While Bush is taking a pounding over the nomination of Harriet Miers (and for very good reason, I might add), he also delivered on of his best speeches on the war at the National Endowment for Democracy. While Bush may be taking heat on domestic policy, he hasn’t gone wobbly on the war at all. Bush thankfully understands why a withdrawal from Iraq is a horrible idea:
We know the vision of the radicals because they’ve openly stated it — in videos, and audiotapes, and letters, and declarations, and websites. First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions. Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, quote, their “resources, sons and money to driving the infidels out of their lands.” Their tactic to meet this goal has been consistent for a quarter-century: They hit us, and expect us to run. They want us to repeat the sad history of Beirut in 1983, and Mogadishu in 1993 — only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences.
Second, the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments. Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and Jordan for potential takeover. They achieved their goal, for a time, in Afghanistan. Now they’ve set their sights on Iraq. Bin Laden has stated: “The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries. It’s either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation.” The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.
It is currently irrelevant whether or not Iraq was a base of terrorism before 2003 – it most certainly will be if we do not strengthen Iraqi military and political institutions so that they can fight terrorism. We’re coming closer to that end, but it remains the height of irresponsibility to advocate a troop withdrawal that would turn Iraq into a petri dish for terrorism.
President Bush is right on when he describes the psychology of al-Qaeda. When we withdrew from Somalia in 1993 after the bodies of US servicemembers were paraded through the streets of Mogadishu, it made bin Laden and the rest of al-Qaeda believe that the United States was little more than a paper tiger. Yes, we’d launch a few furtive cruise missile raids, but we didn’t have the stomach to put boots on the ground and finish the job. Our invasion of Afghanistan disproved that theory – but now it’s being put to the test in Iraq.
Make no mistake about it: al-Qaeda wants us to leave Iraq. They want the major strategic victory and the massive morale boost it would come from a handful of terrorists defeating the largest military in the world. And like it or not, those who advocate a withdrawal are playing right into the hands of al-Qaeda, willingly or not. Such an action would turn Iraq into an even more dangerous version of Afghanistan and erase everything that we’ve done in the past four years. It is absolutely irresponsible to advocate such a plan of action, and those who do so are deserving of the harshest condemnation.
Bush, to his credit, understands fully that those who argue that this war is unwinnable are wrong. This war is very much unwinnable, and for the first time Bush really elucidates why:
Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure. By fearing freedom — by distrusting human creativity, and punishing change, and limiting the contributions of half the population — this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible, and human societies successful. The only thing modern about the militants’ vision is the weapons they want to use against us. The rest of their grim vision is defined by a warped image of the past — a declaration of war on the idea of progress, itself. And whatever lies ahead in the war against this ideology, the outcome is not in doubt: Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse. Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future.
Bin Laden’s values are incapable of producing a healthy and productive society. They are incapable of meeting basic human needs. Islamic radicalism is damned by its own internal contradictions, just as Communism was. The oppression of radical Islamism runs counter to the innate human desire to be free and to have the power to effect change. Across the Middle East, the old ideologies of autocracy and stasis are being challenged by a generation that was raised with an increasing understanding of what it is to be free. Like Communism in the 1970s-1980s, some leaders are tentatively embracing change, while others are trying to control it. And like the wave of freedom that swept through the totalitarian states of the Eastern Bloc, a wave of change is sweeping across the Middle East, from Beirut to Tehran, and the old orders will either have to adapt to it or have it sweep them away.
This is the speech Bush should have given a long time ago, and it is unfortunate for him that he waited until now to find his voice and clarify these issues. With the criticisms over FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina, the out-of-control levels of government spending, and the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Bush is facing a political firestorm. However many faults the Bush Administration may have, and they are legion at the moment, he is one of the few leaders who possesses a true understanding of our war on terrorism. We cannot afford failure in Iraq, and we have an obligation to finish the job we started. Defeat in Iraq would be defeat in the wider war, and it is time that Bush’s childish critics stopped advocating defeat and working towards doing what we need to achieve victory.
“It is currently irrelevant whether or not Iraq was a base of terrorism before 2003 – it most certainly will be if we do not strengthen Iraqi military and political institutions so that they can fight terrorism”
Here’s conservative situation ethics on display at their very worst. Couldn’t the Soviets have said the same thing a couple years after their invasion of Afghanistan yielded less-than-successful results? But I’ll bet you weren’t defending the Soviets on the playground….nor were you defending the “freedom fighters” of 1981 when they became the Taliban of 2001.
“We’re coming closer to that end”
Says who? Certainly no serious person. One battalion of the Iraqi Army is ready for the job. That’s “closer to the end”? Only so far as one six-inch step off the ground is “coming closer to the moon.”
“al-Qaeda wants us to leave Iraq. ”
Perhaps in theory, but if we dedicated sufficient military personnel to taking down al-Qaeda after removing tens of thousands of troops from the quagmire in Iraq, I doubt they’d like the results.
“And like the wave of freedom that swept through the totalitarian states of the Eastern Bloc, a wave of change is sweeping across the Middle East, from Beirut to Tehran,”
We’ve seen a few victories in the region, but we’ve had them at various intervals in the not-so-recent past as well (Rabin and Arafat shaking hands). I’m not convinced we’re witnessing any sort of revolution towards moderation that’s more viable than past mirages. And the impending civil war in Iraq certainly won’t help the cause.
” he is one of the few leaders who possesses a true understanding of our war on terrorism”
If he did, we would have never set foot in Iraq….and he would have held a staff meeting about terrorism at some point in the first seven months of his administration.
That analogy doesn’t even make sense. First of all, the goals of the Soviets in Afghanistan and our goals in Iraq are completely different. Second of all, the “freedom fighters” of 1981 didn’t turn into the Taliban. The Arabic term “Taliban” means “students” – the Taliban were mainly Islamic students at the time of the Soviet invasion.
The people we supported them were people like Ahmed Shah Masood – who founded the Northern Alliance. The people who fought with us in 1981 and the people who fought with us in 2001 tended to be the same people – which is one of the reasons the Northern Alliance worked so well with the CIA in defeating the Taliban.
Again, if you’d bother to do more research than just parroting the same tired liberal talking points, you’d understand why that argument is egregiously wrong.
One Iraqi battalion is at Level One status – able to operate completely independently of US forces – no artillery or air support. 35 battalions are at Level Two status – meaning that they’re combat ready but require US air and artillery support – which is more than good enough to be in the battle. There are 74 Iraqi battalions capable of doing serious damage to the enemy, and each Iraqi battalion has a 10-man US training team training them in advanced infantry maneuvers.
Level One is not an easy goal to reach, and they recently upped the requirements to be more realistic. Level Two battalions are nothing to be sneezed at, and Iraq has 114 Army battalions either in the field or in training. By next year there will be 200,000 to 300,000 trained and ready Iraqi troops – a substantial force – and those troops will be trained to American standards – by far the highest in the world.
Newsflash: al-Qaeda is in Iraq. Taking our troops out of the fight there would take them away from where the enemy is.
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are in Pakistan, where we can’t get them, and as the recent Zawahiri letter indicated, they’re no longer part of al-Qaeda’s operational planning – they can only communicate by courier, and they have to be very careful about even that.
Taking us out of Iraq would be idiotic. That’s where al-Qaeda is, and that’s the battlefield.
