Yesterday’s WaPo lede story, “Al-Qaeda Arranges Most Suicide Blasts In Iraq, U.S. Says” (originally titled ““Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawiâ€Â), is, as the Corner’s Cliff May notes
a ludicrous attempt to create a scandal out of the U.S. military trying to drive some fairly obvious messages to the media – media that are routinely manipulated by the terrorists (who are almost never called terrorists of course, no matter what atrocities they commit).
I was particularly struck by the story’s claim that “internal military documents …state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners.â€Â
Ah, yes. There the Pentagon goes encouraging xenophobia. And how clever of them to deduce there was no way Iraqis, on their own, would have felt anything but affection for Zarqawi. If not for what the Post calls a “propaganda campaign,†Iraqis would view Zarqawi’s dispatching of suicide bombers to murder their friends and family as just one of those eccentricities you have to put up with in some friends.
Whenever I mention that the tenor of mainstream media coverage of this war is troublesome—and that it may indeed have a material impact on how successful the campaign ultimately is—I am met with scoffs from anti-war types who insist that their dissent has no effect on the situation on the ground in Iraq, and that in fact, their willingness to speak Truth to Power is part of the great tradition of this country, and one of the few things left that the Bushies haven’t beaten into the dirt with their fascist boot heels.
Of course, this is a strawman argument: my gripe is not against dissent, but rather against intentional and purposeful misrepresentations growing out of ideology.
And it is ironic, I think, that the anti-war crowd spends so much time noting how their “dissent” has no measurable impact on the waging of the war—even though it should be obvious that public opinion is driven largely by the media representation of the war and its prosecution—and then turns around and finds troubling a “propaganda” campaign they claim is being waged by the military.
Evidently, some words do have an impact, though I guess to many in the anti-war crowd, some propagandists are more equal than others.
As madison.com asks:
Is the US military allowed to have an information warfare strategy? Or is every effort we make to assist the Iraqis secure their country and win some hearts and minds to be exposed, ridiculed and countered by the media? I have stood on the tiny coral outcrop called Ie Shima where Ernie Pyle, the GIs best friend, died near the end of WWII. With him may have died the last time the press and the military felt like they were on the same team.
The press alternates between complaining the administration and the military aren’t doing enough for the Iraqis, and complaining about everything they are doing. I think it would be self-evident that publicizing the depravity of a foreign terrorist who is responsible for many of the deaths of their countrymen, might help spur resistance to the insurgency.
And yet it is met, instead, with furrowed brows and the thinly-veiled suggestion of impropriety—as if a campaign to discredit the enemy is somehow against the rules of wartime discourse (while a campaign to discredit our own Commander in Chief is a duty of every real and true patriot!).
This is suicidal nonsense, quite frankly, and it further illustrates my point about the subtle (and not so subtle ways) that the framing of the narrative of the war can have an appreciable impact on its outcome. For Americans who aren’t political junkies, the WaPo’s intimation that something unsavory is happening here is the “lesson” many casual readers will take away from this story. And when such messages accrue, they can (and do) effect the public’s will to support the campaign.
Because we know that we cannot be defeated militarily in Iraq, it is almost as if our famed love of the underdog has taken hold in some perverse way, one wherein we are now so upset by the imbalance of power between the US military and the terrorists that we look to give our enemies an advantage in order to make the fight more “fair.” Call it affirmative action for Jihadists.
Perhaps this has something to do with way our more “progressive” culture has moved away from competition (“we’re all winners!”), or perhaps its a symptom of some other cultural disease. But whatever it is, it is proving to be a stubborn roadblock in our efforts to defeat a vicious insurgency whose only chance against us is to win the propaganda war.
Which, let’s face it, that’s a lot easier to do when the US military is not permitted to engage in “propaganda,” while the terrorists’ propaganda is presented oftentimes uncritically as “news.”
Which is another way of saying that they want the US to lose in Iraq, which is essentially what it’ll be considered by the rest of the world if we just pull out like so many of them want. In other words, the Iraq war IS a repeat of the Vietnam war in that the same leftist suspects are acting the exact same way…again. Hoping for a US defeat, at least in some cases. And people that cheer for the other side and want their country to lose are lessee…what are they called again?
Democrats?
KEKEKEKEKE
actus posting a bs rationalization for why dissent is partiotic in 3….2…..1…
Lawyers?
It is to some extent how you frame the story. Article yesterday in the paper about Army Officers electing to “leave the service” at their first opportunity, headlined something like “one-third leaving”, when it could have easily been headlined, “Two-Thirds of Jr Officers Elect to Stay in Service”. If you wanted to paint a picture of discord and low morale, you would emphasize the percentage leaving. If you wanted to paint a picture of a winning military and high morale you would lead with the larger percentage opting to stay in.
Same shit happens with the MSM portraying reenlistment rates. Article today headlined, “Army meets goals, but recruitment lags ‘05”. The media goes out of its way to report “negatively” on any aspect of the GWOT and specifically the Bush Administration.
Jeff, I simply cannot grasp how this could be accurate. Almost nobody to the right of Michael Moore believes that the United states military cannot wage a war better than any other on Earth. The reason we are “losing†has nothing to do with the greatness of our military, which is very great indeed. Nor does it have anything to do with dissent in America.
The problem is, however, a political one— in Iraq. Greg Djerejian —who had been a strong supporter of the war in Iraq – has written quite extensively about this, i.e., that we cannot be defeated militarily, but we also cannot militarily prevail over the rancid and violent sectarian politics in Iraq. The brothers over at Iraq the Model have despairingly said the same thing, alternating as they have lately been doing between negative prognosis and some hope. It isn’t the NYT or WaPo driving their doomsaying, it is the fact that, you know, they live in Baghdad.
