So. It seems that not everyone was happy with my post yesterday about knowing the enemy, which used new revelations about the murder of Iraqi journalist Atwar Bahjat to highlight the barbarism of those we are fighting against (who have used the same ritualistic methods of murder in the past, videotaped those exercises in inhumanity, and released them to the press or hosted them on Islamic web sites).
Let’s take a look at one such example of rhetorical displeasure with my post, shall we?
After beginning with the conventional textual clues that he is about to engage a blood-drenched wingnut in argument (“Jeff is a tool. Oh great God almighty is he ever.”), “Axle Steele” begins the counter, laying the blame for Ms Bahjat’s death precisely where he says it belongs—at “our” feet. Meaning, of course, the feet of people like me (and the Bush imperial stormtroopers), not people like him, his anti-war stance conveniently bracketing him off from culpability for any violence anywhere in the world, presumably:
All the evidence points to this being the work of the Shia death squads, these are almost entirely our creation, we funded them, we trained them, and we allow(ed) them to do their stuff more or less openly in Iraq. Further more, even if you don’t believe it was the death squads (it was), this certainly wouldn’t of [sic] happened had we not started the war.
[my emphasis]
Wow. Way to go out on a limb there, “Axle.” You mean the state-funded and controlled media of the Hussein regime would have toed the Ba’athist line, and so wouldn’t have put themselves in peril (unless, that is, they looked at Uday wrong)?
Or do you mean without our having “started the war,” the kites would still be flying, and the little smiling Iraqi chidren would still be running barefoot through sunny streets, kicking soccer balls and laughing the laughs of those who aren’t Kurds or Marsh Arabs or dissidents fed to pigs, dropped from rooftops, or fed into industrial plastic shredders?
Oh well. No need to specify when you can simply repeat the assertions in stanza form, providing that very showy structural emphasis of your outrage:
We did this.
Our money did this.
Our side did this.You cannot, CANNOT use the atrocities our Iraqi allies commit, to be a justification for why we have to continue to back those same allies in the war. That is a literally insane postion.
Well, I’ll just pause here to note that I’m not as sure as “Axle” is that it is a fact that our “allies” killed and videotaped the death of this reporter, and so I’ll leave the insanity of my position open to future discussion.
What we do know, as Greyhawk reminds us in his original post, is that Bahjat was half-Shia, half-Sunni, and that she was “opposed the violence destroying her country.” Greyhawk then points us to a London Times story that notes we may never know who her killers were. Writes Greyhawk (who is not as ertain about who the perpetrators were as is “Axle,” who essentially puts the blade and drill in the hands of George Bush and Richard Perle:
The video was given to the Times by a “source linked to the Sunni insurgency” but that source claimed it had been found on the body of a Shi’ite Badr Brigade member killed during fighting in Baghdad. While Bahjat had received death threats from Sunnis, the Times says the Shiite Badr Brigade acted as protection for her family during the funeral. If so, they might have been the targets of the attack near the home of the head of the Association of Muslim Scholars – that group maintains “close ties” with the “Sunni resistance”.
Axle then does me the honor of quoting this bit from my earlier post:
and frankly, whether they were Sunni insurgents or some other group seems almost beside the point.
—before laying on the fraught, angry, heart-heavy irony:
Yea why would that matter at all.
He then quotes me again:
True, there is a fine line between war porn and the dissemination of information
—before concluding, in that O Henry way these sophomoric posts generally do:
I agree why shouldn’t we be able to see it, we’re the ones who made it happen.
Bonus fucktaration in comments
[my emphasis]
Rather than commenting seriously on this extreme example of cultural guilt (granted, its laid at the feet of neocon Americans, but it’s the thought that counts, right?), I’ll just let this one stand on its own, a testament to just how much some people loathe their own countrymen and think that those who don’t share their strategic vision are, in fact, nothing but butchers-by-proxy.
In fact, Axle’s argument climbs into a time machine and lands heavily into that old sixties-era leftist trope field, where it plucks out the argument that wherever US money goes, the US is necessarily responsible for every bad action that can tangentially be tied to that money (which, how come the same never seems to apply to the good that comes of US money, I wonder—and why are people like “Axle” always complaining that we don’t send enough money abroad to help the world?). And then he waves it about like a guy about to stick a daisy into the gun barrel of a decommissioned Vietnam-era tank.
Reading “Axle’s” argument, however, did provide me with one insight that I haven’t really articulated before: namely, that the cultural “self-loathing” we see implicit in such a set of charges against the US and this administration (who, let’s remember, was voted in by millions of Axle’s fellow Americans, butchers all of them) is a cynical self-loathing—one that is used, in fact, to set “Axle” and his fellow travelers apart from the bloodthirty headloppers, and so mark them as better and more morally pristine than those whose support for the the liberation of Iraq was nothing more than an exercise in creating a kind of Arab Khmer Rouge.
How clean he must feel in his OUTRAGE! How purifying the fires of self-righteousness!
But let’s just grant, for the purposes of argument, that “Axle” is correct—and Ms Bahjat’s murder was committed by US-trained and funded Shia “death squads” (with our tacit support for their tactics, naturally). Does this mean that a similar calculus applies in similar instances, and that we warmongers can lay blame at the feet of people like “Axle,” whose indifference and agitation against the operation to remove Hussein (mandated by Congress initially, under Clinton—though in much the same way the UN does its threatening, on paper alone), for the rape rooms and Ba’athist death squads and killing fields of pre-war Iraq?
That is, can one say, as the burial grounds of Hussein-era “dissenters” are unearthered, that
Axle did this.
His indifference did this.
His side did this.
Me, I would never make that claim. But then, I understand that decisions to go to war are difficult and have to balance self-interest (pragmatism, protection of sovereignty) against idealism (spreading democratic reform)—and that sometimes the two impulses can come together, as was the case with Iraq (and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan).
