesn’t mean you should take every single goddamned opportunity to do so.
And do they sleep well knowing how badly they want brown people dead in order to lose this war in order to hang Bushco?
And to think I used to say lefists couldn’t grasp cause and effect.
Apparently the millions dead after the Vietnam humiliation weren’t enough. So goes the pathological, murdering left, protector of all things third world, disadvantaged, other-cultural, and oppressed.
tw: No matter the cost, anyone but Bush.
Really? We’d seen Clinton’s shabby run at CIC, and we all pretty much know how algore’s derangement syndrome would have run post 9-11 ops. Did you have an alternative, actus?
No, I’ll answer for you and state that you just want him replaced. It’s abundantly evident from the incessant goalpost-moving over in your collective hive that there is no justification. The Democrats have become a pack of deranged career liars and partisans.
If I’m wrong, show me, actus.
Naturally, the contradiction that poses means nothing to liars.
MF, actus, jill, et al., when you can come up with some actual supportable reason to oppose this war, which in case you’ve missed the memo is an ongoing thing now, a piece of history in the making and no amount of your bellyaching is going to shove it back into the realm of the imaginary, you can damn well take the blame for your continuing efforts to sap the American will to finish what we’ve started, regardless of your belief that we shouldn’t have started it. And if you somehow manage to nominate a see-no-evil monkey rather than the fiercest and most determined hawk you can muster, and if God forbid too many of the American people listen to you over the next two years and actually elect that person, you may as well throw away your passports; your beautiful po-mo multi-culti paradise will be no use to you then. I want to be able to move freely about the earth; I’ll keep supporting our efforts to further the opportunities of people in living in darkness.
[deep breath]
(Man. I don’t do that kind of thing often.)
TW: Oh please, let the center hold in 2008…
Seems to me this is backwards. The leftists want us to lose the war in order that Chimpy McHitlerburton will be destroyed. However many deaths of the dimwitted, easily led soldiers who don’t have the good sense to obey instructions from their betters it takes.
Wow.
Just wow.
I voted for Bush in ‘04, and I supported the Iraq war. I did so not for neocon reasons— because I have always understood that social engineering cannot work, either domestically here in the U.S. or in foreign policy. We can’t “make them” into rule of law, civil-society minded folks at will.
But I believed Saddam had been a belligerent against us, and that after 9/11 it was time to say “f*ck you” to him and others, so that bad guys would fear messing with us. I also believed George Bush would be competent to execute the war and its aftermath.
I was wrong.
And it isn’t the fault of the liberal media, or anyone who criticized the war.
While traveling from the midwest to the East coast last November, I was seated next to a soldier returning from Iraq. He was a conservative, Xian evangelical, smart, and had his own criticisms of the media. But he told me civil war was nearly inevitable, because of the various tribal factions in Iraq itself. He said that some of these factions are so backwards as to be unbelieveable, and that there is no reasoning with them.
This young soldier said civil war was truly the most likely outcome. But he did not think that would be a “good thing.” He did not think our troops should remain in the middle of that.
At what point does “I was wrong” enter into an honest person’s thinking? Or is it always going to be easier to rant about “senile” godfathers of conservatism and otherwise refuse to consider that maybe, just maybe, Bush totally screwed things up?
Thirty years ago the left sacrificed a few million southeast Asians in the name of peace. No, wait. I think it was in the name of busting Nixon. Or maybe it was draft dodging. Fulfilling academia’s aimlessly selfish agenda? Pot?
Whatever.
I don’t think even a million dead brown people will bother them today. They’ve had a third of a century to perfect their contempt for freeing non-whites by way of partisan self-preservation.
Ever since that southern strategy backfired on them.
er, you mispelled lynching in the title of the post.
Otherwise I ditto your remarks. Let me add that Actus is a pencil neck with no dick.
That’s right, MF  Because god forbid, if that talking point is right, then all you peace-loving “progressives” (peace-loving defined as, ‘please leave me in peace in my Starbucks or at least take them first’
would have to acknowledge a mountain of brown-skinned corpses at your feet higher than anything Stalin managed.