Even if we locked up all members of moveon.org after charging them with sedition, and all dissent in the U.S. withered away, the facts on the ground in Iraq and the ME would remain. And those political realities are what has made Iraq a failure, and are why we still have troops getting blow up and coming back in body bags or to get fitted for an arm prosthesis. It wasn’t supposed to be like this 3 years after, but it is, and there is no end in sight. That has nothing to do with anti-war protests stateside, and is the reason Americans are becoming very soured on Iraq.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this 3 years after,”
It wasn’t? When did they send out that memo? If history is any example, we have a ways to go. Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc., none of these places were good to go in three years after the major offensive was over.
It’s the ranting like that that causes the problems. Bush explicitly said that we may be there for a while. Hell, we STILL HAVE TROOPS IN THE OTHER THREE PLACES TODAY.
Wh said it “wasn’t supposed to be like this….”? I heard Bush say that it was going to be a “long, hard struggle”, although I did hear some pundits predict a “cakewalk” at the same time I heard some say that there would be 100,000+ casualties.
There are many people saying that there is “no end in sight”, does that make them seers? I think that staement is one of opinion (yours & others) not fact. If I had that negative attitude, that there was in fact no end in sight, that for an eternity, of for all time, that the situation would be the same or worse, I would call for the withdrawal of all US personnel from the ME and advocate turning the whole place into glass.
I have seen enormous progress in three years, where you have not. I have seen a tyrannical, despotic, 30 year dictatorship crumble and burn. From the ashes emerges a functioning, democratically elected, representative goveernment with a democratically approved Constitution. Complete with all of the internal political strife you would expect from a tri-party legislature.
The Iraqi’s are going to sort it out. They have to, their lives depend on it. Give ‘em credit for making progress and push them to make more. Don’t tell them that they have no hope.
The difference is that were there overwhelming domestic support rather than overwhelming domestic dissent, America would retain the political will to see this thing through to a successful end regardless of how bad things are on the ground presently.
By giving the American people the wrong idea about how the war is going (i.e. not as bad as the media makes it out to be, which is the whole point of Jeff’s post, and which I think he argues successfully), we lose the ability to prosecute the war in anything approaching an optimal fashion.
Mona, I disagree with you in two places.
First, where the media exposes psy-ops, thereby not merely undermining its effectiveness, but possibly causing a backlash, the media is actually damaging the conduct of the war and helping the enemy. I suppose if one believes that the military has no right to engage in psy-ops, that’s ok. I suppose. But would any rational person deny that this is a legitimate and important theatre in the war?
Second, to some degree this is a war of attrition. The goal of the insurgency is simply to continue existing. If we leave before the Iraqi government is ready to take over, they stand a better chance of winning. To the extent that dishonest criticisms of the war (which undoubtedly makes up at least some of the public criticism) weaken our staying power, it emboldens our enemy to keep hanging on and increases the chances that they will ultimately win.
Honest thoughtful criticism may damage the war effort in the short term, but it will strengthen it in the long. Dishonest, thoughtless criticism merely damages the war effort. It is not honorable; it is not patriotic.
Hows this BS: Dissent is patriotic because patriotism is for scoundrels.
That’ll do fine actus. Although you took longer than I would have liked..
No End In Sight. Oh please.
Within the next few years, the Iraqi Army and police will be up to speed enough to handle their own country without much, if any direct involvement of ours. Their national government will see ethnic squabbling, make lots of changes and be full of, uh, interesting personalities. An interesting state to live, to be sure – But that didn’t stop Italy or Belgium from managing to end up fairly decent working representative governments.
Cripes, look how long it took El Salvador and Guatemala to get their poop in a group.
When you want to see doom and gloom, you’ll find it.
For Mona:
Quoth Steyn.
Suicidal, yes. Nonsense, no. It is deadly serious and, if one accepts your argument, not merely unpatriotic but downright treasonous. Especially so if it is done with knowing intent to interfere with the war effort.
So what of it? What do those of us, who do not wish to be dragged along to the funeral? On a humorous level I’m reminded of the ‘Bring out your dead’ scene from Holy Grail. Only I’m tempted to be the one wielding the club and deciding who lives and who dies.
Its a sad world this dude live in.
At least it’s not delusional like yours sir actus.
Its a sad world actus lives in.
I spent part of the weekend in NYC. Anyone that thinks they’re in a surrendering mood is nuts. Spent yesterday at the immigration rally in DC. Again, anyone that thinks there is a surrender mood is nuts.
Except if you want to be part of the defeatist right.
Yep. Saddens me too that Steyn is right. Alas, you confirm it with each insipid comment you post, actus.
tim maguire writes:
I had and have no objections to the U.S. military engaging in planted news stories and psy-ops with the Arab media, especially in Iraq. But I don’t want American newspapers fed propaganda that would influence public atittudes toward the war based on false data.
Major John
What Iraqi army and police, and on what do you base this prediction? They are as rife with sectarian violence and tribal commitments as the rest of the country. People are looking to their own tribal militias to, in some instances, protect them from the Iraqi police.
Conservatives are supposed to eschew social engineeering. We generally all agree that it is bad policy to think our govt can bring about proper and desirable social outcomes just by the govt passing the right laws and telling us what to do.
So why would conservatives think that a country whose population is viciously divided along tribal and partisan lines—who settle their feuds with murder and have little history of Western-style, peaceful dispute resolution —are going to be turned into models of democratic rule of law by a U.S. military presence? Our military can do great things, but it cannot make the various factions in Iraq into a nation of Thomas Jeffersons and James Madisons.