Syria’s no longer in Lebanon, Libya disarmed themselves of all their WMDs, Kuwaiti women can vote, and even the Saudis had to have local elections. That’s more progress than has been made in the past 30 years.
And we’ve been hearing about the “impending” civil war in Iraq since last year – and it hasn’t happened yet. Iraq is already in a low-level civil war, and the terrorist “insurgency” is losing bigtime. Even the Sunnis are sick of being killed in the streets in yet more senseless violence that kills more Iraqis than anyone else.
More mindless lefty cant. President Clinton had *eight years* to deal with al-Qaeda and failed to do so. President Bush had less than eight months, and the contents of the PDB had no actionable intelligence. What would the mindless partisans like Mark have said had Bush made every single Muslim male go through detailed security screenings in the months before 9/11?
Jay, I’m really missing your logic on this one.
First, there was no justifiable reason for us to invade Iraq. If there were, there would have been no reason to attempt to deceive the people of this country with stories of WMDs and ties to al-qaeda.
Bringing democracy to the region? OK, who can argue with that (thank you turd blossom). But there must be 40 other countries in the world that are suffering under a tyrannical leader. Why Iraq? And yes, I know you have a good theory about creating a cultural shift among muslims. And that’s great. But it has nothing to do with why this administration invaded Iraq.
The U.S. supported Saddam for years. We provided him with weapons. Then, when he sells oil to the wrong countries, suddenly he’s a bad guy. So we go in and throw him out. Gee, bin-laden must be smiling. Dictators make it a lot more difficult for him to spread his fundamentalism through the region. Nice of us to remove this one for him.
There was no al-qaeda in Iraq before we got there. There was never a car-bombing in Iraq until we got there. Walking in, stirring up a hornet’s nest, then saying, well we can’t leave now, it’s a real hornet’s nest, is not justification for this war.
Yeah, we’re stuck now. And I find your theory about creating a cultural shift in the region to be solid. But don’t pretend that Bush and his crew went in with any sort of long-term solution for dealing with the problem of terrorism. They went in because they wanted to go in, and now they’re making it up as they go. And giving speeches because the polls show that they’re losing support.
Politics as usual.
It helps to start from the correct facts. For instance:
There’s your first problem. Those arguments weren’t “deceptions” unless you want to argue that Bush had magical powers over space and time and knew that Iraq didn’t have WMDs. All the available evidence said that he did. In fact, it seems that not even Saddam knew that he didn’t have weapons. We have very little HUMINT (HUMan INTelligence, AKA spies) capability these days, and we had no assets in Saddam’s inner circle. We were going on the information we had, and that information said that Saddam was hiding something. Furthermore, the more that is dug up about Saddam’s ties to terrorism, the more suggestions there are that Saddam had deeper ties to al-Qaeda than previously thought. We have very good intelligence that suggests that a member of the Iraqi government was in Kuala Lumpur at a meeting where the Cole and 9/11 attacks took place.
Which is your opinion, not a fact. The arguments for democratization in Iraq were made before the war – read President Bush’s speech in February 2003 to the AEI, or his State of the Union address in 2003. Both of those major addresses hit on the point of democratization in Iraq. But again, people ignore evidence that contradicts their set ideas about this war despite the fact that it was only 2 1/2 years ago.
“Sells oil to the wrong countries?” You seem to forget about a little thing called the invasion of Kuwait…
Furthermore, Saddam Hussein was quite friendly to radical Islamist groups. No, he himself was hardly a pious Muslim (although he liked to pretend he was) but he figured that by buying off groups like Hizb’Allah with money and aid, they wouldn’t be very willing to go after him. And indeed, that was his strategy throughout the 1990s when he made frequent appeals to radical groups. In 1998 he held a conference of Islamic radical groups, a conference attended by none other than al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad in 2002, before the war. From there he plotted the assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley and the attempted chemical attack on the Jordanian Intelligence Agency. Al-Zarqawi was in Iraq with the full knowledge of Saddam’s regime, and Saddam refused to extradite him to Jordan for trial. Furthermore, the Ansar al-Islam splinter group was operating out of Iraq, with Iraqi intelligence agent Abu Majer al-Iraqi acting as a liason between Ansar al-Islam and the Hussein regime.
I’ll give you some provisional agreement there. In retrospect our reconstruction efforts were half-asses at best. Some of that is understandable. Some of it is not. However, the basic idea of using Iraq as a launchpad for democracy in the region was around long before the war – the same “neocons” that everyone decries were the ones who were saying we should never have gotten in bed with Saddam in the first place. History has shown that they were right afterall, and the events in Iraq are having a profound effect on the rest of the region…
“we’ve been hearing about the “impending†civil war in Iraq since last year – and it hasn’t happened yet”
We’ve also been hearing that the Iraqi Army is on the cusp of whoop-ass greatness for the past year…and not only has it not happened, but fewer batallions are ready today than were several months ago. Far more people seem to believe Iraq will be in civil war before the Iraqi Army is capable of becoming a stand-alone force.
Jay nukes both arguements out the water with facts, and the response is more cliches and talk points and the various tripe that suffices for the anti-arguement. Why don’t we just go back to the arguement that it was “blood for oil”, or the global hedgemony Pax Americana arguement, or no, the secret pipeline for Haliburton in Afganistan, all hatched in Crawford to make his buddies rich.
“There’s your first problem. Those arguments weren’t “deceptions†unless you want to argue that Bush had magical powers over space and time and knew that Iraq didn’t have WMDs.”
No magic required. All of the intel we had at the time indicated that there were no WMDs. The administation just chose to ignore it. Colin Powell even admitted that his speech at the U.N. was the lowest point of his career. Or was it of his life? In either case, he knew the evidence he was presenting was extremely shakey.
But that’s almost beside the point. The point is, they had made their minds up to invade and that was that. The rest was just an attempt at getting buy-in from the nation and the rest of the world. They never got it and so just went in without it.
As an aside, why are we so patient with North Korea, as it openly taunts us with its very real nuclear program. But were so impatient with pitiful little Iraq (which we had already pounded into submission, and imposed sanctions on, and enforced no-fly zones against) and its highly questionable weapons program?
As far as democratization, if Bush did mention it before, great. But realistically, how do you impose democracy on a county? Historically, how successful has that ever been? Democracy usually works best if it comes from within. And again, of all the countries in the world suffering under a brutal dictatorship, why Iraq?
OK, you make some good points about Saddam. He began to lose control of the country right after Gulf I. So he did start to resort to some drastic means (concessions) to at least give the impression of having some power.
I also agree on there being some positive effects in the region. But that’s with the world’s greatest military power standing over it (albeit undertrained and overdeployed). We could go into any country and create some positive effect for the region. It doesn’t look like this insurgency is going to settle down any time soon, despite Mr. Cheney’s claims of it being in its final throes. So how long do we keep this up?
Neocons? Is that the group Tom Cruise belongs to? Based on science fiction, right?
(just joking, Jay. I usually don’t like to throw labels around. They don’t really mean much, do they? Plus I needed a lead-in for this:)
Speaking of science fiction. I really enjoyed your post on the movie ‘Serenity’. Spot on. That Summer Glau could be a big damn movie star.
Quite the opposite. Our intelligence, British intelligence, the Italians, the Russians, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Iranians, all of them thought that Saddam had WMDs. From what we’re coming to understand, most of the people in Iraq thought they had WMDs as well. Commanders in the field were instructed to use weapons they didn’t have, and Iraqi soldiers were prepared to use chemical weapons that apparently didn’t exist. The level of deception within Iraq itself was insane – nobody told anyone the truth about anything, and nobody seemed to know what was really going on.