Go read Aria da Capo sometime.
Amazing. For once in his life, Buckley actually got something right!
I see Mona’s drank the Kool-aid. I hope it was refreshing for her.
One soldier made you change your mind? Boy, Americans have really become sheeple. Hundreds and hundreds of examples of good things happening DAILY, and all it took was one opposing view to change your mind? Or maybe it was more than that? Maybe it was the constant negative barrage from the media and the left (but I repeat myself also), that helped Mona change her mind.
If there’s ever a reason we lose wars, it’s because of the lack of will to fight them, NOT because we don’t have the physical numbers and strength. Vietnam was an example of that, and Iraq is going in that direction. Mona’s proof positive that all it takes is a little negativity to prove that most Americans don’t have the stones to do what is needed. Most of present company excepted, of course.
I’m really getting sickened by this.
TV (Harry)
Buckley is a very bright guy, but he’s not a prophet. That said, he’s in the business of reading tea leaves and then making policy recommendations based on those speculations.
Kind of like the President. But Buckley didn’t get a single vote. That’s why we will persevere and win.
I’ll bite, Mona: if the reason we’re going to find the White Man’s Burden too heavy to bear is the mere existence of those “tribal factions”, what exactly would a competent President have been able to do about it?
If its the same mona that used to post on L2R then she ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. But dear mona can’t you and your leftists ever even listen? Personally I don’t care if you are right…get that? I don’t care if you are wrong either. I do care that your ilk continue to give propaganda victories to the enemy. Which may get people killed in the short and long run.
Do you really imagine that Bush is going to cut and run? What is your realistic purpose? I can’t see any other than to score cheap political points.
Believe me, I want to avoid being led by by blind incompetent dry-drunk chimps.
correction: unoriginal sophomoric dickless pencil neck.
I don’t know. I have no expertise in such matters, and simply trusted that George Bush was surrounding himself with, and listening to, those who did.
The situation in Iraq is making me so ill, I’ve actually been on the verge of tears. I feel guilty.
Beginning with the Schiavo craziness, then Katrina, the Miers nomination, I saw the cronyism and insanely poor judgment of George Bush and his GOP on display, and have long been increasingly disposed to consider he is a screw up. But the incompetence issues did not begin to reveal themselves for me until after the ‘04 election, which is my only defense.
All 50 Governors of the several states—GOP and Dem alike—have written a letter stating that our National Guard reserves are seriously strained and depleted, and that crucial equipment is being lost in the war effort, and that the federal govt is not meeting its obligations to the Guard. Then there was the Katrina mess—if a devastating terrorist attack, or another huge natural disaster took place here, what confidence can anyone have that the federal govt could address the mess?
As I recall, at the outset of the Iraq war Bill Kristol and others said it would be a very simple and quick matter, requiring comparatively little military investment. They downplayed the issues of the aftermath. I never bought into all of that, and certainly not the idea that we can impose liberal, rule of law democracies on anyone anywhere. Not without some degree of colonialism.
I just figured Bush was considering reality, and so supported him.
I was so wrong.
Not until someone writes the speech he’ll use for it. Perhaps a nice way to blame people who aren’t in power, who listen to the ‘filter.’
And then we’ll get on with the liberal project of making the world safe for irony.
The media downplayed it. But your president did not. He stated NUMEROUS times that the war would take a long time, and would cost much, but that we needed the resolve to finish it, because losing would have been worse.
So you, Mona, lost YOUR resolve. And you blame President Bush for your change of heart? Maybe you should look in the mirror.
TV (Harry)
That’s me. I’m no leftist, not even remotely, but certainly I did not exhibit much insight at L2R, given that I defended Bush and the war in Iraq, rather vehemently.
If you read me at L2R then you also know how outraged I became during the Schiavo insanity, and that was my first clue how truly worrisome Bush and the current GOP are.
I agree with 6gun, Noah, et. al. Everything would be fine in Iraq if Paul Krugman and Howard Dean would just be nicer to Bush. Remember people, bombs and bullets don’t kill people, New York Times op-eds do.