Which is to say, I understand that the decision to take the war to Iraq and the Middle East was a response not only to the potential threats made blindingly clear by the gaping holes left at ground zero, but was also a strategic decision—and had at its core the idea that democratic reform might work to cleanse the region of anti-US sentiment stoked by autocratic regimes looking to lay blame for their cultural failures on the meddling West (“containment,” foreign policy realism, etc.).
It used to be that those on the left complained vehemently that the US policy of propping up tyrants whom foreign policy wonks argued “stabilized” these countries and kept the Arab / Muslim street in check was a vile and cynical use of power—one that denied freedom to the people of those countries we “controlled” through puppet governments.
Now, however, they have taken the opposite tack—though they never admit to doing as much. Instead, you’ll hear that they are “glad” Hussein is gone, but that they would have gone about accomplishing that goal differently.
Like, for instance, without US-trained and equipped Shia death squads drilling holes into reporters and decapitating them after stripping them in public.
No word yet on what the plan was—maybe dropping puppies and daisies and hugs from cargo planes, which would cause Hussein’s cold heart to warm like some mustachioed Arab Grinch touched by the smile of a little Whoville girl whose parents he hadn’t gotten around yet to torturing—but that’s not really the point, is it.
The point is, “Axle”—while pretending to outrage and disgust—is really rather happy with the position he has taken, because in doing so, he can point the finger at others for all the barbarism in the world, and at the end of the the day tell himself how special he is for having avoided having a hand in all that ugly violence that goes on in the world.
Which, hey: whatever helps you sleep at night, big guy…
****
update: Greyhawk emails:
A curious update to the story of Atwar Bahjat. “Developing” – as they say. I doubt the story is a hoax, but there’s a possibility we’re dealing with a different murder altogether. But the identity of the victim doesn’t change the substance of the story.
Update 8 May 1550 UTC: Questions have been raised concerning the identity of the victim in the video described in this story. According to this wikipedia entry photos of Atwar Bahjat’s body prove she was not decapitated. The photos linked from the entry, while gruesome, are not conclusive.
What’s known at this time: Atwar Bahjat was kidnapped and murdered while covering the Samarra bombing. The author of the London Times’ story has been with the paper for some time, and is self-identified as “a friend of Bahjat who had worked with her on a variety of tough assignments”. According to that Times story, the paper received a video of an execution that concludes with a close-up of the victim’s face. The author has seen the video. The video is “cell phone” quality. The author says the victim is Atwar Bahjat.
I wonder if “Axle” will factor in these questions concerning the identity of the victim to his claim, delivered with absolute certainty, that what the video shows is the work of US-funded Shia death squads.
And again—even should we grant his assertion that this was the work of Shia death squads—it is this kind of behavior that the rule of law and a constitutional republic tend to frown upon. And it just such a government that we are hoping to form in Iraq (and other countries in the region)—one that would, if tradition holds, eventually put an end to roving bands of head-sawing vigilante squads with a thing for power tools.
****
update 2: neo-neocon expands on the topic of the nature of the enemy, tying it to Bush’s comments yesterday.
****
update 3: Jawa Report notes that the video story is a hoax:
A gruesome beheading video delivered to the Sunday Times puroporting to be of slain journalist Atwar Bahjat is a hoax. On Sunday, May 7th, the Times reported that they had received a low-quality video of Atwar Bahjat being slowly beheaded. That video is now being circulated on the internet as the “Atwar Bahjat” beheading video.
The Jawa Report can reveal that the Times and Halal Jabar, the author of the article, are victims of a hoax. The video actually shows the gruesome murder of a Nepalese man by the Army of Ansar al-Sunna in Iraq from August of 2004. The man was one of 12 victims executed by the terrorist organization–the other 11 were shot (original story, video, and images of 12 Nepalese murdered Iraq here).
Rusty also notes in a separate email that “Axle”—so proud and certain in his attribution of blame to US-trained death squads—should be made aware that
Ansar al-Sunna (the guys doing the beheading) were once part of an organization called ‘Ansar al-Islam. These guys were around BEFORE the invasion and were busy fighting the secular Kurds before we bombed them into oblivion. Oh, and they were funded by ‘friends’ in Afghanistan (OBL). They also had a truce with Saddam since their main enemies were secular Kurds. They also once had a fellow by the name of
Abu Musab al Zarqawi as one of their operatives before the invasion.On a PS note—the reason al-Islam is no more is because the Kurds (in my estimation) are ‘big footprint’ people. al-Sunna operates along the Kurdis periphery, with the occasional sploido bomb of a Kurdish official, because they can’t establish a presence with all the
Peshmirga everywhere. IMO, that is.
Assuming “Axle” is reading this, he has now been made aware.
If he is not, then he continue to wallow in his own ignorance and filth, so far as I care.
Jeff,
three rules to remember when listening to the other side:
1 – global warming is to blame for everything
2 – America is to blame for everything
3 – the Jews to blame for everything
Which can simply be enumerated under the true root cause, to which all evil in this world owes its allegiance: *1* – Bush
Those other 3 are just subservient tendrils of his Evilness.
Well, who the hell do I have to blow to get my own hatemail? Bonus fucktaration, my shiny white ass, Jeff.
We, the loyal peanut gallery, ARE the fucktaration on protein wisdom.
DOH!
Jeff has all the good loons writing about him. What does a guy gatta do to feel some of the lefty hate?
How do they do it? How do people like Axle get their heads that far up their own asses? They have twisted themselves into human Klein Bottles.
I’m just amazed. It’s like a moral Circus of Horrors freak show.
Thank God these people are out of political power.
The Left’s Anti-war Battle cry
2002: No blood for oil!
2003: No blodd for oil!
2004: No blood for oil!
2005: No blood for oil!
2006: No blood for oil!*
* ~ (but if there is going to be Blood for oil then can you fix the gas prices already?!)
Jeff,
You gotta admit that “Jeff is a tool” is a pretty good zinger.
I guess I just need to get used to this type of thought. I am becoming immune to the outrage I should feel.