The short answer is because if we do anything to North Korea, Seoul goes bye-bye. The North Koreans have enough artillery around the hills to destroy the whole city before we could take it out. They’ve had that capability for decades now – and as much as I’d love for us to take Kim Jong Il out, not only would it probably end up taking Seoul out, but also would be very likely to end up with a fleet of North Korean missiles killing thousands in Tokyo.
Unfortunately for everyone, taking North Korea out just isn’t a viable option.
Until the Iraqis have enough combat-ready troops to defend themselves. In all honesty, we’ll probably have some troops in Iraq for a long time, provided the Iraqis don’t tell us to take a hike. But I would expect that in a year or two, the Iraqi military will be operating with only nominal American support.
“But I would expect that in a year or two, the Iraqi military will be operating with only nominal American support.”
That seems about as likely as my halfhearted prediction last week that the Dems had a chance of winning back Congress.
Mark: Let’s hope both predictions come true, as unlikely as they may seem right now… (fingers crossed)
Lets hope at least one of the predictions come true anyway, the Dems taking back Congress may be a stretch. In reading the arguements of the regulars on this site, I’m puzzled why we are still argueing if it was right to go to war when we are in fact at war. The difficult thing for me that when our boots are on the ground the left still sees merit in argueing against the reason we went there in the first place. Not only do they argue that we shouldn’t be there in the first place but we flirt with the idea that it is illegitamite as well. We get these 20/20 hindsight from the left that basically hamstrings any discission making process and ends up effectively saying that the use of force is perminently off the table. That we have to allow the diplomatic process to continue and continue until after some other major tradgedy occurs and even after that. Lets look at the current “negotiations” of our european allies with Iran, is that something that you’d be willing to beat the house on to be resolved in anyones favor save Irans ? North Korea, hey we had the “agreed framework” crafted by Carter with the N. Koreans and you know what they lied, broke the agreement, took all the carrots and now want more. Let the inspectors do there job, heck lets give El Bariday the nobel peace prize for let everyone go nucleur and not discovering the Khan network, when they couldn’t find anything before gulf war 1 when we were all suprised how close Saddam was to nucleur/chemical/biological weapons. Didn’t Saddam gas his own people, I think that should have tipped them off, but no they had a clean bill of compliance right up to the point when we discovered the program.
Okay lets take Bob’s arguement that we should have taken on N. Korea instead of tieing up the troops in Iraq. We’ll ignore the 10,000 pieces of artillery just a few minutes from Seoul, and the fact that the N. Koreans fired missles over Japan, would you liberals support military intervention into North Korea to depose the “dear leader”, of course not. How about Iran, would you premept the Iranians (like the Israelies did the Iraqi’s) to insure that they don’t go nucleur, heck no. If we did anything like that you guys would be joining Cindy Scheehan to protest the cabal in crawford. So your arguement to me seems disingenious. Name one area in which you would support the deployment of US troops with a republican in the white house, there isn’t any. Clinton goes into Bosnia, without any WMD’s, without any strategic interest, without UN approval, without the documentation that was required of the Bush administration and the left is passive and all wearing red/white/blue ribbons. I’m not critical of his decision to go, the Europeans were making a mess of it and they really was some incentive for a peaceful europe and Russian meddling, but were is this anal exam of the reasons Clinton went, its just not there. In the media on the web, there isn’t anyone save the hard left/right that really questioned it, and as far as how long that conflict would take, weren’t the troops suppose to be home by Christmas of that year. Wasn’t that what was stated, aren’t we still there? Bush continues the policies of Clinton by removing Saddam from power and all of a sudden its “Bush lied kids died”. The standard for the arguement for Bush’s justification becomes so high that Iraq will always be seen as a failure in the eyes of the left, if only because Bush ran it. At a time when the Iraqi constitution will be voted on, the left gets back to its roots saying they would have been better off with Saddam at the helm, or maybe like Howard Dean you guys are unsure if the Iraqi’s are better off. Saddam had no ties to terrorists, but gave 25K to each family of the palestine suicide bombers, Abu Nadal is captured after the liberation of Iraq and more. Its out there if you would want to go research it, how about “oil for food” do you guys want to vest US security with the UN, when a large majority of its members and even the UN itself had vested interest in the staus quo ? Weres that discussion ? We’re going to have to make these decisions in order to insure that our security is just that secure, I’m just not sure the loyal opposition is up to the task.
As for the arguements of how to run the war thats all well and good and health for us to debate. But to make politics at the troops expense weakens the resolve of the troops and strengthens the hands of those who wish us harm .What ever happened to politics stopping at the waters edge.
Ray, America’s credibility in the world and at home is tarnished for at least a generation because of the Bush administration’s falsified justification for war. Our word cannot be trusted as a result of Bush’s unconscionable manipulation that led to this war, which is fast becoming the biggest mistake in U.S. foreign policy history (not that there was any doubt among most serious people that it would become so).
For you to shrug your shoulders in disbelief that many Americans are upset that the reason we embarked on this trillion-dollar endeavor turned out to be illegitimate is an appalling example of just how little people like you have at stake here. For you, this is all about consolidating political power to the R’s through faux-patriotism and enriching the military/industrial complex that is likely to keep the mirage afloat. The fact that American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are getting their blood splattered all over the streets of Baghdad, Fallujah and Tikrit is clearly wasted on you…but perhaps the mother who lost her son searching for non-existent WMD may not share your indifference about the justification for war.
And perhaps you may even recognize the significant consquences of Bush’s subterfuge if we are hammered by a different enemy next time…an enemy with REAL weapons of mass destruction….an enemy Bush was unable to convince the world community to take seriously after crying wolf about Iraq.
People like Mark don’t understand this war. They don’t understand the enemy, and they don’t care to.
On September 11, 2001 we got embroiled into what boils down to a civil war in the Islamic world. Either the radicals win, or the (small d) democrats win. If the radicals win, within the next 10 years we will see an American city nuked into oblivion – or worse.
The only way to end that threat is to change the culture in the Middle East. The only other alternatives we have are to destroy the Islamic world or roll over and surrender. Neither of those options are tenable in the least.
I supported the war in Iraq, and still support it because the best intelligence we had, and the rest of the world had, indicated that Saddam Hussein was a threat. Even absent that, we also had the moral obligation to end his reign and Iraq was the logical place to begin the process of democratic change. Even without WMDs, it doesn’t make Saddam any less of a tyrant, or Iraq any less of a beginning point for the democratization of the Middle East.
For the record, I believed that the war to capture Iraq would take at least 3 months and 5,000 American troops lives. I figured we would have a significant military occupation in Iraq for a decade, and Iraq would be under martial law for at least two years. For all the bitching about how terrible this war has been, what’s happening in Iraq is probably one of the best outcomes that could have happened.
Make no mistake. None of this has anything to do with Iraq for the left. This is all about Bush. The left doesn’t know the difference between a Shi’ite and a Sunni. They don’t know Najaf from Karbala from Mosul from Tikrit. They don’t know a damn thing about democratization theory, and they don’t care about the real problems with this war. It’s all about playing politics.
The thing is, the future of this nation and the world hangs in the balance, and the left is playing right into the hands of the enemy. We know beyond a doubt that al-Qaeda wants us out of Iraq. The left wants to give al-Qaeda the victory they so desperately crave.