Like I said. Kool, refreshing Kool-aid.
Please don’t get started on the “Katrina” mess. It was worse for Mississippi, and somehow we didn’t hear how the federal government screwed that up. The state government of Louisiana, and the City of New Orleans screwed up royally, then blamed the feds. You bought that whole federal scapegoat hook line and sinker.
With Americans with such fickle-mindedness seemingly outnumbering the rest of us, it’s no wonder we can’t win wars.
TV (Harry)
tw: I’m wringing my hand(s) of the whole mess.
We have to fight them over here in the blogs so we don’t have to fight them over there in Iraq.
Not so. Bush said the GWOT would take a long time, not the war in Iraq. They are not one and the same. And people like Kristol were insisting, early on, that Iraq would be a relatively easy war to win. Afghanistan redux.
Look, if Iran is going to end up pulling the strings of a Shia-dominated Iraq—an Iraq that is consumed in civil war—how can that possibly be to our benefit? Do we really want our troops trapped in the middle of such a bloody mess?
I don’t mean those questions rhetorically. The American people and the troops will want the answers.
It’s a war. Still. I don’t really care who told you it was over, because the enemy did not agree.
If you really care about the troops than you must understand that every time we lose our will to fight, it gives the next enemy (and there is ALWAYS a next enemy) the knowledge that he can make us run.
Not this time. Our guys can get the job done. They just need our unconditional support. Are you willing to give it to them despite your dislike of the CIC?
Inspector Callahan, don’t bother about Mona. It’s a setup.
Let’s examine the talking points. (As with the shameless actus, this is just good marketing—willful, designed and manufactured bullshit. It’s all about appearances, as it is with all the dishonest leftists.)
Ah, a simple rhetorical condensation of a bogus but stereotypical Hannity-type wingnut acolyte. Erect a weak villan, follow with justified rage, lead into a weak justification for action, set Bushco as fall guys, claim personal responsibility for the aleged fiasco, and conclude by defending the media. Predictable. And quite damn good, I admit – note the pauses for effect, isolating key points, and deliberately talking down/posing as a simple minded wingnut.
Then, segue into a simplistic moral conclusion…
…and profess rightwing guilt. By extension, we’re all complicit in this fiasco of a liberation.
Yawn.
Isn’t that cute? Isn’t that cloying? It’s all playing to a crowd, Inspector. Next up? Mona begging credibility: “No, really, I am a staunch conservative from South Dakota and I’m so darn upset with that Mister Bush, dontcha know.”
Problem is Mona than tips her hand with terms and usage not found in her sockpuppet conservative’s lexicon:
What rubbish. Oh, and actard, answer my question. Diversionary, lying smarting off I expect from you; now I want answers.
So Mona has gone from holding an emphatic pro-war opinion based on zero knowledge but a blind trust in the President, to holding an emphatic anti-war opinion based on zero knowledge but a blind trust in some chance acquaintance on an airplane. Our friends on the left call this sort of thing “growth”.
Actually, I did no such thing. But surely you have paid some attention to the report on what went wrong and where, and Michael Brown’s testimony to Congress?
Can any reasonable person accept that both in the immediate aftermath, and in the extended period continuing to the present, that the federal response to Katrina exhibits a preparedness for a national crisis? Including a terrorist attack?
The American public is, indeed, very unhappy with Bush. I volunteer at a disability rights office, and there yesterday, of the four of us present, 3 of us had voted for Bush. All 3 of us were deeply critical of him, and pondering who to trust to get the nation back on track.
Such conversations are happening everywhere.
If there’s ever a reason we lose wars, it’s because of the lack of will to fight them, NOT because we don’t have the physical numbers and strength.
Amen. When the United States shows resolve, it can never be defeated. When it allows its policies to be dictated by the surrender monkeys of the left, it can never win.
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: a civil war could be good for Iraq. Freedom is messy. At some level, sectarian strife is merely the exercise of freedom. After 15 years of totalitarianism under Saddam, it is hardly surprising to see a little mayhem now.