In less than a week we have the Moosman verdict that Carl took such joy in because he thought it reflected poorly on the administration, then we have the apologists for Z-man, who happens to be responsible for the deaths of many of our brave military and thousands of Iraqi’s, now we have the casting of blame for the death and torture of this brave lady at the feet of Amerikka. *sigh*
I am just soooo fucking tired of the Left. They sort of remind me of my sister – naive and never had an original thought in her life.
Axle Steele has joined the Moonbat Society, joined at the hip with charter members Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore. The epidemic of America-blaming, rectal-cranial inversion among the left is astounding. Where was their outrage when Clinton was obstructing justice, bombing Belgrade or Sudanese aspirin factories?
The selective outrage demonstrates the rank hypocrisy of these asshats.
Can’t wait until Speaker Pelosi, President Hillary and Sec’y of State Cynthia McKinney come to power and all will be made right with the world again!
Nobody nails the preening, posturing, do-nothing Left better than Jeff and Mr. Steyn:
Yep. The only way the left will ever get a free Tibet is if it comes with a happy meal.
I have seen the perfect combination of bumper stickers which encapsulates the “Idealism as inertia” that Steyn speaks of on a rusted volvo on campus: “Free Tibet” and “War is Not the Answer.”
Translation: I am virtuous because I care deeply about freedom in Tibet, and I am virtuous because I won’t lift a finger to bring freedom to Tibet.
Succinct translation: I am a sanctimonious, useless asshat.
Wankers.
I did a little investigation into this “Axle”, and apparantly I am not the only one.
Or….this could be the acthole posing as “Alex”.
Your guess is as good as mine.
A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
Jeff, you gosh-darn stately stallion you, I doubt you even so much as winced. So why notice the insects so far beneath you?
Since you stopped torturing Greenwald, I thought perhaps you were cured. But obviously, you’ve fallen off wagon.
Cordially…
I feel a bit cheated. There are no comments to his post yet. “Bonus fucktardation in comments” my ass. Putz.
tw: where. Where would Axle be without Jeff to give him readers?
Aside from the typical lefty self-loathing, he totally misunderstands the enemy. Fundamentalist muslims have been behaving this way for 1300 years. I wonder how we figured into their behavior in all those years?
I would love to have had Mr. Axle sitting in the same theater as me yesterday, watching United 93 and as the lights came up after its conclusion to stand and announce
“Big deal. It’s all America’s fault anyway.”
It’s “toed.”
Jawa Report has additional information on the hoax of the story behind the video.
Jeff, you see the update? He’s “not letting you get him down.”
The power you hold over this guy amazes me.
Gabriel
Screw his update and his “song”…I’m awaiting that promised “Bonus fucktaration”
I DEMAND MY BONUS FUCKTARATION!
So Jeff,
‘Axel’ has peaked my interest to a rumor which has been circulating.
Did ‘Axel’ ask you or possibly attach a coupon for a free order of fries with the hatemail?
Now THAT is substance my friends.
(Or am I just showing my true colors as a special needs typist?)
Let’s assume for a moment what Jeff has assumed (and all of you seem to agree with), that our Iraqi policy was done with the intention of creating a Democratic State in the Middle of the Middle East which would then, out of some form of gratitude, send its oil our way and also would act as a beacon of doemocracy for all Middle Eastern States. This seems to be the arguement that Jeff has set forth as to why we invaded Iraq (getting rid of Saddam being part and parcel of creating Democracy), what with idealism and the pragmatism coming together.
So let’s assume that this is what is believed. At what point does the incompetance with which this was carried out bother you at all? I ask this honestly. When do the facts that the CPA squandered Billions of dollars, that the way the war has been to this point prosecuted has cost 2,500 US lives and countless Iraqi ones, that we are squandering our children’s futures in this war because of the sheer incompetance of its prosecution and what it is doing to our future domestic opportunities, that Iraq is actually worse off (infrastructurally and personally, as the violence grows) since we started this war than before it, that Iraqis actually don’t believe we are making their lives better, not to mention profiteering by private cos and individuals, the fact that we have become torturers, and spy on our own population; at what point does this at all start to bother any of you?
Even assuming that Bush did not commit to this war out of any malicious, completely idiotic belief that he would out-do his father, somewhere it must gall all of you at the sheer incompetance with which this has been prosecuted. Nor are there any plans to change how the war is being prosecuted.
Shorter George: I don’t give a fuck about facts or history, Bu$Hitler is teh SUX.
So, can I take it that Darleen doesn’t have a legitimate answer to a legitimate question? Because if all you have is some ridiculous, childish putdown, then you really don’t have a response, do you?
Always amazes me that supposedly intelligent people just write stupid shit and think that that’s an answer.
Only in the mind of the most delusional can the prosecution of this war be called incompetant. Reading some comments makes me wonder if the author has ever cracked a history book.
BTW, which facts did I get wrong? It’s a fact that we squandered Billions of Dollars. It’s a fact that we have @2,500 US soldiers dead and God knows how many Iraqis. It’s a fact that Iraqis now face a greater chnace of violent death than they did under Saddam. So which facts did I get wrong? The ones that you pull out of your ass and want us all to believe without actually proving them?
So what is your benchmark georgie boy? Compared to which previous war do you consider this a failure?
If I had to guess, I would say all that emotion is clouding your judgment, or else maybe you are just an asshole.
Defense Guy,
Really?
Prosecution of this war hasn’t been incompetent? Please explain how it has not! We have spent Billions more than we said we would; Bush stated that all major combat operations were over 3 fucking years ago! We have yet to capture Zarqawi; we have yet to capture bin Laden; we have yet to secure Iraq; Iraq still doesn’t have a government; violence against Iraqis has risen over a 100% since we invaded. The strategic prosecution of this war by this Admin has been completely imcompetent. If you don’t see that, you really live in a fantasy world of your own making.
I do believe that you are the one in La La Land.
I tell you guys….it’s like trying to teach physics to a 2nd grader.