It was about a month ago or so that Mohammed over it ItM reported a morose exchange with his father, after a day of intense and dangerous bombing in Baghdad. His father has concluded that the relgious nutjobs led by clerics will not allow peceful and democratic change, that they are too steeped in their tribal and religious fanaticisms, and these doom the democratic project in Iraq. That was Mohammed’s dad assessing that the population lacks the critical mass to engage in successful, peaceful democracy.
Our military cannot change that. It isn’t and shouldn’t be part of their job description to generate social change that govt can rarely effect.(We did pull it off w/Japan, but they understood the concept of surrender and actually did so, and were a homogenous people defeated as a whole, submissive in defeat.)
Mona,
Out of curiosity, how long do you think it took us to pacify Japan and begin its conversion to a democratic nation?
And how many WMD’s?
And since everyone knows that Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket, the latest casualty stats report from the Brookings Institute is obviously a Rovian plot and propaganda campaign. http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index20060330.pdf
The data sure looks like US combat fatalities, Iraqi civilian fatalities, and Iraqi Army/police fatalities appear to be on a downward trend for the last 6 months.
But how can that be, when our noble MSM says ‘quagmire’, ‘chaos’, and ‘civil war’.
Of course, some on the port side of the aisle will say it means nothing–errors in the data, irregularities, irrelevant from the narrative–though if the trend was upward, it would be absolutely conclusive evidence.
Oh well–back to work.
Doesn’t ‘civil war’ mean they’re not fighting us, but each other?
Tman writes: Out of curiosity, how long do you think it took us to pacify Japan and begin its conversion to a democratic nation?
Recalling from my limited historical reading in this area, I believe we imposed a constitution on them in 1946, one they still use. If my memory serves, as a formally occupying force, we remained for, 7 years?
But it was a surrender scenario. They were defeated. They were pliable. They were largely homogenous and their society did not devolve into insane sectarian and tribal warfare after they lost to us. The military cannot force sects who despise each other to stop doing so, to put down the guns and swords, and behave like our Founders at the Philadelphia convention. It was predicted this would be so, and by most accounts I am familiar with, Bush and Rumsfeld blew these warnings all off as over-stated and not important.
Do you have any problem with them feeding data that is true?
I don’t think anyone I know has advocated that the military feed American newspapers false data, just that they be free to push the good things that happen to be true.
Were Kamakazis wmd?
Or incendiary raids?
more like 9, but close enough. And the full draw down of troops didn’t really occur until the late 50’s.
So then by all accounts we should expect things to take longer in Iraq, right?
Again, when did you get this memo? Because I don’t remember anything like this. I remember bush and Rumsfeld both stating that this would be a long protracted war which may even outlast the term of this administration. Maybe I got a different memo.
Actus,
Well, if Iraqi army and civilian casualties are down, then apparently they are killing each other less too…
Did it ever enter your mind that you may be selling the Iraqi’s short? Did you ever consider, even a little, the progress that has been made the last three years? When you look at the situation in Iraq, you obviously see “no end in sight”, as if the situation today is the same or worse than it was three years ago.
With that kind of negative outlook you must be living in actus’ world.
Pete writes:
This isn’t the liberal MSM – it is a selection of recent comments from over at Iraq the Model (and there are more deeply gloomy ones than these to be found there). Now, to be sure, they frequently also say they still have hope. But their blog is full of analysis of the political situation – which our military cannot change— like this:
I don’t hold the Bush Admin responsible for the “cakewalk” talk. As I recall, that was the voice of a few folks at The Weekly Standard, but it was not a promise Bush made.
But he did say the war in Iraq would be relatively quick and not terribly costly in blood and treasure. His statements about the war going on for a very long time pertained to the GWOT in general; not to Iraq.
Lets cut ti the chase Mona, Actus et al.
Piss off
Yes, Actus, that’s what ‘civil war’ means, but as you know perfectly well, civil war in Iraq is fantastically bad for the United States. Still, I have to compliment you for the way you slyly slide in such disingenuous one liners and snide comments time after time.
Every little time one of them goes by without response, you get to claim a little disingenuous victory. And every time (such as now) that one DOES get responded to, you gain a different sort of disingenuous victory by having forced PW’s regular readers to get worked up & respond.
Congrats sir, you are a troll amongst trolls.
Whoa, Mona, slow down. That we are not losing militarily because we have the strongestâ€â€the greatestâ€â€military in the world is, nearly, a tautology. So where are we losing then, if not militarily? Oh, that’s right, we are ‘losing’ politically. And why are we losing politically? Well, because our enemy’s weapons are political weapons, such as the targeted assassinations and ‘rancid and violent’ sectarian politics.
By definition, terrorism is neither just war nor just crime. Terrorist groups do not respect the laws of nation or international convention. They have no political power, but like any pretender to sovereignty, they use force for political goals (and not mercantilist goals of any ordinary syndicate). Typically they have two wings, an action arm and a political wing. The action arm aspires to dominate the monopoly of violence. The political arm aspires to the monopoly of law.
What the insurgency does in Iraq is to attempt to overturn the Coalition’s and the Iraqi government’s monopoly of violence through violence. This type of warfare has a sequence, it has a form, and if it is not done properly, it does not work. If it did work, pitch forks would have supplanted hoplons and falcatas and hippopoxatai and cataphractii, to say nothing of M1A2s and nuclear super-carriers. And so the question is whether violence of this type, the al Qaeda and Baathist variety, can repeal US and Iraqi authority?