In the end, we will prevail in Iraq as long as the Republicans stay in power. It may take 5 years, it may take ten. Iraq may be one country by the end. It may be three. But we will prevail.
Freedom is on the march.
Everything would be fine in Iraq if Bush hadn’t caved to Paul Krugman and Howard Dean-like thinking—Yearrrgh!—and announced pullouts on the days after the most intense leftist pressure to cut and run.
Like actard, you deny reality and history. And yes, Bush has not been nearly the wartime leader he should have been.
But he’s not a fucking lying coward, now is he?
Why is that behavior so acceptable to the Left?
So, Mona, what’d you come up with, you and your imaginary buddies?
And yes, 6Gun, I also noticed what you noticed. It’s Bill Clinton’s great insight (later picked up by Andrew Sullivan): It’s always more profitable to apologize for other people’s actions than for your own.
That’s just really unfair. I hold no expertise at all in military strategies, or in understanding the geo-political and cultural realities in the Middle East. Therefore, it is necessary for me to inform myself to the best of my limited abilities in such areas, and determine who I will trust. Ultimately, I have to defer to purported experts, because I am not one myself.
As for my anecdote about the soldier on the plane, I did not change my mind about the war at that point. But his opinions stayed with me, and over the last months I’ve just seen that his views seemed correct.
It would be wrong for me not to admit that.
Guess what, mona. Bush isn’t running for office in ‘08. Got that?
Sorry, marianne, but that’s crazy talk. Say that civil war isn’t as bad as Saddam’s brand of order and I’ll agree with you; but that’s a long, long way from saying it’s good.
Say that civil war isn’t as bad as Saddam’s brand of order and I’ll agree with you; but that’s a long, long way from saying it’s good.
I’m glad you weren’t at Gettysburg. I can here you now: “Lincoln’s anti-slavery policy launches destructive civil war.”
Can any reasonable person not now accept that both in the immediate aftermath, and in the extended period continuing to the present, that the federal response to Katrina was hampered by improprieties erected by the governor of Louisiana, and that such obstruction has nothing whatever to do with a federal preparedness for a national crisis? Including a terrorist attack?
Further, Mona, show me where the federal charter requires the violation of federalism in order to nanny individual states from Washington, especially those with gross preparedness incompetence going back decades. Show me where, say, my state owes that state relief and do it in a legal, constitutional context, not your meandering housewife’s bullshit.
Show me that specific legal and mandatory socialism. Do it now. Until then I’ll conclude that you are a danger to personal constitutional American freedom because you’d rather be “safe” than self-sufficient.
tw: Clearly, not clear on anything one damn thing.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075
Because you, Kennedy, Kerry, Clinton, and you were there.
Your mendacity is impressive.
Might that one fifth of Americans be the same Americans who get their newz and politiks from the alphabets?
Of course the troops want to come home. What does that prove? You think they like it over there? That’s not the point. The point is that there are sacrifices involved, make no mistake. But the greater sacrifice would be to cut and run and leave the country to become a big Al Qaeda camp.
We will prevail because president Bush has resolve. We will stay the course, no matter how long that takes. And Iraq will become a peaceful democracy and an ally in the war on terror. Period.
Maybe. Please allow actus to now demonstrate the fifth column, marianna. And claim the fourth estate has no effect on opinion and policy.
So, are you saying that Bush ought to have sent in Federal troops after Katrina? I’m just wondering what your threshold of posse comitatus is.
I haven’t met many soldiers, but i think they’re not the kind of wimps that need me to like them in order to do what they do.
What answer do you want? I want a competent president. With a competent policy, not electionerering, team.
I was against the “new product” – the Bush/Iraq war as it was described in late summer ‘02 by the administration – from the moment I first heard hints about it. I couldn’t believe they were serious. Still can’t.
I’ve said it many, many times, and I’ll say it again. I told you so. But I’m not bragging. I never wanted to be more wrong. But I wasn’t and at the time I knew I couldn’t be for one simple reason:
Reality doesn’t work the way Bush, et al says it does. Never has, never will.