There have been some really talented parodies of left wingnuts recently on PW. First, “Withheld” and now “georgeorwell”.
Heh. Of course it is.
Georgie
So you are benchmarking the success of this war against itself. How very nice for you. Now try comparing it to, say, every other war in the history of man, and then get back to us. Thanks.
George
WHAT legitimate question? I’ll give you that you gussied ‘em up a bit, but you’ve hit every duplicious talking point Kosskiddies or Duncan cabana boys have vomited forth.
You assert that IRAQ is “worse off” than under Saddam… (and Mussolini made the trains run on time)…it is certainly NOT worse off the vast majority of Iraqis that live outside of Baghdad and could easily been the next candidates for mass graves. They have more electricity, business start ups, schools, etc then they had under Saddam who had Baghdad as his own personal Potemkin Village for the likes of CNN reporters who “reported” from a bar stool in a four-star hotel knowing the tab would be closed if they were less than “glowing” about Saddam (shades of Duranty’s USSR).
Good lord, have you ANY clue about much of the great battles of WWII? Where do you think the terms SNAFU and FUBAR came from??
But hey, don’t let me keep you from fetching another strawberry daquari for Mr. Black.
heaven’s! I better correct my typo
should be duplicitous
And don’t it feel great?
It really seems to me that “duplicious” should be a word. Even if it isn’t.
georgeorwell:
Let me pose a question for you: At what point would you say that the war is being won? You don’t have to use ANY past milestones. Just ones that you would see as appropriate to be able to say that the war is being won.
What kind of competence would you like to see. What should have been done differently, what should be done differently, etc. etc.?
Um George, WW2 was over 500,000 dead, Vietnam wrapped up 55,000 dead and Iraq2 is now up to 2500. That seems like an improvement to me.
2,500 dead is only 0.5% of the total Us causualties of WW2 and only 4.54% of the Vietnam causuality totals. That would seem to equate to a “better” war because we had less losses.
Also , as far as those billions, have to converted those totals for inflation and compared them to the war cost of those other two wars?
You might be suprised.
Well, holy hell.
Hey, you guys got to feel this! georgeorwell has a hard like a light-switch for the World’s-Most-Fucking-Stupidest-Commenter award, the coveted Actii.
The race is still Actus’ to lose, but with a field like this, he certainly cannot rest on his laurels.
Never mind.
Georgie is representative of the problem you get when you have a TV generation that thinks every issue in the world is resolved in one hour. It also includes the mentality that if there is one dissenting person railing against the government, big business, or any other bureaucracy–the lone dissenter is always proved right in the end (see Dante’s Peak, Day after Tomorrow, and almost all the stuff Hollywood puts out).
These people are under the impression that wars are simple things that have almost no casualties, the good guys never make a mistake, that we have perfect intelligence, and are never surprised by the enemy. And if things don’t go perfectly–well, it was bungling by the ‘powers that be’ and not the fog of war. Too bad they can’t read history–and LEARN.
Clueless–yet they vote.
The way the hysterical leftists like george are describing the Iraq war as a “failure,” “catastrophe” etc. worries me because they seem to be moving the goalposts off of the playing field. They also seem to be motivated completely by BDS, because by any objective historical standard, the Iraq war has been a brilliant success.
If the Iraq war is to become the gold standard for failure, how can we ever hope to win a war in the future?
Perhaps that is their goal – to prevent America from ever using its military to advance our interests by brainwashing the public into believing that any war that does not result in a instantaneous casualty and cost-free transformation of the invaded country into Switzerland represents a defeat as bad as the Japanese suffered in WWII.
Wake up lefties. You might hold the presidency again some day, and you will need a credible military threat to advance your forigen policy – unless of course you actually _want_ a repeat of the Carter presidency.
This talk about failures in the prosecution of OIF shows the left… replete though it is with academic credentials and mensa candidates… has absolutely no sense of historical context… well, none outside of screeching “Vietnam” and “quagmire”.
Sending our armed forces halfway around the globe and defeating one of the largest standing army’s in the world in 28 days is unprecedented. According to the post 9-11 timetable of the not at all loyal opposition, we were supposed to be still bogged down in Afghanistan reliving the Soviet disaster of the 80’s getting buggered to death… not beating the crap out of Saddam.
The media and the left seem to think war must be conducted surgically and without casualties.. or it must be judged a failure.
Prison scandals? I don’t know about the left, but I’d rather be stacked half naked at Abu Ghraib by Americans, than having holes drilled through my bones with a cheap under powered cordless… in well… Abu Ghraib by Saddam’s twisted spawn (and that was only for a poor showing at the Olympics).
I’m proud of what our military has done. Every casualty is tragic, but the left first shrilled about 20,000 dead in the first weeks of the initial invasion… now they are screaming about 3,000 after three years.
There is no credibility there at all. They just want to complain. Truth is that they demonize everything America does, they are not loyal by any definition…. well except the one that says opposition is by definition “loyalty”…. ummmm… huh?
The posters that pointed out the circle jerk of “Free Tibet” and “War is not the Answer” hit it just right.
I realize this’ll shock the left, but although I am a conservative American, I’ve been to Europe. I’ve been to Central America. I’ve been to Asia.
Met Tibetans in the hills of Myanmar… there is no way they free themselves… zero.
Just so they know, bumper stickers and passive civil disobedience and yak butter tea can work in our society… if the Tibetan’s were oppressed here in the USA, that sort of campaign might get results. But the Chinese and the Myanmar junta could give a s#*! about US opinion. (See Iran and nukes) I think the main reason the Myanmar junta doesn’t eliminate the Tibetan’s in their territory is the Burmese army doesn’t want to walk high up into the cold and freeze their asses off to fight with a bunch of people who are already cowed into passivity.
Which brings me full circle to the left’s military strategy for the USA
Hey…some of us mensa candidates hang on the right:>
Well Said Steve G. Well Said!
Steve G.
I commend you sir, very well put….