And the answer is an empathic no. A national revolution requires a national front. By butchering innocents and broadcasting that slaughter, the jihadis and the Baathist reactionaries have destroyed their chance to create a national unified front. By attempting to weaken the US resolve through daily violence, the jihadis weaken their own political union.
It requires a patron outside of their borders. They have a tentative one in Iran and Syria, and Saudi Arabia besides, but none of those countries are strong enough by themselves to openly supply material to the insurgency. If Iran goes nuclear, they will be trouble unlike anything we can imagine, but for now, they are weak. And our recent al Anbar campaign has cut the ratlines feeding the insurgency. Even ghost regiments require food and bullets and bombs. We can still starve them. We have. We will.
The simple fact is that no violence against the US can dislodge us. And violence is the raw stuff of governance. The Iraqi military gets better with over 400,000 troops trained.This number increases, not decreases, as do the experience of Iraq’s fighting forces (and our own), as do our intelligence assets, as do the area under direct control of the Coalition (no more Samarras, no more Fallajahs). And if violence cannot do it, then politics must suffice, but to turn to politics is to deal and compromise.
Right now the Iraqis believe that dealing and compromising take place with assassins’ Semtex. But those numbers decrease even as the power of the central government, by all measures, increases. We might be losing, but this is war; when you put your shoulder in your shield and heave against the enemy phalanx, it doesn’t matter who is the strongest.
It only matters who holds the line.
Well said.
“Our military can do great things, but it cannot make the various factions in Iraq into a nation of Thomas Jeffersons and James Madisons.”
Or Abraham Lincolns and Jefferson Davis’?
I’m glad you liked it. It was effort wasted otherwise, I’m sure.
I think Actus is right in that its not suicidal in any recognizable sense. More likely its, ironically, actual western arrogance in its purest form, combining the soft bigotry of low expectations regarding the average Iraqi (and the above average for that matter, such as Sistani – as if Jefferson were superhuman!) with blind faith in the invulnerability of the USS Amerikkka, which can easily shrug off a little subversion here and there for short-term political gain.
Not so – I am sure actus will grace that with a sentence or two of irrelevant crap. Then Mona will make a whacky statement or two, and a prediction of doom.
So you will see results Verc.
Dr. Pepper all over the keyboard on that one, Major John.
Mona:
Hmmm.
George Bush, AEI speech, Feb 26, 2003:
George Bush, Ultimatum speech, March 18, 2003:
George Bush, Mission Accomplished speech, May 1, 2003:
George Bush, U.N. speech, Sept 23, 2003:
George Bush, National Endowment for Democracy speech, Nov 6, 2003:
I’m not seeing any references to Iraq being fast, cheap, or easy.
Could you perhaps support your contention that he misled you (and the rest of the world) by citing some specific instances where Bush claimed that we’d be out of Iraq quickly and that there wouldn’t be any real costs or sacrifice involved?
Thanks.
Bingo. I keep waiting for Mona to slip up and say out loud that the Iraqi’s are sub-humans incapable of self-government. She has danced all around it, but of course doesn’t have the integrity to just come out and say it.
What’s this about a nation of Thomas Jeffersons and James Madisons? For heaven’s sake, the United States is not (and never was) a nation of Thomas Jeffersons and James Madisons.
Was it Jeff – I think it was – who destroyed George Will’s recent “critique” of our policy in Iraq on the same terms? G. Will confused the existence of the particular Founders we had with the necessity of such founders. Representative government can arise without a tiny cadre of charismatic men and women (I count Abigail in that number, if not directly then behind the scenes), particularly when it’s aided by several things:
1. knowledge that it’s possible, and possible in many different forms;
2. nearly instantaneous communications (which can also be played negatively, but I’m looking at it as a means to keep atrocities from happening without testament);
and 3. a strong “older brother” hegemon-like presence committed to midwifing it along, to mix my metaphors shamelessly.
The effort can fail. It’s terribly difficult and terribly dicey, and it depends on factors we can’t control. But its success is in our interests, and at present and until such time as the Iraqis kick us out and go at one another hammer and tongs, the jury is decidedly out on its success or failure. So it astounds me that those who just want to throw up their hands in despair and leave, either in orderly fashion or at a dead run, don’t understand why I believe that on some level, conscious or un-, they want the United States to fail.
I think we killed the trolls by suffocation with multi-syllabic words!
High fives all around! Where’s the pie, Jeff? No justice, no piece of pie!
I guess this is a bad time to point out that attacks and casualities have been declining, both for us and the Iraqis, according to the left leaning Brookings Institute. If you’ve noticed leftist hyperventilating reaching new heights this might be why. Perhaps the smarter among them know time is running short for declaring Iraq a failure. Why, if we don’t pull out now and accept defeat, the evidence that we’re actually winning might become too hard for the media to ignore, despite their best efforts. And then there are those pesky Iraq documents…
TW: I’m bad, chumon, you know it!
Oh, never mind those pesky Iraqi documents. They are just a fake, or something. Sectarian violence, civil war–that’s what we are really interested in. By God–we’re going to have a civil war!
Sincerely,
The American Left
What I don’t understand is why Mona (and her ilk) will not even remotely acknowledge the progress that has been made in three short years.
Maybe the don’t because if they did acknowledge the “light years” seperating pre invasion Iraq and today, they would have to look somewhat differently at the future three years.
Then you should also be lecturing Omar and Mohammed’s father, whom they report believes the Iraqi culture will not grow or sustain peaceful democracy due to deranged clerics and those who follow them. That isn’t just my view, it is that elderly Baghdad resident’s view as well.