You can persist in trying to blame the acts of the mad on those of us who first diagnosed the madness, if you like. But it would be far better for the future of the US if you, and the others who advocated this disaster, spent some time figuring out how you were taken in by such an utterly preposterous idea.
To launch an unprovoked invasion of a country that never attacked us and, in particular, had nothing to do with 9/11, that wasn’t an imminent threat, and with no plans to deal with the inevitable occupation – that’s simply insane, my friend.
So, does “run home crying like a little girl” count as a meaningful alternative to our current Iraq policy? Because if it isn’t, I guess we’re still waiting for the opponents of our policy to offer one.
Then again, maybe it’s asking too much in this day and age to expect people to do more than just complain.
An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year,
Well, that’s sort of the plan anyway. I’m not sure how much sense the question makes when you leave out any mention of the security situation.
When you consider that the troops know whether they leave is dependent on that security situation, the poll sounds optimistic: 72% of troops think the country will be secure enough within the next year that U.S. troops can go home.
So actus, still waiting. This doesn’t cut it:
Well, Clinton blew it. algore is insane. Bushco was elected. Any more alternatives?
I want to know what you feel is the Iraq solution. The reason I want to know is that our elected president, should he go weak in prosecuting the war, which he seems to do in response to public opinion influenced by you fifth columnists, is incompetent. If he takes a firm stance, he’s incompetent. If he does nothing—in response to 9/11, say—he’s incompetent. If he does something, he’s incompetent.
This is because your ilk are mewling partisans and you’re a site-baiting little shit with even fewer solutions than you have valid theories.
Prove me wrong. I sense moderate intelligence there but it can’t seem to escape the nonsense. Say something that resonates with plain talk, common sense, and integrity for a change. Belive me, it’d be a relief.
BTW, how about that civil war? What do you do when reality refuses to conform, anyway?
TallDave, a question. If the US vacates Iraq in the year, and should chaos ensue, who’s fault do you suppose that’ll become just prior to the next election?
Just curious…
To launch an unprovoked invasion of a country that never attacked us and, in particular, had nothing to do with 9/11, that wasn’t an imminent threat, and with no plans to deal with the inevitable occupation – that’s simply insane, my friend.
You mean like how we invaded Vichy France, Germany, and Italy even though they hadn’t attacked us and nothing to do with Pearl Harbor?
There was lots and lots of planning for occupation, it just turned to overestimate how reasonable the Sunnis would be. You can’t predict everything in war, esp. when you’re dealing with people who are irrational. Just ask FDR after Pearl Harbor.
Bgun,
Everything that goes wrong in Iraq is Bush’s fault.
Everything that goes right (no widespread food/water shortages, disease, or refugee problems that are nearly always incident to war, the regime completely overthrown, Saddam on trial, not one but three nationwide votes, a democratic constitution, 250,000 ISF troops trained, and a clear road to exiting in the next couple years) was not just inevitable but totally unworthy of mention or praise.
I object to this consensus that the war hasn’t been fought competently. Of course it hasn’t been perfect(is that the new standard?), but hell, I can’t get through one of my uninteresting days doing everything perfectly. At the onset of hostilities, pretty much everyone was expecting 5-10k casualties just taking Bagdad(triple that number if chemical weapons were used, a very real possibility at the time, remember how all soldiers were wearing chem suits for the first week). We haven’t come close to that after years of fighting. In every aspect compared to all other American wars, this one has been an astounding success. Sure there were miscalculations and mistakes(again, is perfect the new standard?), but to say this war has been handled incompetently is ignorant. One of the most competent things W’s done is to learn one of the lessons of Vietnam, and listen to his military commanders and refrain from micromanaging combat from the white house. The biggest constraint, complicating the strategy infinitley, is the desire to win the hearts and minds while conducting combat operations. If the goal had been to only depose Sodamite (W)hosson, and then move on, the action would have been over in a heartbeat withless than 100 casualties. I submit that is is hard to imagine how it could have been handled(realistically)better, considering that our strategy of leaving behind a democratic country that is an example of hope for the region, and not hostile to the US, constrains many military options, increases the time we must spend in theator, and exposes vulurable points that the enemy can exploit, especially when they have the willing ally of our lefties and the MSM.