This isn’t 2003. Saddam’s gone and he ain’t ever coming back. This is a war between the United States, the Iraqi people, and a terrorist agency that sees attacks in Baghdad as stepping stones to attacks in New York, Los Angeles, and even Minneapolis.
Ask yourself, if one side is advocating doing exactly what Ayman al-Zawahiri wants, wouldn’t you think that you should pause before supporting them?
“The only way to end that threat is to change the culture in the Middle East.”
Even if we are to accept that premise, the place NOT to start “changing the culture of the Middle East” was one of the region’s only secular states.
Which is a dumb argument for two big reasons: first of all that Iraq was providing much of the funding for terrorist groups in other states, and secondly, why the hell would you not start with the low-hanging fruit? Iraq had a fairly decent civil society before Saddam. It had a populace that was generally better educated than most. Radical Islam had less of a purchase there than anyone else. The Najaf school of Shi’ite Islam is one of the most democratic in the Islamic world. The Kurds had already built a free and democratic society in those few enclaves where they had some level of autonomy.
Doesn’t it make sense to start someplace where you have the most basic building blocks of democracy rather than starting in a place where you’d have to start completely from scratch? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why that argument doesn’t make sense.
And that’s precisely it. That argument is another dumb talking point. The people who give it clearly haven’t considered the issue in any depth, and they just throw crap out like that because everyone else is doing it. It’s a throwaway argument for a position that is based not on considered thought, but kneejerk reactions and infantile sloganeering.
Oops, posted too soon….
“For all the bitching about how terrible this war has been, what’s happening in Iraq is probably one of the best outcomes that could have happened”
That is assinine. The invasion did go reasonably well, although generals still cited more resistance than they expected considering they were told most disgruntled Iraqi soldiers would lay down their arms at the first sight of their American liberators. Nonetheless, up to the point where Iraqis were dancing on the streets of Baghdad, things went quite well. But two hours later when the dancing ended, Chapter 2 of the war began and it has been nothing short of disastrous ever since…not that too many serious people expected the post-invasion stage of the war would not be a seismic mess.
“The left doesn’t know the difference between a Shi’ite and a Sunni. ”
Once again, you have stated the exact opposite of the truth perfectly. The left realized the upheaval it would cause to try to create a government between two ethnic groups that despise each other, and didn’t care to own that problem. It was the right who apparently thought that Saddam Hussein was the only obstacle to Sunnis and Shi’ites uniting in eternal bliss to share a democratic government.
“The left wants to give al-Qaeda the victory they so desperately crave.”
al-Qaeda’s victory came in March 2003 when they became a secondary priority allowed to regroup and grow while we’re quagmired in Iraq. I’m conflicted about the prospect of leaving Iraq now. Much of what you say is true regarding the likely consequences of pulling out prematurely, but I’m far from certain whether those consequences won’t take place anyway even if we stay. Either way, it seems highly unlikely that this ends well despite all the schools and hospitals we repeatedly pat ourselves on the back for rebuilding.
The “military industrial complex” Mark are you for real, the ’60’s were a long acid trip back there my friend. Spare me your pontificating about the “tarnished image” of America, what other nation is there that gives a damn about the rest of the world. You speak of a “military industrial” complex and have contempt for the institution and still find time to throw these very member of that supposed complex deaths back at your opponents as if everyone who supports the war effort is pulling the trigger or planting the roadside bomb. Then again we are not military people so we are chickenhawks, we aren’t allowed to comment while at the same time you are no military person eiter but somehow your logic is superior. How about those who died on 9/11 Mark, are they all little Eichmans, their crime was going to work or was it supporting the “facist” regime and not rising up with you libs to defeat the cabal of crawford. Deserving of their fate for daring to participate in the capitalist economy. Kobar towers, USS Cole, how was that all possible, we weren’t in Iraq at that time.
What would you bleeding hearts do in Iraq, how about Iran or North Korea. Would you hold a confrence maybe get a “dialogue” going between the factions and light candles and sing songs to Ghia so that they don’t pull another 9/11 on us. I know lets bring back Carter/Clinton tandum and have them do a world tour to apologies for us being Americans and negotiating another agreed framework with all of those nations who have differnces with us. You guys on the left haven’t had a good foreign policy idea in your heads since JFK, and he advoctated tax cuts too, obviously he was an anamoly.
In every national disaster who is there first and with the most. You speak of image as if this is some popularity contest where the left is in a position to judge who is “in” and who isn’t really up to it. We just never measure up to you libs, and lets be honest with it, in your, and the lefts, view America is always at fault always has a tarnished image to repair. The blame America first crowd arguement, that the world would be far better off if we just stayed on our continent, but when we stay on our continent we are uncaring, unfeeling.
Look at the earthquake in asia, the US is at fault for not providing enough aid to those poor people, whose helicopters were there to ferry food before the rains came, who during the rebuilding of our own damaged infrastructure deploys, contributes and assists. No talk of being spread too thin. Right in the same area were Osama supposedly resides, right in the same area where the taliban resides, never a thought about it. Not even a discussion of IF we should do it only if we are giving enough. we get there and get it done, while the left screams stingie and uncaring. The US can never measure up, even when our people are buchered the left screams its all our fault, the terriorist isn’t to blame he is only doing what we made him do with years of foreign policy that “humiliated” him. When will their behavior be brutal enough for you to support the troops. How many more soft targets, disco’s, embassies, airliners.. When will the left stand with the truely oppressed people, when will they support a constitution (being voted on this Saturday in Iraq) and freely elected people and not saddle up to strongman and dictators. All the while excusing this repulsive position because you cannot get behind an American from the opposite party.
“You speak of a “military industrial†complex”
I certainly do. The Pentagon gets a blank check from taxpayers at its beckon call….and American workers, mostly in the South, get to manufacture new tanks to replace all of the ones getting blown up in Iraq. When a state of perpetual warfare produces one’s paycheck, it’s pretty easy to be pro-war. Put that on top of the exploitation of “patriotism” from willing stooges like yourself and you have a formula for micromanaging public opinion and squashing dissent.
“Then again we are not military people so we are chickenhawks, we aren’t allowed to comment ”
You’re perfectly free to comment on it, just don’t expect to be taken seriously when you brazenly and obnoxiously flaunt this “noble cause” that you have no personal interest of becoming involved in.
“How about those who died on 9/11 Mark,”
How about those people who died in New Orleans? How about those people who died on the Titanic? They have about as much in common with our mission in Iraq as the people who died in 9/11 do.
“are they all little Eichmans, their crime was going to work or was it supporting the “facist†regime and not rising up with you libs to defeat the cabal of crawford. Deserving of their fate for daring to participate in the capitalist economy”
You’re drifting into full-on Republican loony land here. I won’t dignify it with a response.
“What would you bleeding hearts do in Iraq,”
Right now? Good question. There are no good answers. Three years ago? Stayed the hell out of there and focused on the real enemy–Islamic terrorism.
“You guys on the left haven’t had a good foreign policy idea in your heads since JFK, and he advoctated tax cuts too, obviously he was an anamoly.”
I love who you historical revisionists on the right try to portray JFK as the brainchild of trickle-down economics. I’ll make a deal with you. If you want to help resurrect the JFK era where 44% of the American work force was unionized and when the top tax rate was 72%, I will agree with you that JFK was “the great original supply-sider.”