The fact is, not all cultures are ready or able to have what he have here in the U.S. This was demonstrated when the USSR fell apart. Many of the former Soviet bloc states are run by petty mafias, and do not enjoy a meaningful rule of law; it is alien to their culture.You cannot just transplant what we inherited from the British at the Founding—much of the law and attitude toward legitimate authority we were acculturated to and retained— in any place we like. Social engineering doesn’t usually work domestically, or as a nation-building project, unless the soil is just right and fertile.
Awesome.
A couple of quick points before I ro-sham-bo myself as I await the troll wisdom:
That there is a department of the military that specializes in military psychology, or psy-ops, puts to rest definitively the notion that propaganda A) does not exist and B) does not work. The psychology of the nation and of an army is critically important. It’s also exasperatingly basic. Xenophon the Athenian said it well, 2500 years ago: “He who marches with the Gods’ gift of greater morale will win.â€Â
If it can affect morale, it is important. Whether or not it should be sanctioned, that is a different story. Again with Xenophon, in his Anabasis, the ‘March upcountry’, a Greek army of ten thousand men marched from Cunaxa, south of Babylon, through Turkey and back to the Greek Ionic cities. The whole time they were hounded by enemies, a fighting retreat as it were, and their commanders had been seized and murdered by the Persians. But they stayed true to themselves as Greeks and democrats. Xenophon debated and argued with his other commanders, and they even conspired against one another.
But when it came to sedition, there was never any quarter. Today, there is no sedition, not because it is not practiced, but we do not recognize it. A Hollywood debutante splays over a gun mount aimed at American flyers. No sedition. An ex-president co-opts the elected executive branch’s sole authority to negotiate with foreign powers, and thereby guarantees nuclear proliferation. Not sedition. A stupid kid joins a millenarian cult which crashes aircraft into American buildings. Not sedition. Islamic charities support terrorists who kill Americans and conspire to kill more. Not sedition. The press digs through classified information and releases, and often misrepresents even then, secret programs. Not sedition.
Is there no end to this? As Scipio Africanus, before his mutiners at Sucro,
Thus endeth my sermon.
This is what John Hinderaker is saying now:
This is what he and other war supporters were saying before, and I listened to them:
Don’t forget the long quote from some nobody whom she’s accepted as an unimpeachable authority, explaining how all the guys she accepted as unimpeachable authorities last time around are imcompetents. Because of their failure to do the right things to win this war that can’t be won no matter what we do.
I haven’t been lecturing anybody Mona, if you would stop to catch your breath and listen occasionally you might pick up on things like that. It’s called a conversation and can be quite enlightening. I am sorry to hear of the old-timer’s pessimism, but years of oppression and hopelessness may be clouding his outlook a bit, don’t you think?
Not being ready and not being able are two completely different things. My wife is not ready to bear a child, I am not able.
So your ignorance of Russian history matches your ignorance of the military.
And unfounded arrogance and bigotry to boot….hmmmm,
You’re not really Bill O’Reilly or Pat Buchanon just having us on, are you?
Distinctions:
Adults make them, mona can not.
BTW, I’m still waiting for any evidence of your claim that PRESIDENT BUSH said:
”the war in Iraq would be relatively quick and not terribly costly in blood and treasure”.
Unless that is Tony Snow=George W. Bush
Oh, and those people pointing out the fact that “the war” (as in major combat) was quick in no way supports or is even relevant to your point.
Further, the idea that any liberal was right in any prediction offered before the boots touched the ground is laughable.
Oh those silly residents of India…
Don’t worry mona I love the qualifiers there.
What about the 80% plus of Iraquis who see a better future? Are we to discount the optimism of those that are in the midst of the worse that is happening?
How can you have such hatred for all those brown people? How can you tell them that they cannot handle democracy?
You are a bigot, Mona, full of hubris.
What gets me is that the single greatest oppressor of women—per capita and in sum—gets a pass by the Left. Western political correctness allows the widespread Arabic ruin of females.
Talk about your dysfunctional ideologies…
Mona:
If your 06:39 PM post was in response to my request, it’s pretty lame.
Your claim was that Bush misled you with visions of a short, cheap, easy war:
I provided several examples of Bush’s statements to the contrary, and asked you to cite something in support of your contention that you were misled. All you’ve offered up is some war-related blurbs from a variety of opinion columnists.
Either you honestly can’t tell the difference between statements from the President and opinions from conservative pundits/bloggers, or you’re dishonestly conflating them to disingenuously try to make your point.
Wait a minute, the Left is all ABOUT bashing white men.
Er…
Wait…
Are you implying that white racist dudes aren’t the largest abusers of womyn?!
SEXISTRACISTUTERUSGRABBINGPENISWIELDINGOPPRESSORIMPERIALIST!
Then you should also be lecturing Omar and Mohammed’s father, whom they report believes the Iraqi culture will not grow or sustain peaceful democracy due to deranged clerics and those who follow them. That isn’t just my view, it is that elderly Baghdad resident’s view as well.
Geez, Mona, once again you repeat your fallacy of yesterday, known as appeal to authority. Because one old Sunni man believes something does not mean that it’s true, just as one man’s opinons on military strategy are not necessarily correct, even if the man happened to be a general in the U.S. Army.
Yes, it’s true the Iraqi people are not used to this democracy business, but neither were the Afghanis–or the Japanese, for that matter, “pliable,” I think you called them. (Pithy. Maybe we should make the Baathist terrorists more pliable too, eh? Radiation shower over Tikrit or something like that, no?)