The last time somebody posted this lying crap here, somebody else came along and pasted the entire history of the resolution to war, countless UN cites and all.
Don’t tempt me. I use enough of Jeff’s bandwidth.
At this point, one thing is clear: if we do not prevail in Iraq, it will be because of liberal fifth columnists. This president will not leave until the job is done, but I fear the next president will not be so brave. I’d like to believe that Republican president would under no circumstances cut and run, but the left has become so good at getting their anti-war message out—with their twin “civil war is bad” and “the planning was bad” memes—that someone like McCain might buckle under and end up cutting and running.
We may talking about quite an extended stay in Iraq, maybe as much as 6 or 7 years. So it is incumbent on us to make sure that the next leader is as resolute as our current one. Otherwise, the loony left, and by extension, Al Qaeda, will win.
Measurable goals and performance benchmarks. Not a timeline, but goals. Also, putting people who have worked on and studied nation building in charge of building a nation.
Can you show me where this is so. That’s great news that we have a plan to leave in the next year.
bacon ninja,
You want an alternative to the current policy? Here it is:
</i>In 2008, elect a competent president of the United States. </i>
There can be no serious, workable alternatives until Bush is out of office. He and his administration are completely hopeless. Any decent policy ideas are doomed to failure not only because he would certainly ignore them, but because if he did try to implement them, he’d screw up as badly as he’s screwed everything else up – except his political campaigns.
That means the situation in Iraq will either get worse or much, much worse unitl Inauguration Day, 2009. That is an unspeakable tragedy, but that is the reality of the situation. Whether they improve in 2009 is up to you, me, and other voters.
But don’t blame me that there are no present alternatives. I didn’t vote for Bush.
So then, you are happy with our response to Rwanda & Sudan, but mad as hell about Bosnia. Right?
<object to this consensus that the war hasn’t been fought competently. Of course it hasn’t been perfect(is that the new standard?), but hell, I can’t get through one of my uninteresting days doing everything perfectly. </i>
Well said. The truth is this war has gone much better than most predicted. The MSM calls it a disaster, but most military analysts call it a smashing success. We’ve had few casualties by historic standards and we’re ahead of schedule on reconstruction. Not bad, if you ask me, especially with the left trying to tie one hand behind the president’s back.
Are you really not aware of those parties connection to belligerence with the US?
Tall Dave,
You want to discuss World War 2 or the Bush/Iraq war? I want to discuss the present mess. Lemme know when you’re ready and if it takes more than 50 years, so it’s as historic as WW2 is today, I’ll be waiting.
6Gun,
Insane is insane, references to UN resolutions or not. A catastrophic outcome of the Bush/Iraq war was predicted by me and many, many others. It was easy to see coming. Sorry you didn’t see it. I’m much more sorry that so people died because the people in power couldn’t see how crazy it was.
Good lord actus, are you really going to make the argument that Iraq was not belligerent towards the US? Hell, France today is belligerent towards the US.
Jeff is right, you have no interest in honest discourse. You just want to ‘win’. So fine, you win. Your prize is a return to the dark ages.
Defense Guy,
You want to discuss Rwanda or the Bush/Iraq war? I want to discuss the Iraq situation. Let me know when you’re ready.
Marianna wrote:
Marianna, while I love your statement, the simple fact is that George Bush will leave office on January 20, 2009. If staying the course does take longer than that, President Bush’s resolve will become meaningless.
Hell, France today is belligerent towards the US.
I believe that military action against France would be justified. It wouldn’t be wise, but it would be justified.
OK, please unburden yourself of some of your vast wisdom and tell us who would have been more competent and who will be, tristero.
Please don’t be surprise at the response.
Neither do you.
tristero, you don’t want to “dicuss” the Iraq situation, you just want to propagendize, lie, and moon this audiance(as in show your ass)