“Look at the earthquake in asia, the US is at fault for not providing enough aid to those poor people, whose helicopters were there to ferry food before the rains came”
I haven’t heard any criticism about the U.S. being stingy with earthquake relief efforts. Perhaps I’m just not hearing the right news reports, but then there’s also the possibility you’re doing what righties do so well these days….inventing a scandal to accuse liberals of non-existent malpractice.
“you cannot get behind an American from the opposite party.”
Gimme a break. Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman, among many other Democrats, are just as morally bankrupt as Bush for continually giving this costly and pointless war their seal of approval.
Loony right, cool haven’t been called that in a day or so, then the military industrial complex statements along with the all money is the governements make you rather left of center as well. Now that we have the labels down pat lets see what the issues are. Hey I’m just quoting Professor Peace (Ward Churchhill) from colorado, or should I start quoting Zinny, or Chomski which from the loony left would automatically slot me into the looney right cabal.
All death of Americans are the same as those lost in natural disasters ? Thats a pretty far leap even for you Mark. I think the key difference is there are people in this world who would like to see us, that is both you on the looney left and I on the looney right, dead. And we can prevent that from happening by first and foremost making them die for their country or fanatical views. Slightly different than a natural disaster and the titanic, I’m not sure they were all Americans but okay. Don’t understand you analogy here I’m afraid.
Hey I would gladly take a JFK democrate anyday, one who unlike yourself had a little empathy for the workingman. All we get now is the Teddy’s instead. Why are the unions down to 12% and not the 44% of old, was that a great right winged conspiracy as well. Or rather an old guard mentality who chose to ignore their workers instead seeking more power for themselves at the table of politics. The repubs didn’t cause the split my friend it was the gross mismanagement and wasting of the funds and resources by those in power.
You trot out the Lieberman example of conservative Democrat, I think your right he might be the last one after Zell retired. I though maybe Breau as well but he has national ambition and I think he will come around to the Dean way of think shortly. But again we see how well Lieberman did in you primaries, what was he getting for support from you base. I think it was he and Sharpton in a race to the bottom, oh and Kusinich. Not a fair representation of the politics yours is the party of Shelia Jackson Lee, Cynthia McKinney, Bagdad Jim McDermott, etc. etc. .
Mark,
I have a question. In just about every post you make, you cite “serious people” as agreeing with you, with the insinuation that one cannot be a serious person and hold a different position. I’d be interested in hearing who you believe to be “serious” people, since many of the arguments you put forth aren’t held by many people I consider to be serious…
Jerry, there are plenty of serious people who are not on my team politically, particularly in regards to the war in Iraq. Let me cite just a few Republicans who warned of the precise ruinous outcome that has come to pass in Iraq….Colin Powell, James Baker, Brett Scowcroft, Richard Clarke, Paul O’Neill. I may disagree with these guys on many issues, but consider them to be serious people, and the precision of their predictions on the mess in Iraq and the Bush administration’s inability to control the situation reinforces that perception.
Even many of those foolish enough to buy into Bush’s premise for war have since had a change of heart. Most are Democrats, of course, but how about columnist Tom Friedman? I know he’s officially a Democrat, but fell hook, line and sinker for Bush’s “we need to change the culture in the Middle East with a war in Iraq” pipe dream. Now he seems to recognize the futility of such an undertaking, particularly when it’s being commandeered by the corrupt ideologues and the ruthless, gluttonous war profiteers that dominate Bush’s inner circle. On the Republican side, I know of two Republicans in one state alone that have changed course on supporting Iraq….Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and former Nebraska Congressman Doug Bereuter. I don’t know much about Bereuter, but would certainly consider Hagel a serious person.
On the other hand, I’m having an increasingly difficult time assigning “seriousness” to Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman who march in lockstep with the mindless “stay the course” hawkishness of the Bush administration as a means of political expediency for their future pursuit of higher office. My only hope is that Hillary’s decision to smear war paint all over her face just before support for the Iraq war fell to below 40% will cripple her chances for being the Democrats’ 2008 presidential nominee. A guy can dream….
So pretty much the only “serious” people are people who don’t agree with the war… riiiiight…
I don’t know if I’d say Friedman was completely behind the war in Iraq… as I recall, he supported the idea- yet thought we had leadership incapable of doing the job right. I was basically of the same mind as Friedman- only I didn’t think that the cost was justifiable. My fingers are still crossed, but I have a sinking feeling my original instincts were correct…
Jay, the only person I can think of who still supports the war in Iraq and could be credibly called serious is John McCain. He seems to be the only war supporter with the stones to call for the necessary domestic sacrifice that should accommodate the tribulations of wartime, be it vetoing tax cuts or calling for the freeze of the new prescription drug bill. Furthermore, McCain is one of the few people in Washington who has the gravitas of living through the hell that comes with war yet still believes this is the appropriate course of action. I may disagree with him, but I can’t help but respect his opinion on the matter. If I ever think of another “serious person” who supports the war, I’ll let you know….but it could be awhile until such a creature is discovered in the modern era of “stay the course” brainlessness.
Ray,
“make you rather left of center as well.”
I am left of center…and proudly so. At the same time, I’m much more at home in a farm or factory than in the coffeehouses of Berkeley or Portland. If anyone embodies the “working man’s Democrat” you suggest died with JFK, it’s me.
“I’m just quoting Professor Peace (Ward Churchhill) from colorado, ”
Putting Ward Churchill’s words into the mouths of everyone who disagrees with you isn’t much different than invoking Godwin’s Law.
“there are people in this world who would like to see us, that is both you on the looney left and I on the looney right, dead.”
No doubt. And as a result of this war in Iraq, there are more of these people than there were in 2002.
“Don’t understand you analogy here I’m afraid.”
It wasn’t complicated. You were equating those who died on 9-11 with the war in Iraq. I responded by saying that comparison is about as accurate as equating those who died on the Titanic with the war in Iraq.
“Hey I would gladly take a JFK democrate anyday, one who unlike yourself had a little empathy for the workingman”
Uh-huh. If JFK were still alive, you’d vote for him right? Funny how Republicans place previous generations of Democrats who they used to wholeheartedly despise on a pedestal once they’re no longer in office. When Clinton was Prez, he was the most liberal thug on the planet. Now the Republicans try to equate the Clinton years with Democratic Party moderation, even though Gore and Kerry both ran on essentially the same DLC platform did. Gotta give you guys props though. You’ve managed to convince alot of people that the increasingly conservative Democratic party is constantly lurching further to the left.
As for me having sympathy for the working man, you clearly haven’t read many of my posts. I have a thoroughly working-class background and my most passionate political positions are those that apply to working people. That’s why nothing going on right now makes my blood boil more than seeing native Louisianans being denied jobs reconstructing their homes because Halliburton and other slimeball no-bid contractors are shipping in Mexicans to take advantage of Bush waiving prevailing wage laws on Gulf Coast reconstruction and maximize already record profits for themselves at taxpayer expense….despite Jay’s insistence that Bush’s waiving of prevailing wage laws was just some sort of technicality.
“Why are the unions down to 12% and not the 44% of old, was that a great right winged conspiracy as well.”