The fact is that no one knows how well democracy will work, or if it will ultimately lead to positive change in the Middle East. But it’s the only goddamn show in town. The only proactive attempt to end Islamofascism that anyone in the world has ever made, or even suggested.
What would YOU do, Ms. Armchair President Reactionary? Sit on your butt and talk about root causes? Go ask the UN to be nice to Cher Saddam? Lift the sanctions or continue spending $80 billion a year to police the no-fly zones whilst irritating the Saudis with our infidel presence?
Sorry to inform you, honey, but we’re there, the project is working and it will be successful, no matter how much doomsaying salt the likes of you and the Washington Post choose to sow.
============
Still…just answer this one question: Honestly, if you could press Button A and make the whole thing a smashing success, or press Button B and make the whole thing a complete, abject failure…which would you choose?
You know your answer is Button B, and all the rest of us know it too. So why don’t you drop the pose and admit you hate the United States, the military and George W. Bush?
Come on, you can do it, Mona!
rls writes this:
and immediately below 6Gun writes:
But adherents of this oppressive and dysfunctional ideology are primed and ready to deliver democracy in all Muslim countries, and only a bigot who hates brown-skinned people would posit otherwise. So…let’s have all those brown-skinned Wahhabis and other jihadists into our Western nations with no immigration restrictions; just as the Netherlands has done, or Denmark. That has worked so well for them, and any intimation that many Muslims cannot conform to liberal democracy is racist, and an example of hubris and bigotry.
Well, I already know I’m a racist. Lefties have been telling me that for years because of my views on affirmative action and multi-culturalism. When people on the right say it, too, it must be true.
So I admit it—Mona is a full-blown, Klan-lovin’ racist. Her grandchildren are 50% hispanic, but she manages not to flinch when they walk into the room. But oh, it is an effort.
FA writes:
First, arguments from authority simply are not always invalid; that is why our court system allows expert witness testimony. It can be entirely proper to defer to experts. We accept arguments from authority when we visit an oncologist regarding the growing lump in our breasts instead of asking around to our friends.
Second, that “one man’s opinion” was posted on a blog by his hopeful sons, who fret he may be right, as hopeful as they have been. In any event, if I am a racist, then that old man is a self-hating Muslim racist, a racist like me.
Third, I ended up giving FOUR generals’ views, not just one, and in event, those views constitute evidence. I was told I had none, but I do—evidence of four expert opinions.
Mona? Mona? You there?
FA write:
Excuse me, but go fuck yourself. I voted for Geroge Bush in ‘04, and believed all the rosy prognostications because I wanted to. I left my usual posting haunts because my pro-war, pro-Bush views were not all that popular, primarily Hit ‘n Run at Reason, where most there found my pro-war views wrong-headed.
Watching the unfolding debacle in Iraq has sickened me, and forced me to admit I was wrong, that I voted for an incompetent who has been wasting lives and treasure. You have no idea how hard that admission was.
I’d give anything to push Button A, asshole. Go. Fuck. Yourself.
FA write:
Excuse me, but go fuck yourself. I voted for Geroge Bush in ‘04, and believed all the rosy prognostications because I wanted to. I left my usual posting haunts because my pro-war, pro-Bush views were not all that popular, primarily Hit ‘n Run at Reason, where most there found my pro-war views wrong-headed.
Watching the unfolding debacle in Iraq has sickened me, and forced me to admit I was wrong, that I voted for an incompetent who has been wasting lives and treasure. You have no idea how hard that admission was.
I’d give anything to push Button A, asshole. Go. Fuck. Yourself.
sorry about the double post.
No, but their victims seem likely to be, wouldn’t you think?
What the fuck are you talking about? Try breathing deeply into a paper bag, sometimes that helps.
Whoa now, suddenly no Muslims has morphed into many Muslims. Do you think that over time we could move on to some Muslims and then maybe a few, on to an insignificant number? I mean we got from none to many pretty quick, dontcha think?
And finally, do you understand the difference between bigotry and racism, or have we uncovered another area of ignorance here?
We have two different wars we are discussing here. Mona’s quotes, like many of the quotes promising a quick and easy war, are referring to the declared war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. That war was indeed relatively quick and easy, especially from a historical perspective.
The second war, the longer ‘war’ against global state-sponsored Islamist terrorism will not be quick or short, but no one said it would be. We have been fighting that war for decades, and it will not go away if we just give up Iraq and go home. At the moment, we have the new government of Iraq as an ally, and if we demonstrate a will to preservere, we may gain other necessary allies in the area. Everybody likes a winner, and in the past the US has a tendancy to give up and go home when the going gets tough, something that makes potential allies skeptical.
We forget that the modern democratic and peaceful nation of Germany is itself an artificial creation made of some of the most bloody battlefields of Europe. It was never one culture until it was made a single culture, and it didn’t have a successful peaceful government until we forced one on it.
“Watching the unfolding debacle in Iraq has sickened me”
I honestly don’t get this. Are you just sickened by the general depravity of humanity? That I might get. I can’t see where the efforts we’ve made to address the problem of Islamic fascism could be sickening. Frustratiing maybe, that kinda goes with war. But sickening?
There’s very bad people doing almost unspeakable things in an attempt to thwart efforts to give the Middle East a chance to escape from Medievalist hell. And you’re saying you’re sickened by the efforts?
We’re you sickened by the Freedom Riders? All that agitation sure produced some nasty violence. Shoulda minded their own business, I guess.
War’s not over dude.
I’d give anything to push Button A, asshole. Go. Fuck. Yourself.