Axle-grease and Georgie-porgie, Got a really hot item for you guys; check out aljazeera today ( http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11328 ). This is not a piddlin’ little newspaper or mag article, this is about a whole D book exposing the a whole D American conspiracy going back four decades and culminating in the attack on Iraq. Written by no less an authority than a serious minded gent who is now running for Congress. Ya’ gotta check this out Man! This book will give you enough ammo to absolutely sink blood thirsty jerks like Jeff. You don’t have to thank me; I know how grateful you are. BB
I would advocate that the war in Iraq went smashingly. Others have already quoted the stats confirming that. What’s got your pussy in a knot is the reconstruction of Iraq. Now you’re right, we’ve been in a bad run for a while here. If we’d handled Baghdad like we did Berlin, and Fallujah like we did Dresden in ‘45 with a little Tokyo treatment for Mosul thrown in during the 28 days of compat in 2003, perhaps the reconstruction would be a little less dangerous and a little more orderly. But we’re too damned civilized and haven’t been threatened badly enough to show our fangs yet. That fantasy that keeps waking you guys up in the middle of the night, needing a change of undies and sheets, you know the one where Bush and the rest of the entire executive branch gets impeached and thrown into Leavenworth or Spandau or wherever……well you might have talked the majority of your fellow Amerikkkkkans into it had we eliminated the reconstruction problems by rubbleizing the Sunni triangle and all of it’s inhabitants. In summary, you’re right, there are a lot of things that haven’t gone right for us since 03, largely because you silly bastards have done such a wonderful job of convincing the world that the other 50% of us and our military are genocidal maniacs just waiting for the right time and the right place. So our military plays it super-ultrasafe from a pr standpoint. And you call it incompetent management.
At some point the jihadist will strike us again, and either the adults will shout the children down long enough for our military to communicate an extremely stern message to these crazy fucks……..or the children will shout down the adults and we’ll take lying down, like the prisoners we’ll become, all the time telling ourselves how we’re the better person for not striking back.
Getting sick of the sanctimonious of the “WE DID THIS” crowd. “We” did nothing. The murderers who did the killing did it. So go f*ck yourself, Axle.
At any rate, neither Ms. Bahjat nor the Nepalese man died in vain. Al Qaeda in Iraq has acknowledged that they’ve lost. The repercussions are incalculable.
Pray for the souls of all who died–and continue to die–to bring about this victory.
http://tinyurl.com/zbzlm
Every Year is Worse as far as the Mujahedins’ Control and Influence
1. Al Qaeda acknowledges that it is no more than a nuisance instead of a massive destabilizer.
2. The terrorists in Baghdad are poorly organized without any military capabilities.
3. The individual terrorist groups are incapable of coordinating and cooperating.
4. The terrorists are following a media-oriented campaign designed to get headlines, at the expense of actual accomplishments. At the same time, the U.S. military and Iraqi Security forces have been able to absorb the terrorists’ “painful blows†without cracking.
5. Sunni religious leaders have begun expressing support for the government and preaching against support for al Qaeda, as a result of American investment. Also, the American-sponsored mass media reaches many more people than the terrorists’ Internet propaganda.
6. The terrorists have no significant supplies of weapons and ammunition in Baghdad.
7. Since Sunnis are beginning to join the police and army in large numbers, the terrorists can no longer attack these forces without risking alienating the last Sunnis who support them.
8. There are only about 110 terrorists left in Baghdad, compared to the “tens of thousands of enemy troops.â€Â
Soo…whenever there is a rape or murder in the US, did we do that too? Is Axel taking his fair share of the responsibility for creating the society that created BTK?
Damn MayBee, read through all the comments, and the last one, yours, steals my thunder!
Probably pithier and better stated than I would have mananged though…
TW: a union of minds.
SteveG and Sticky B
Well stated! The military does, indeed, play it ultrasafe from a PR standpoint – at least when the cameras are around. They’ve seen how bad PR (remember Tet?) can turn a smashing victory in the field into a PR disaster when it creates cognitive dissonance within the bien pensants.
Could the war and its aftermath been conducted in such a way as to reduce US casualties? Possibly, but that would have entailed wholesale slaughter of the enemy – with enormous numbers of collateral casualties – that would have been deemed entirely unacceptable by the very same people arguing that the prosecution of this war has been incompetent. Maybe we should have somehow factored in the left’s continual haranguing for disengagement providing a potential light at the end of the tunnel for the enemy. I don’t know how war-planners account for that – or suicide bombers for that matter.
Rob B. sez:
If you look at those numbers as a percentage of GDP, they’re jaw dropping. Unless you’re a liberal, in which case your eyes will jump right out of your head and roll for the door shrieking “Nooooooo!!!”
Either way, they’re not what “common knowledge” would have you believe. The psychic cost of this war has been far higher than the fiscal cost. Thanks, lefties!
“How clean he must feel in his OUTRAGE! How purifying the fires of self-righteousness!”
Exactly, that is the whole point of much political positioning on what is called the left: feeling better about themselves.
Feeling is conflated with thinking, emotion is valorized over rationality, leading to purely theraputical engagement, over actual action.
An individual whom I respect was commiserating about the anti-war movement in 2003, noting that most people in the movment did not want to organize, to argue points, to knock on doors and convince people, but just “wanted to feel better.”
Exactly.
So I’m not going to get a real answer. The stock response is “Well, you must be a loony leftie, so your question holds no merit.” Good to see that you subscribe to the very principles you all spend your time denouncing.
Obviously, you don’t care about having a legitimate discussion about the Iraq War (No matter your sudden belief that the War’s really over and we’re just tryintg to run the occupation), but then don’t pretend to be anything here expect a massive circle jerk of mental masturbation as there is no attempt to actually prove by facts anything you believe. You’re just a bunch of people who like to hear themselves talk (Tachyonsuggy excluded as he actually asked a legitimate question). Pathetic.
WTF?