Actually, yes. Do you have any idea how hard it is to join a union in this day and age? It’s technically illegal to fire an employee because he/she wants to join a union, but it’s also technically illegal for companies to hire undocumented immigrants. In both cases, there are usually no consequences for breaking that law….so both happen all the time. More than 40% of American workers said they would work in a union shop if given the opportunity. The fact that only 12% of Americans actually do work union is quite telling about who has the political muscle in this country to get exactly what they want and who’s left to eat the crumbs off the floor.
“You trot out the Lieberman example of conservative Democrat, I think your right he might be the last one after Zell retired.”
Are you kidding? How about Max Baucus, Mark Pryor, Ben Nelson and any number of GOP-liters in the House? Today’s Democrats are to the right of where the Republicans were 25 years ago. In the 1970’s, Howard Dean wouldn’t have been able to get the Democratic Party for being “too conservative.” Only in the context of the post-Reagan era where the goalposts of the political mainstream have been firmly positioned on the lunatic fringe could someone like Howard Dean (or 90% of the other Democrats in Congress today) be branded as flaming liberals.
I’m coming to the conclusion that politics today is becoming a sport. The left hates Bush in the way a Red Sox fan hates the Yankees – not primarily on the basis of any well-formed intellectual basis, but because they’re Red Sox fans and Red Sox fans are supposed to hate the Yankees. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with the most reactionary, gut-level politics.
One of the advantages of being a nearly permanent political minority for 50 years is that you start rethinking your assumptions. Given that it’s the 50th anniversary of William F. Buckley founding National Review it’s interesting to note how American conservatism has been grown up from its intellectual roots rather than political roots. It wasn’t until Reagan than a true conservative achieved political success, and since then the greatest moments of GOP political power have been when GOP politicians stayed true to the party’s intellectual roots.
And here’s the issue: the Democrats don’t have those intellectual roots. The Democrats have had 50 years of nearly uninterrupted political power. Only in 2000 did the Democrats lose their hold on all three branches of government. And because the Democrats had total political power, they never really worried about a coherent ideology. And really, the only thing holding the Democratic Party together now is their hatred of George W. Bush. Without that single monomania, the party would fly apart. The radical antiwar partisans like Mark don’t like Hillary Clinton or the DLC despite the fact that they’re the only Democrats who stand a chance of winning. The union workers don’t have much love for the environmentalists or the gay rights activists. The list could continue on for some time.
By comparison, the only major split in the GOP is between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, and on most issues they agree in large part. The Miers nomination is probably the biggest split, but also serves as a demonstration that the loyalties of the GOP lie not towards the Bush Administration, but towards the values of the movement.
Look at the rhetoric spewed out from Kos and Atrios and the rest of the left-wing peanut gallery. Playground insults, stupid photoshops, high-handed claims of moral superiority. It’s fourth-grade rhetoric. Policy issues? Forget it, it’s all about bashing Bush.
The whole thing about Davis-Bacon is an example of that. Davis-Bacon is simply bad policy. It helps companies like Halliburton and hurts small contractors, who more often than not are minority contractors. It was a piece of legislation that was built on patently racist grounds. But now the Democrats defend it passionately because they can use it as a bludgeon against the President.
The Democratic Party is intellectually adrift, which is part of the reason that despite the implosion of the GOP, they can’t seem to make much headway politically. For the Democrats, emotionalism and sloganeering trumps policy and intellectualism every time, and that’s why the Democratic Party is fundamentally unfit to govern.
“I’m coming to the conclusion that politics today is becoming a sport. The left hates Bush in the way a Red Sox fan hates the Yankees – not primarily on the basis of any well-formed intellectual basis, but because they’re Red Sox fans and Red Sox fans are supposed to hate the Yankees. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with the most reactionary, gut-level politics.”
This from a party who impeached a President for getting a blowjob by his intern.
“And because the Democrats had total political power, they never really worried about a coherent ideology.”
That’s a fair point. But it took decades for academic conservatives to transform their fringe worldview into a mainstream political force. Considering the fragmentation of the Democratic base, a “coherent ideology” that could produce an electoral majority is not easily engineered. It took your guys’ decades to make it work. Is it unrealistic to expect the Democratic Party may take at least 25% as long to retool their message?
“The radical antiwar partisans like Mark don’t like Hillary Clinton or the DLC despite the fact that they’re the only Democrats who stand a chance of winning.”
Your needle appears to be permanently stuck on 2003. It’s time to move into the present tense…you know, the one where polls show 59% of Americans now believe the war in Iraq was a mistake…and a plurality show that people want of Iraq NOW. By all means, keep the “stay the course” idiocy coming from the mouths of Republican leaders. It’ll still probably be enough to win Alabama and Georgia. But there’s no way it would put Hillary Clinton in the White House. My only hope is that doesn’t even put her on the Democratic Presidential ticket.
“By comparison, the only major split in the GOP is between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, and on most issues they agree in large part. ”
Wrong! Store clerks in Hazard, Kentucky, vote Republican because they want abortion criminalized, want gays to stay in the closet, and because they “support the troops.” They want national health care, prescription drug coverage, more spending on education, a higher minimum wage, and right on down the list of Democratic Party domestic priorities. Middle-management yuppies in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, are Republican because they want every tax cut they can get can their hands on, and they want to be see the same lawless business climate that created Enron to continue chugging away. But they also want their gay nephew to be able to live his life without shame, are among the 61% of Americans who don’t want to see Roe vs. Wade overturned, and they are increasingly convinced that the war in Iraq was a huge mistake. I have to give Bush (and Rove) props for bridging this gap and convincing both groups to vote Bush’s way. Nonetheless, I have to believe you’re living on borrowed time as five years of Republican-controlled government are unraveling America at the seams.
“The whole thing about Davis-Bacon is an example of that. Davis-Bacon is simply bad policy. It helps companies like Halliburton and hurts small contractors, who more often than not are minority contractors.”
Time to give up the charade. Receivers of no-bid contracts for Gulf Coast reconstructions are driving truckloads of Mexican workers past the unemployed natives to put them to work for well below the prevailing wage rate Bush waived….all for jobs the contractors are charging FEMA $20 an hour to finance. My prediction was completely right. Yours was completely wrong. Seems like that’s becoming a pattern around here….
If only the Democrats weren’t so worried about offending Hispanic voters, they could really make hay out of this latest Halliburton/Bush administration abomination. Even without national scrutiny on the issue, we’ll see just how much the social conservatives and economic conservatives “agree on” when the social conservatives Mississippians can’t find any jobs for months, and while watching minimum-wage Mexican workers reconstructing his house (“jobs Americans won’t do”), it suddenly hits him why George Bush is taking marching orders from Vicente Fox in regards to amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Who’s loopy, if I’m the looney right Mark has fallen off the political spectrum.. Why does everything have to be a conspiracy for the left.
Mark,
1) Again, it appears the only people who are to be deemed serious are those to whom you assign the label. Tom Friedman? Who’s next – E.J. Dionne? Actually, several names you mentioned I do consider serious, but then again, I’ve never said that “most serious people” or “all serious people” agree with me. I understand that the current situation is very complex, there are no easy answers, and that refering to the current state of Iraq as a “disaster” or the run-up to the war as “unconscionable manipulation” indicates the presence of very rigid, concrete, and shallow thinking.