Gasp! Swoon! How putrid! Jeff, fetch the smelling salts, will you?
Cool, is there anything left in that bong?
I have to leave this for a time. See Jeff, this is what I mean, people spewing shit like this about anyone who disagrees with Bush on foreign policy:
And then the accusations of “bigotry.” I have never taken that well from the multi-culti left, and I’m not sitting still for it when invoked by Bush sycophants.
But most repulsive, is the accusation that opposing Bush’s Iraq policy means I hate my country and our superb and brave military— that is putrid beyond description. I LOVE the United States, and would die for the ideals of this nation. If there is a person more given to weepy sentimentality over patriotic anthems and American superiority than me, I’d like to meet him or her, you fucking asshole who wrote that.
I might have to draft a post at that “other blog” about how much I hate my country, by the lights of some here. Call me a liar, say I’m stupid, question my claimed credentials …but say I hate my country and its military, and that’s war, jerk.
The US declared that the ceasefire in effect with Saddam Hussein’s government after the first Persian Gulf War was no longer in effect, and therefore the US was at war with Iraq. The US quickly defeated the Iraqi army, occupied the country, and began the process of creating a new democratic government. Saddam Hussein now is on trial by a soverign elected Iraqi government. Iraq now is a US ally. The Iraqi army fights alongside the US military and its coalition partners. The US is not at war with Iraq any more. Therefore, that war is over.
The ‘war’ with (state-sponsored Islamist) terrorism, for which Iraq is now the largest battleground, is not over. That war is not declared, as our enemy is a nebulous array of non-governmental groups, some of which serve as proxies for hostile states that do not wish a direct war. That war has been going on for more than 20 years, and will not be quick or cheap. That’s the war our troops are fighting and dying for in Iraq right now.
Mona. I think the confusion arises from the fact that the facts you use to support your position are false.
Since you could choose true ones but do not, there could be some ambiguity about motivation.
I read a book several years ago which had your name right in the preface. It’s “War: Ends and Means”, by Seabury and Codevilla.
Yup. Dedicated to Mona. And all the other students of these two guys with whom they could not discuss any issues pertaining in any way to war because The Kids knew jack squat except for what they knew that was wrong.
The Iraq war took about three weeks. We are currently fighting a goodly part of the GWOT in….Iraq. Two separate wars.
Just hte other day dubya said that current iraq instability is due to saddam. Looks like he’s still fighting that war.
Riiight. It’s completely different than the one we started in March of 03.
…and you’re a tool YET AGAIN
public opinion and dissent have NO MEASURABLE effect upon the way a war is waged. yes, you are correct – the way the war is presented may effect our perception of the war, but that is not a two way street, you moron.
I called you a bigot, Mona and I stand behind those remarks. I never called you a racist – I know the difference between the two. You may very well love your country – you say you do. However, I think that your dislike (hatred?) for this administration colors your logic.
You have still not answered what I call a very reasonable question: Can you look at Iraq today and tell me that there has not been any progress in that country in the last three years? Is it worse/about the same/better for the Iraqi’s and the ME than it was three years ago.
Simple question.
And you know this…how?
So GWB states that the people here at home have no stomach for a continued US presence in Iraq. Therefore he says that since we can’t leave it as is, that he is ordering the bombing of ALL suspected insurgent areas. That approximately one million will perish but it is likely that we will kill approximately 90% of the insurgency.
You don’t think that the “public opinion” will allow that, do you?
You might also take a little brush up on your history of the VietNam war and how public opinion affected the prosecution of that war, particularly the bombing in the north.
Exact quote and source, please.
When put in context, what the president has said will probably turn out to be analogous to someone saying that the Treaty of Versailles was responsible for World War II. It doesn’t mean that we were still fighting the First World War at D-Day.
We didn’t start a war in March 2003. We renewed hostilities that Saddam started in 1990. As for the war on terrorism, it has been going on in one form or another since at least the Iranian hostage crisis. One could credibly claim the founding of Israel, the Barbary Pirates, and even the Crusades as battles in that war. It’s not completely different, as the two are related, but it’s like the difference between the Cold War and Vietnam. A soldier who fought in Vietnam was in the Cold War, while someone who fought in the Cold War didn’t necessarily fight in Vietnam.
You mind telling us who in Saddam’s army we’re fighting moron?
Thanks.
That’s blood and treasure. Let’s keep focus, people.
I don’t understand, prozacula, why you can’t make your point without the extraneous name calling. “Tool,” “moron”… I mean, why?
Why be such a fucking cunt?
Next time, you’re gone. In the meantime, think about how ridiculous your response sounds. Our perception of the war affects our willingness to wage it and continue it until it is done. Therefore, our perception effects reality, including morale of those fighting it. Tacking “tool” and “moron” onto your refusals to recognize the obviousnes of this observation doesn’t make it any less obvious or correct.
It just makes you sound like a jerk.
Well, that depends if it affects morale I suppose…
public opinion didn’t have any affect on vietnam. it was the unwinnable, intractable land war in asia that kicked our asses, dumbass. you can’t win an insurgency in someone else’s country – from Titus to vietnam, it’s proven impossible over and over again.
but you can bang your little chests and act all huffy and puffy for all I care. you’re all a bunch of pussies with no real convictions. Racist, bigotted, animalistic, jingoistic hateful little pussies. if you are so gungho about this war and the grand implications for us, then go fight it yourselves you wankers.
excuses for not fighting starting in 3,2,1…
Mona. Right. Completely different.
For three weeks, we fought with the more or less organized Iraqi forces.
That ended.