I answered some, not all, of your bullshit. I guess it went right by you. Go reread it genius and respond…..instead of patting yourself on the back for being on a higher plane. Cumdrunk.
Notice poor george can’t even address the one person who gave him a question allowing him to escape making factual historical questions
shorter georgie: you all have made me uncomfortable by challenging my faith … you all are teh SUX and I will now retreat and lick my balls cuz I can
“historical questions” should be “historical comparisons”
Jesus.
Did you even read the responses to your assertions? You couldn’t have read them, or you never would have made that response.
Let me put it plainly. The posters here DO NOT believe this war has been incompetently prosecuted, based on the low number of casualties, and the low amount of spending, based on comparing it to prior wars. There’s your real answer.
Simple enough? Start from that point, and maybe we CAN have a real discussion.
TV (Harry)
*Obviously, you don’t care about having a legitimate discussion about the Iraq War*
We’d like to have a discussion but unfortunately, one of the ground rules is, you can’t cite to “undisclosed intelligence sources” to form the factual basis of your argument. Most of your “argument” is opinion and editorial, not fact.
“The war is a quagmire”. Not fact. You can allege facts (2500 troops KIA with more likely) and then posit your theory (for example, you consider the loss of 2500 troops a quagmire). Support your theory with additional facts. At the same time, be aware that you are arguing to a group of folks who, on the whole, won’t agree with you.
If you actually want to persuade, then argue persuasively. If you simply want to troll, don’t bore us with the faux outrage.
TW = Green. Al Gore’s cyber presence has invading the TW machine …
Uh, so when are we getting our massive circle jerk, JG?
georgeorwell by the way is a perfect example of
B Moe’s first rule of International Relations:
You can’t have unilateral negotiations.
The second rule?
You can have a unilateral ass whoopin’.
Sticky B,
You didn’t answer any of my question. You make a statement of your opinion that in your opinion the War went swimmingly and that it’s over and the reconstruction is a problem. Interestingly, all the miltary commanders asked have stated we’re still at War. So your point is bulllshit.
Darleen,
Not once have you said anything factually based to contradict what I have written. All of your assertions are just attacks trying to deflect from the fact that you have absolutely nothing intelligent to add the discussion. So I suggest you go study up a little. Though I doubt it will help.
Inspector Callahan,
You’re fighting the previous Wars, and according to the Admin itself, this is a new type of War. By their own position, this was supposed to be a short duration conflict. I’ll give you that mistakes occur and things don’t always go as planned, but when you don’t even have a plan for the reconstruction (read Cobra 2), then you didn’t really plan for the War, did you?
Also, this arguement that because we haven’t had a smany casualties as in WW2 or Vietnam is really so much Bullshit. The success or failure of a War is not measured by the number of casualties (an unforunate fact). If for instance we judged the success or failure of the Civil War by the number of casualties and treasure expended, the North lost. So that’s just another bullshit arguement used to deflect from the real situation.
And let’s not forget that we chose this War. We started it (yes, we did, and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 so don’t pull that bullshit talking point out of your ass as a response. Even Bush doesn’t believe that one anymore).
Matt Esq.
I haven’t called the War a quagmire; you did. I have said, at what point do you rebel against the incompetence of its execution? You say argue facts; I have.
The CPA squandered billions of dollars with no accounting of where the money went.
2,500 US soldiers killed; we don’t know how many Iraqis (estimates from 20,000 at the low end to over 100,000 just to this point).
No government as of yet, 3 years after the War supposedly ended.
1 in 3 Iraqi children malnourished.
Millions of Iraqis displaced. Services at less than half of what they were before the invasion.
Have we improved the lives of average Iraqis in any way up to this point?
These are all facts easily verified by googling the Iraq War. No matter how much you may hate the MSM, reporters report very little good news because very little exists (witness the recent graduation ceremony of Iraqi troops which one commentator posted as a positive. He forgto to point out that the troops immediately rebeled upon finding out that they would not be dispatched to their home territories).
I’m also not pursuaded that Afghanistan is an unqualified success. If the NYT story which appeared just last week is true, then the Taliban controls most of the South of that country.
Let’s look at your “facts”:
“Squandered” is an editorially laden word, meant to elicit an emotional response. Therefore, it IS opinion, and not fact.
The correct term is “spent”
For a person who says that the amount of casualties is not a factor in considering whether a war is a success, you sure harp on this point a lot.
Wrong. There is a government. An interim one, nonetheless, but still a government. From 1776 to 1789, the U.S. didn’t have a president, so we must not have had a government either. Guess we should have called it all off after 3 years.
I don’t even believe this, but assuming this is true, what if it was 1 in 2 under Hussein? Would you then bring this fact up?
Once again, this is assertion, NOT fact. What if MORE millions were displaced under Hussein? Are you telling me you know that services were better under Hussein?
Depends on who you think of as the “average” Iraqi. If you consider those in Baghdad, I’d say they have it at about the same. If you consider the rest of Iraq (the Kurds, etc.), I’d say they have it better.
orwell, you’d better try harder next time. These “facts” sound like they came off the NY Times’ editorial page.
TV (Harry)
tw: Nope, I don’t think these items have met the definition of “facts”.
I think the decline in services meme comes from some former Baathists complaining because they now have the same interruptions in services that everyone else has had all along. Which, cry me a river.
George,
When did the US military stop being the de facto rulers in Japan? Germany?
Adjusted for inflation, how much did WWII cost in todays dollars?
How many US citizens died at Pearl Harbor? (The attack that launched WWII which was a sorta big war)
How many US Marines died to conquer the island of Tarawa? (An island that the media today might find to have been unnecessary for the overall victory)
Why did the USA carry the fight in WWII to Italy… which had done nothing to the US?
Let’s move to Iraq.
Were all children well nourished under Saddam? (I realize we can’t count the murdered ones, but lets wonder if they’d be undernourished if left to live)
Infrastructure was damaged in a war… and it is still damaged in places? Wow…. If I was a smart Democrat I’d know this. OK.