2) The idea of the US being a military-industrial complex in the sense of the concept with which most toss that label around is ridiculous. The US as a military power has been extremely restrained and judicious in its use of military force since its rise, generally erring on the side of caution. Even when it has entered into conflict, it has pulled its punches (including the current struggle), often to the detriment of its stated military goal, but in the spirit of an enlightened nation. The US has been a very reluctant warrior, and has likely made more miscalculations in avoidance of use of force than in engaging in the use of force. Now, that doesn’t mean the the economy does not benefit from the establishment of a strong military, it does (both directly and indirectly – one reason the dollar has historically been such a solid currency is that the US is so stable, in large part because of our military strength combined with our economic system). But there is no dependence on conflict for continued economic growth (unlike, say, the Roman Empire), the maintenance of a military is constitutionally mandated, and if anything, many of our military conflicts would likely have been much easier had we truly flexed our muscle and/or played by the same rules as our opponents – in fact, the restraint we display in the use of our force contradicts the concept of a system that either depends on or enjoys its military status.
3) And all along, I thought Clinton was impeached for lying under oath in a court of law. I misread the papers, apparently (and before I get told that his lie was trivial, I don’t ever recall being informed that an individual who is testifying gets to decide what is trivial versus what isn’t – I don’t care if you lie about your favorite color, that is perjury). Now, would I have necessarily pursued impeachment? Not necessarily. But please don’t even try to make the arguement that his offense was trivial, and the matter should not have been considered. For all the talk about “Bush Lied,” you’d think these people could understand the difference between flawed intelligence (which was also endorsed by most Dems, as well as other foreign countries), and straight out lie of commission.
Jerry, Tom Friedman is pretty respected among Democrats and Republicans alike. I think he lost some credibility with initial support for the war, but he now admits he was duped into believing we had a competent leadership capable of pulling this off based on the old “the adults are back in power” canard sold to us when the “Washington outsider” Bush stacked his original cabinet with retreads from Republican administrations dating back to the early 1970s. I provided the name of John McCain as the only person who supported the war in Iraq who has any credibility left, and cited my reasons why. Here’s one other war supporter who has maintained enough consistency and credibility in his argument that he could still be deemed serious: Christopher Hitchens. The jury’s still out on him since I heard him say some owly things the other day, but he looks like Socrates in comparison to the logic of most other war supporters.
Wartime enables the majority party to leverage political power disproportionate to peace time. That doesn’t just entail flag-waving, pseudo-patriotism and “not changing horses midstream”, but also a growing dependence on military spending for regional economies. As I stated earlier, it’s easy to be pro-war when your community grows with every exploded tank in the Middle East. The radical domestic agenda of the modern Republican Party would never fly if not packaged within a permanent state of war and the ensuing military industrial complex required to fuel the war. With that in mind, a mostly metaphorical “War on Terrorism” probably wasn’t going to be enough on its own to leverage the kind of political power through the MIC necessary to keep robber barons like Dick Cheney steering the national tugboat. The right had to kick it up a notch with the invasion of Iraq to shift the national psyche and resurrect the Cold War-era MIC.
Clinton’s impeachment was a national embarrassment. Lying under oath about consensual sex in a civil trial almost never produces definitive legal consequences, let alone grounds to impeach a sitting President. Apparently, you have absolutely no understanding of the concept of prosecutorial discretion. If George Bush were to “lie under oath about his favorite color”, no sane prosecutor would try to nail him to the wall or end his Presidency based on that. The same should have been true with Clinton’s “perjury” which stemmed from the spoiled fruit of entrapment by cartoonish and bloodthirsty partisan hacks. And while the Republicans were obsessing for more than a year about the Ken Starr report and impeaching a President over a lie about sex, al-Qaeda was quietly planning 9-11 while we were all distracted by stupidity. Ken Starr must be proud.
“In the 1956 elections, conservative Democrats, egged on by officials in the air force, accused Eisenhower of permitting a “bomber gap” by refusing to fund their new B-70 bomber. And in 1960, Richard Nixon, who served eight years as Eisenhower’s vice president, was excoriated by his Democratic rival John F. Kennedy for allowing a supposedly dangerous “missile gap” to develop between U.S. and Soviet forces. The bomber gap proved a figment of the fevered imaginations of the weapons boosters, while the missile gap was real enough-though it was a gap that dramatically favored the United States, not the Soviet Union, as hard-line Democrats like Kennedy and Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson had maintained.”
It would take a liberal democrat like Mark to cite a then republican’s speech against those in Marks own party, turn it on its head, and then accuse the evil GWB of being in the conspiracy with Cheney, Haliburton and the other likely suspects. How about Daschle’s lobbist wife (remember Tom ?) to make a sweet boeing tanker lease deal that was uncovered by John McCain and the other repubs ? Again thats is the favored cannard of the antiwar left and like the homeless numbers these get trotted out everytime a republican is in office. But of course this has much dire consequences because they are now setting the foreign policy. How about those bases that are going to be closed and the consolidation for the “arms dealers” that has occurred that was so dire that the Clinton’s Pentagon had to meet constantly with said “complex” in order to insure that their demise wasn’t a national security disaster. To increase their profitablity so as not to let these manufactoreres go under. Rumsfeld takes on the Pentagon and gets three major weapon systems slowed or stopped, shoots for a smaller and more effective armed forces and whola they are now what Ike warned about. So reducing the beast is now growing the beast. Seems like this isn’t really the best way to effect the helping keeping the repubs in power as Mark claims,
“The radical domestic agenda of the modern Republican Party would never fly if not packaged within a permanent state of war and the ensuing military industrial complex required to fuel the war”
Wouldn’t it be better to just try and pump more and more money into it without that messy reform. Similarly in the absolute numbers regarding the spending are the areas of increased pay for the military, implementing improved health care (even Mark can agree to that), national security efforts and the day to day cost of running a war.
So Friedman and Hitchens are serious, but they are also lefties. Freidman had an epiphany did he, was it the same as John Kerry ? Did he vote for the war and then vote against funding it ? Hitchens is a entertaining writer, except for that screed against Mother Teresa, but he would help my sides arguement wouldn’t he ? I mean the constitutional vote on Saturday, even if it is defeated, isn’t really helping the arguement that this is going as poorly as the left would have us believe.
Oops I forgot about Bill, Ken Starr and the vast right-winged conspiracey, I’ll just quote from the American Thinker webpage from one Ken Gallagher “Democrats lament” a self avowed moderate Democrat regrading what he feels was a lost moment for moderate democrats in response to the greatest president.
“Hey wait a minute Bill! This admission of yours comes after you addressed the nation on January 22 and denied the relationship, and then on January 23 you assured your cabinet of your innocence. Don’t you think you might have compromised everyone around you Bill? Do you think perhaps the party is at risk now unless you do something chivalrous – like fall on your sword? Now it gets a little stickier because we find that Bill has even less morals than we thought and prefers hubris as a character trait.†When the press finally had the decency to ask Clinton if he would resign, says Bill on February 6, 1998 “I would never walk away from the people of this country and the trust they placed in me.â€
What should have happened is that a good Democrat should have convened a smoke-filled room meeting of other good Democrats and said this:
“The guy is damaged goods, who is bringing the party down, and we need to jettison him now before he can do us any more damage.†Of course that wasn’t done and the scandal was allowed to go the full route to the ultimate impeachment and trial of the President of the United States. Mrs. Clinton referred to it as a vast right wing conspiracy, but we all know the number of convictions, fines, pardons or disbarments that came during the administration. In the end it was a matter of law enforcement not conspiring, but doing its job. Clinton served out his term, but the smell of his presidency lingered.
It takes a true hack to like Mark to bemoan Ken Starr and celebrate the work of Ronny Earle.