We are now in the process of promoting democracy, building a presence in the region for further action if necessary–probably–and, if the democracy is succesful, destabilizing surrounding tyrannies whose people would prefer not to be tyrannized. We are killing foreign fighters who would be pestering us elsewhere otherwise and building intel as to their supporters and logistics. We are killing or recapturing the 100,000 criminals SH let out just before the invasion. So are the locals. Good on them. We are picking out, by finding them fighting against us, the remaining bad guys.
The fighting in Iraq is actually aimed at the minds of other nations, their leaders and their people.
For example, the Cedar Revolution went forward because Hussein knew Bush had foreclosed the Homs option. It was pretty clear, since he’d already foreclosed the Saddaam option. So said, in a different way, the previously anti-American Walid Jumblatt of Lebanon.
And, as Brookings has pointed out, the casualty rates among all but the bad guys are trending down. The best thing you guys have had in a couple of weeks is a vehicle accident.
Well, cheer up. Things could still go wrong.
BTW. The Button question was frequently asked during the Viet Nam war. Nobody believed the anti-war folks would have chosen button A. Nobody.
If, to paraphrase Buckley, we woke one morning to find peace flowing like a river in Southeast Asia BECAUSE WE WON, would that make the anti-war folks happy? The question answered itself.
New question: Why is this war different from that war?
It didn’t?
Why, were you there?
Um, there are a lot of leftists who disagree with you (likely in your parents generation).
it was the unwinnable, intractable land war in asia that kicked our asses
Huh?
Um, you may want to go read about what actually happened as in: the North Vietnamese were getting decimated militarily.
but you can bang your little chests and act all huffy and puffy for all I care. you’re all a bunch of pussies with no real convictions. Racist, bigotted, animalistic, jingoistic hateful little pussies. if you are so gungho about this war and the grand implications for us, then go fight it yourselves you wankers.
You’re way too dumb to see the irony in your silly posting.
However, given that you leftists never hesitate to remind us that you “supported the invasion of Afghanistan” why didn’t you simpleton’s sign up for that?
You “supported” it, right?
goldstein – your premise is wrong.
your little idea about public perception and war loss comes straight from mcnamara, nixon and kissinger. it’s not real science, it’s just your opinion.
maybe people can just see that this whole thing was a terrible mistake that wasn’t worth the cost?
if you can’t take tool or moron, I apologize. your frothing at the mouth really gets my blood pumping. plus I like to see you all squeal at the perceived sleight to your ‘manhood’ and ‘intelligence’.
Prozulac:
What Viet Nam proved was that you can’t win a war when democrats control congress.
Even Giap admitted we kicked their ass, but he also knew his hole card was people like you.
He was right.
Hilarious.
You’re too stupid to see why this is funny.
That’s a wrap boys, go on home… authority has spoken. What an idiot.
Now that is stupid. Hell, even the Viet’s agree that they couldn’t win militarily. Guess I better tell them they were wrong.
Wow! Better put down your keyboard and run upstairs and ask your mommy to wash your mouth out with soap. You got a potty mouth!
Well, I did try to go fight it, but the Corps said that I was too old. Actually they said it real nice. They said that since I had fought in VietNam and served my six year obligation that I could be excused (yes, they used “excused”) and that it was another generation’s turn. But don’t let that stop you from the “chickenhawk” meme.
Oh..you know, you could strap on an explosive vest and prove your bona fides to your side. Just a thought. Might make the world a better place.
Yes, prozacula. My post is certainly “frothing.” Unlike your comments.
You’re an ignoramous—and unlike you, I have a basis for such a charge: your comments here.
Also, there are several commenters in this thread who are either active or ex-military. So—yet again—I have to point out the disingenousness of bringing up the chickenhawk ad hominem.
Some of us are happy with the way the founders called for civilian control of the military. Ironically, some on the left seem to want a country where only the military can determine and direct foreign policy.
Which is odd, because I suspect the military budget would grow, and funding for the arts, etc., might take a hit—which is generally not what leftists argue for.
You will recall the release of the movie “Starship Troopers”, the worst movie ever made from a good book.
One of the author’s premises, less emphasized in the movie than in the book, is the reason that, in that society, the franchise is restricted to honorably discharged veterans. Heinlein made a good case. Also restricted were politics and the public service jobs which required some kind of sacrifice–such as cops.
The lefties howled that it was fascist. Didn’t help that Doogie Howser’s uniform cap was pushed up in front like the Wehrmacht’s saucer caps were.
Suddenly, only veterans, or serving military, or guys actually in combat or people crippled by combat or something are allowed any legitimacy in their opinions.
Whatever’s handy, for the left.
Only as long as they are the RIGHT opinions of course.
We have one Gold Star mother drag her son, who re-enlisted with his unit like other volunteer heroes, through the mud who gets endless coverage.
The majority of families scarred by war? Unless they oppose it, they have to hunt, beg and plead for a place to scribble a humble epistle.
Only the RIGHT opinions of the right veterans get any credence. Just like Mona only accepts the expertise of her authorities that agree with her.
Ok
Is that good?
I’d say history will judge those two as the same war.
You have some fascinating theories.
Ah, Actus, that would be the one that when he isn’t changing the subject with a non sequitur, he’s calling his opponents racist.
That is perhaps the stupidest thing I have ever read. Although this comes close:
Maybe history will judge you two as the same person. Do they just not teach vocabulary anymore?
And then there is Mona:
Yet you conveniently ignore the points people made in between the shit plumes. Why only focus on that you detest?
Thanks boys146af657cfb9c074a6a1bd71a86c12fc