Where? Oh… in Baghdad mostly… where it was crummy to begin with except in the Sunni areas…
Saddam running the whole country like it was his personal cash cow and all, dispensing things like electricity to Sunni’s in return for support.
That stuff got shot up due to resistance in those areas? wow.
The Sunni’s (and in some cases the Shia) have decided to attack strangers in their neighborhoods and have blocked return and restoration of services with sabotage and violence? Hmmmmmm… maybe when they stop throwing their tantrums we’ll make sure the lights come on and restore TV privleges and what not…. or should we go in… shoot the crap out of everything in the neighborhood and fix the power they seem to want not to have? Let ‘em sit in their rooms in the dark like a tantrum throwing child.
Oh wait, we did it for the oil… but didn’t send a massive force to restore and protect flow… another FRICKIN’ failure if you ask me…
Inspector Callahan,
Just because you do not wish to recognize these points as facts, does not make them less so.
Firstly (Historical footnote): The US did have agvernment from ‘76 to ‘89; just not a very strong one. That’s why we replaced it.
I’ll allow that there is what is called an interim government in Iraq. What control does it have? And again, what we were told to expect and what has happened are at odds with each other.
The GAO has stated that we have squandered Billions of Dollars in Iraq. Go look it up. It’s public record.
Whether you believe 1 in 3 is malnourished or not, doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. Again, go look it up; it’s public record.
The US Miltary provided the stats on services. Again, go look it up; it’s public record.
Millions of Iraqis displaced – Red Cross. Go look it up; it’s public record.
Turkey and Iran have both sent troops into Kurdish Iraq in just the past two weeks. Go look it up; it’s public record.
Look, denying that these things are happening is just keeping your head in the sand. All of my assertions are documented and come from a number of sources. Your statements to the contrary do not contradict them other than as a knee-jerk reaction.
SteveG,
You’re certainly not the first to bring up WWII. Just for shits and giggles, you might want to read a little history first though. Italy declared War on us. Japan declared War on us. Germany declared War on us. I think that made it unanimous. But, hey, let’s not let the facts get in the way.
RE the rest: read my response to Inspector Callahan.
Just ask Doctor Science, I guess. He‘ll tell you.
Slartibartfast,
Am I to understand that you don’t believe in factual evidence, only in what you feel is true? Because that’s how I understand your comment above.
That’s how you misunderstand my comment, more accurately.
Just as a hint: “look it up” isn’t considered substantiation in any circles I’ve frequented. YMMV, of course. Links, or even specific references, on the other hand, are looked upon favorably.
George,
<a href=”http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/166.php?nid=&id=&pnt=166&lb=” target=”_blank”>
“Iraqis overall have a positive view of the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Asked, “Thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since
the US-Britain invasion, do you personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it or not?” 77% say it was worth it, while 22% say it was not.”
It’s also noteworthy that of the 22% who say it wasn’t worth it, 83% were Sunnis, who lost their minority stranglehold on power.
Now, should we believe you, or the Iraqis themselves?
george
Whether you believe 1 in 3 is malnourished or not, doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. Again, go look it up; it’s public record.
Oh for crissakes… YOU make the assertion, YOU source it, cabanaboy.
Not ONE source in all your lickspittle screeds. You start at the Iraq war with a refusal to put it into any historical perspective and declare it all FUBAR while refusing to even understand where the expression came from in the first place.
You are not serious. You have no interest in legitimate discussion. You troll in bad faith expecting others to do YOUR research for you.
Hey, guess what. I question your patriotism. No one is that dense innocently.
Where is witheld when you need him?
Hey George?
Islamists declared war on us. So, what’s your point, cabanaboy?
Idly awed,
I don’t remember once saying that Iraqis were against toppling Saddm Hussein. Please stick to the subject.
The question was was at what point do you rebel against the incompetence with which this War is being run?
Slartibartfast,
I have not given you links because I feel you won’t believe me anyway. I have pointed you to sources, making it fairly easy for you to follow up if you wish.
Ah, an argument that’s apparently based on belief built on an argument that’s overtly based on belief. Well, whatever floats your boat; just consider that I might take this argument even less seriously than I took your previous ones.
Feelings. Whoaohoh, feelings.
Which was not seriously at all, given the utter absence of substantiation.
Darleen,
You nailed it.
Mr. Orwell,
The concept is called grace, as in when visiting someone else’s home, you don’t shit on their coffee table and tell them it’s modern art.
If it is all public record as you proclaim, links should be easy to obtain.
I have but one question, and your answer should shine light on all the others everyone else is asking you: when you critique the conduct of this war and it’s outcomes, which war(s) are you measuring it against?
That’s it. Easy enough to answer…right?
surf-actant
Yes, you’ve pointed me to sources. They just didn’t say what you claimed they did.
OH geourgie, georgie, georgie, when Idyl nailed you, I actually SAW you move the goal posts….
surf-actant
I like the assertion (early on in the thread) that Iraqis are 100% more likely to be victims of violence than during Saddam’s time.
Which, I guess if you ignore the violence caused by the state acting against its own people….well, it still isn’t true. But I guess that’s what he’s doing.
Jesus, actus, this is no time for you to malinger. George Orwell is breathing down your neck, man.
Do you want to keep your Actii, or not, man? Step up to the plate and demonstrate your bonus fucktaration.
Ok, one more time. Here’s how it’s done:
Gore actually won the 2000 election.
Nifty, eh? This way, people can actually go read what made you make your claim, and discuss (or laugh uproariously, depending) whether your sources and reasoning were sound.
Amazing what one can learn on these here Internets.
When I am convinced that, by historical comparison to other wars – and relative to the nature and magnitude of the efort – that the level of incompetence is significant.
Through that frame of reference, Iraq has been quite successful.
For those who can’t fathom why – within three years – the place is not yet New Hampshire, I would suspect they suffer from unrealistic expectations.
Do you have any constructive recommendations for improving the situation?
We would all love to hear them.