““The guy is damaged goods, who is bringing the party down, and we need to jettison him now before he can do us any more damage.—
Ray, meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the Democrats who were expected to absorb huge losses in the 1998 midterms actually GAINED seats, at least in part because the majority of Americans were disgusted by the cartoonish partisan hostility being waged by Zippergate hacks. Public opinion was, and still is, against you on this one.
Won some seats but proceed to lose more of the the House, the Senate, and finally the White House. Clinton devastated the DNC.
“Clinton devastated the DNC.”
Hard to argue with that….but Zippergate had nothing to do with it. The only people angered by Zippergate were rapid GOP partisans who hated Clinton before anyone had ever heard the name Monica Lewinksy, and continued to hate him after she became a household name. Clinton wrote the obituary on the Democratic Party the day he signed NAFTA. Conservative working people no longer had a reason to vote Democrat when he and a Democratic Congress turned their backs on them in favor of maximizing profit margins for multinational corporations. And most of these voters are gonna be very difficult, if not impossible, to bring back to the Democratic fray.
NAFTA, wait the employment is hoovering around 5% ? Thats a concern, maybe to you unionist but problably not the rest of the population. As far as Zippergate, if you delude yourself to think that we conservatives are just concerned about the “consentual sex” between a boss and his intern (better not say that to loud near the NOW gals), I would hate to tell you this but its a bit more substantial than a BJ. Just to name one how about the Loral scandal, as follows:
“In a newly released book My FBI, former director Louis Freeh outlines the incessant sleaze and scandal that ensued from the moment the Clintons ascended to power. Yet even the deeds covered in Freeh’s account, despicable though they are, pale in comparison to the worst betrayals of the country by the Clinton Administration.
One international event of this past week, if taken in its proper context, reveals the frightening truth of just how egregiously America’s security, and indeed its very future, was deliberately compromised by the Clintons.
For the second time in two years, China launched into space a manned space vehicle, this time carrying two Chinese astronauts, and retrieved it safely on the plains of Mongolia. This mission would have been impossible for the Chinese had crucial technology not been sold to them by such corporations as Loral Space Systems, with the blessing and enabling of the Clinton White House.
Predictably, the Chinese space program is thoroughly politicized and ambitious, with stated goals of a Chinese space station and manned moon landing by 2010. Whether or not the date slips, China clearly poses a far greater technological threat than it otherwise would have, absent the collaboration of the Clintons.
China is fighting a new Cold War, borne up by trade surplus dollars, which it fully intends to win. This time however, the administration of President Bill Clinton played the same role as did the Rosenbergs in the last one. Just as the infamous couple delivered critical nuclear technology to the Soviets in the late 1940’s, the Clintons allowed the sale of critical missile technology to the Communist Chinese in return for campaign contributions, the dubious nature of which vastly eclipses any accusation against Delay from even his most wild-eyed critics.
Counting on the technical ignorance of the X-Box generation, Clinton dismissed the strategic technology transfers as merely benefiting “commercial satellite technology.†But as any marginally savvy space enthusiast knows, the technology required to orbit a satellite is identical to that necessary to hurl a Chinese nuclear warhead into the American heartland.”
The American Thinker
Christopher G. Adamo
..See but with Sandy Berger (or is it Burglar) on the outside and Jamie Gorrelick sitting on the 911 commision or on the inside, we will always be able to rely on you revionists story that it was all just about sex..
Ray, that’s a lame attempt at a bait-and-switch even by Republican standards. Bottom line: Clinton was impeached based on a lie about sex in a civil trial and his guilt was attained through a ruthless act of entrapment. He was not impeached based on a would-be involving Chinese astronauts. If Christopher Adamo and his ilk could have made that scandal stick, they would have….but since they couldn’t, they nailed Clinton to the wall over a sex scandal.
As for your acclaim for the economy we’re presiding over and the successes of NAFTA and globalization, the evidence is overwhelming that American voters don’t share your enthusiasm over how mind-blowingly wonderful things are. Anyone reading non-Fox News headlines is seeing how our economic infrastructure is being systematically unraveled with declines in real wages, layoffs in every middle-class sector, and diminishing ranks of employer-funded health care coverage. I only hope you guys continue to be as arrogantly out-of-touch as you are now, believing that since your country club buddies are enjoying record profits, the peasants across the tracks are doing just as well. I think you’re gonna be in for a rude awakening come Election Day if you don’t get a clue.
Oh I see your logic, but he was disbarred and lost his law license for 5 years for lying under oath and he was impeached, you know that don’t you. But he wasn’t removed from office. Since that was the crux of the problem why blame the problem on the republicans. My point is that Clintom did a lot more damage to the country than taking liberties with a cigar in the oval office. Like Louie Freeh, “the FBI wouldn’t have to have investigated the President if he didn’t have so many scandals” but again according to your logic its the FBI’s fault and not Clintons. If you want to focus on the actual scandal itself, then you must to know that everyone in the begining of the scandal even the MSM said that if he actually did what was alledged he should step down or face the criminal charge. So now the MSM is part of the right wing conspiracey, as we went through the process the boys, you know them Carville, Begala, Lanny Davis et al, turned the arguement on its head. the arguement was everybody lies about sex, even got stories that little white lies even helps others feelings, etc. etc. . So spare me the work of the “spin machine” rhetoric. But we were were told if we are going down this path that we (the repubs.) were going to pay the price at the ballot box as you are now saying again. Didn’t really pan out for you did it ?
Have no country club buddys never even went golfing or played tennis, just a NONE UNION WORKER IN A RIGHT TO WORK STATE. I’ve never been in a union because I didn’t have the connections, and I didn’t work for the state of federal governement. I’m not citing headlines, I’m just relaying the facts and figures about the economy. Its okay for your guys to hearld that during the Clinton years the unemployment was something on the order of 5.4% (?) and it was the greatest economy ever now that Bush has it down to 5.0% all of a sudden its the worst economy since Herbert Hoover. So now you have the pulse of America regarding the economy. “systematic unraveled” economic infrastructure, quit cut and pasteing from the Work Unions web sites, no one talks like that except those guys. Is the arguement that they are all McDonalds jobs, like Kerry was saying during the election “Not real jobs”, that really helped him, that stuck. Problem is now there more than half of the population in the stock market and growing, so now a larger % of the population compared to unions is going to start having a stake in the markets and going to start building wealth. Is there risk involved sure, but there is less risk than allowing the union bosses to have their hands in everyones pockets for their own end. What wealth does that build a working family except for the Hoffas and the rest of those theives. Spending all their vast capital on the political power and not on the betterment of their workers. You cite NAFTA as the bugabo, how about drilling in Anwar that would create thousands of jobs for your union bretherin where’s the Dem stand on that cannard ? How about the oil industry we haven’t build a oil refinery since 1979, or drilling off the coast of the continent, can’t do it ’cause your enviornmental people will have a cow. How about the auto industry has the dems really saddled up to that industry, “evil SUV’s, global warming “. The large majority of your union workers are the government service and teachers union, they have no interest in their blue collared bretherin, hence a part of the split. What has the “union way” provided for its workers, they have shrunk to the lowest level ever. Delta Chapter 11, GM debachel, steel industry, car industry, and as far as NAFTA will be the demise of the USA, I think thats what you guys who hate republicans comfort yourselves with as the rest of the union work force starts looking what us none union people can negotiate on our own..