Since you all have asked so nice
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04902r.pdf
Microsoft PowerPoint – (U) Iraq Weekly Status Report – 8 March …
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/2f579a75641ad1b1b8ef750a7efb67ce.htm
I’m sure most of you will look at these and declare the good news. But if you follow the charts in the second powerpoint, you will see that essential services are below pre-war levels.
In the first, you will notice that an independent auditor was not brought in until a year after the money started flowing in.
Here’s another about the squandered Billions.
Oh, and here’s one from a source most of you agree with.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040615-095256-8131r.htm
Lessee:
“5000 children dying every month” prior to the war, due to the sanctions (which the Left reminds us were working, so they must have wanted to keep them in place).
Now, child mortality has dropped, and the children are malnourished, but not dead.
Sounds like a major improvement to me.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEEDF1F3AF93AA3575BC0A967958260
Turkey attacks Kurds in Iraq
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1624638/posts
Iran artillery attacks Kurds in Iraq
Lurking Observer,
Where did you get your child mortality rate figures from? I have seen the 5000 a month death figure before, but see no figure stating that child mrtality in Iraq has improved.
Lemme see…george, your first link is to a 105-page document. George, page and paragraph, please.
Your second link comes from this old notion that malnutrition in Iraq declined in the early part of this decade, whilst ignoring that that claim is supported by a survey performed by the Iraqi Ministry of Health. There might have been even fewer children suffering from malnutrition had Saddam himself performed the survey.
Slartibartfast,
About what I expected. Next you’ll ask me to read it for you.
And, of course, we can discount everything else because it was done by those damned Iraqis who supported Saddam. And we all know what big liars they all are, don’t we. Just like we discount anything in the MSM because they’re all libs, and anything dems say because they’re all dems. Yada, yada, yada. ad nausem.
Possibly; this time, a page/paragraph will do. I did search the document for keywords like “squander”, “waste”, “profligate”, “unauthorized”, “receipt”, etc and was completely unshocked to find that none of them pointed to text that in any way (even incidentally) supported your claim.
So, I’m thinking that a) I’m being entirely reasonable, and b) you’re still claiming something whose substantiation has yet to slide cross home. Oh, and c) you’re still expecting us to do your homework for you.
You sure got me there. The Japanese declared war by… ummmm… attacking us. Sorta like the first WTC bombing, or the embassy bombings in Nairobi, or Somalia, or the USS Cole, or the second WTC attack, or the attack on the Pentagon.
By todays standards we are to ignore the first 5 or 6 attacks. I think that by todays standards we also couldn’t declare war on Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy… after all they were run by despotic puppet governments, contributing only oil and raw materials to the Nazi effort…. aiding and abetting the sworn enemy of the US only due to flawed (evil tyrant) leadership They were nice enough to formally declare war upon the US relieving the left of hand wringing angst over “what to do?”
The current crop of terror facilitators are smarter and less honorable, and the left is still wringing its hands.
The Bush doctrine does not allow Islamic terrorists to hide behind their “statelessness”.
What an asshole.
Bush wouldn’t let the Taliban, Saddam harbor and/or fund terrorists. Evil lying bastard.
George, I think you are looking at a big world through a little hole… a microscope… “ah, there’s something wrong there, and there.” Plus you are “cherry picking” the evidence. Nothing has gone right at all? (insert grudging piece of meaningless positive trivia here).
War is beyond sad. War is beyond ugly. When I think of war, I think of battles where the dogs fought over the bodies of the dead… i think of the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” where the lyrics say of the devil: “I rode a tank in a General’s rank when the blitzkreig raged and the bodies stank”. Awful.
I think violence is the only deterrent the Islamic terrorists respect… their deaths are the only security we have from them. That means waging war. People die. People go hungry. Utilities are disrupted.
The lesson being taught in the Mid east is: Don’t threaten us, don’t attack us… and do not harbor or assist those that do.
Contraary to your assertions that Iraq did not harbor terrorists, their own documents say they did.
Saddam had weapons of mass destruction before, he acted like he still did… sorta like pointing a toy gun at a cop.
(The left would have us believe that Rumsfeld lying dickhead sent troops into Iraq in chemical suits in a massive charade..)
The bottom line. No attacks on US soil since 9/11. Our military is killing jihadists by the thousands. The jihadists are pinned down in Iraq (where they never were? go figure).
PS:
WWII provides plenty of context… if you want to see it. Obviously you dont.
Iraq has lots of good things happening… if you want to see them. Obviously you don’t.
I see the bad… do you see the good?
Didn’t think so.
SteveG,
Not much in the way of evidence in anything you said. And still no answer to my original question.
Slartibartfast,
Ditto.
Your claims, george. Burden of proof…where did I put that burden of proof? Oh, you’re soaking in it.
Oh, and Slartibartfast,
If you don’t like the GAO report, just read the Washington Times article. Or is the WT also part of the great leftwing conspiracy?
Aw, geez, Steve, you make it sound like declaring war on something, apart from like say, poverty or obscene oil company profits, is sometimes a serious endeavor that actually requires blood, sweat, tears, and isn’t completed in an hour (including the commercials).
What, Henry Waxman is a source I’m going to agree with? I have no idea what you’re saying, here.
Funny how that oh-so serious UPI breaking news release, reprinted in the Washington Times coincided with a
Moveon.org ad campaign.
Gosh. Imagine that.
I have a quibble with the Jawa Report–I wonder what the Nepalese man would think to know that his brutal murder was a hoax? Given that the mistake is not in the action, but in the victim, I think “hoax” is not the right word.
tw: interest. As in, I don’t have quite enough interest (or time) to search all of georgeorwell’s posts so I’ll ask here: Mr. Orwell, would you be kind enough to post the permalink to the post where you explained what the standard for competancy in this war is? I assume you gave sufficient justification, including a quick review of at least one or two past wars that were considered competant and maybe one or two more considered incompetant as part of your development of a sound rational benchmark.
Thanking you in advance.