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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Credibility Gap

Credibility Gap

by John Cole|  August 2, 200311:44 am| 18 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

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I love the newfound partisan infatuation that the left-wing of the blogosphere has with Saudi Arabia. Some of us have been railing against the vile and corrupt House of Saud since day one, so it seems that what the left wing really cares about the House of Saud is getting rid of George Bush. Must they be so transparent?

At any rate, if you stack all of the Democrat criticisms up, they are riddled with inconsistencies and silliness. It is as if the Democrats want to practice a foriegn policy formed by a Tourette’s patient with a stack of NY Times back issues and a globe.

For those of you keeping track, the policy arguments from the left have gone something like this:

We shouldn’t lash out at Afghanistan in some sort of blind revenge, because you can not bomb people living in the stone ages back into the stone ages and because there is no evidence that they were behind 9/11 but all the Democrats are in favor of attacking Afghanistan because we have international support and they are not reflexively anti-war and Afghanistan is a quagmire with a brutal winter except that the only thing worse is the brutal summer and we have made the people hate us by killing only civilians and tribal warlords are not good allies and this is all about a pipeline and things are improving in Afghanistan but now we are dropping the ball because we are not giving them enough support and there is no money in the Bush budget for Afghanistan and things are getting better but now we are not paying enough attention and women still wear burka’s and it is good the Taliban is gone but our focus should have been Al Qaeda but once we catch them it is wrong to put them in Guantanamo and we are less secure than we were before we wiped out the Taliban and we did not kill enough Al Qaeda in the operations because the military is incompetent and George Bush sucks and the hawks misunderestimated the problem but we were not really attacking Al Qaeda because the Bush administration shifted the debate from Al Qaeda to the Taliban and we need more allies in the region but Musharraf is evil and what about Kashmir and oh, by the way, where is Osama?

Even though we said things were not better in Afghanistan things are getting worse now that we have shifted our focus to the unilateral war in Iraq and we all agree that he has WMD and is violating Security Council Policies and we are infavor of the war in a vote in Congress authorizing force but we don’t think that we should do it because the UN is unanimous but then they aren’t and they don’t want to invade and this is all about oil and Bush is stupid and fighting a jewish war because Saddam is no threat and we know he has violated Human Rights but what about Jenin and the UN is against this and we have no plan even though Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld have been planning this for two years and it will be a quagmire and we can not fight in the brutal summer and we need more allies even though this is unilateral and I told you so the war is a quagmire since we have not won in three days and soldiers are dying and what about civilians and the supply lines are too long and we don’t have enough troops and Baghdad has fallen but they still hate us and where is Saddam and it is still quagmirish and the civilians don’t have water and there is no electricity and the loyalists are still shooting at us because you see we had no plan even though we deposed the regime and there is no plan for reconstruction even though reconstruction is going according to the neocon plans and even though we all thought Saddam had WMD we can not find them so clearly Bush lied and we are not safer and who cares about the tortures and mass graves because we told you we knew about that and everyone knows Republicans don’t care about human rights and we need to win and have some finality but we should not kill Hussein or his sons because they should be tried as criminals even though we claim this is a war zone despite claiming Bush lied about the war being over but this is all about oil. Halliburton.

We have fought two wars and our policy is not humble and we had no evidence for either war but we were in favor of Afghanistan unless we were against Afghanistan because we should be attacking Saudi Arabia because we have more evidence and where are the WMD and where is Osama and why are we over extended and the military should get bigger while we should have a smaller military budget (butter, not guns, you know) and we are not safer despite no attacks at home and Bush is to blame for any future problems but deserves no credit for anything avoided and Dean should be President and Iraq is a quagmire and soldiers are dying because Bush lied and ok maybe things are a little better in Iraq but it is not because of us the UN could have done it better and we should listen to Shia clerics and yellowcake is a scandal and why are we not invading Saudi Arabia?

Dizzy? Me too.

BTW- I think everyone now attacking the House of Saud needs to run by Little Green Footballs and give them a big, fat apology.

*** Update ***

Originally I had a snarky comment and link to Oliver that I have removed once he clarified his position.

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Reader Interactions

18Comments

  1. 1.

    Donald Sensing

    August 2, 2003 at 12:32 pm

    You explained the Left’s position much better than the Left does, actually. Scary, huh?

  2. 2.

    tomaig

    August 2, 2003 at 2:21 pm

    Well Put!!!

  3. 3.

    Oliver

    August 2, 2003 at 7:25 pm

    John, I’ve been on the Saudis since before you started your blog, okay?

  4. 4.

    Emperor Misha I

    August 2, 2003 at 8:02 pm

    Priceless, Blogfather!

  5. 5.

    John Cole

    August 2, 2003 at 8:09 pm

    I have been railing against the House of Saud since before I had a blog too, Oliver. Unfortunately, coddling the evil House of Saud ain’t just a Bush thing, despite the new efforts to portray it as such.

  6. 6.

    D2D

    August 2, 2003 at 11:00 pm

    Yeah Wyche Fowler, former Democratic (and very partisan)Senator from Georgia and US ambassador to Saudi Arabia is a huge fan of the house of Saud.

  7. 7.

    Tom F.

    August 3, 2003 at 2:23 pm

    Nearly 800 words in three “sentences”? Wow, just when I thought hippies couldn’t get any dumber…

  8. 8.

    Billy Hankj

    August 3, 2003 at 7:50 pm

    Great. Reminds of the “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.” routine.

  9. 9.

    Dean Esmay

    August 4, 2003 at 6:47 am

    You forgot the PatternOfDeception in which everything which could possibly be a matter of interpretation or human error or disagreement means that BushLied!

  10. 10.

    sparrow

    August 4, 2003 at 6:22 pm

    Everyone will enjoy the article titled “How Bush suckered the dems” about the 16 words at the ohio republican site found thru the main republican site and hear the giggling at the whitehouse.

  11. 11.

    Charles Johnson

    August 4, 2003 at 6:25 pm

    Thanks for the mention, John. But I won’t be holding my breath waiting for any apologies from that crew.

  12. 12.

    Red Ruffansore

    August 6, 2003 at 11:34 am

    I have tried to follow the thoughts of the Left for several years… I hear their words and know their menaing.. But their words make no sense!

  13. 13.

    SteveMG

    September 21, 2003 at 9:12 pm

    Oliver’s criticisms of the House of Saud and our relationship with them began the second Bush took the oath of office. Before that, nada. Prince Bandar could be banging Hillary on the Oval Office desk and old Oliver would be defending it.

    SMG

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. The S-Train Canvass says:
    August 2, 2003 at 2:18 pm

    House of Saud shuffle…

    My homie Aysel says I have been picking on John Cole (Balloon Juice) a little but he’s definately one of…

  2. Dailypundit says:
    August 2, 2003 at 8:05 pm

    How Do They Keep Track?

    John Cole sums up the left’s international “positions” in a thousand words of well-chosen insane babbling.

  3. Trojan Horseshoes says:
    August 2, 2003 at 9:33 pm

    The Left’s position on the war on Terror

    From Balloon Juice: A perfect summation of all the contradictory and mutually exclusive positions the Left has taken on the…

  4. The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler says:
    August 3, 2003 at 12:41 pm

    Summary of the Loony Left’s Position on the War on Terror…

    You probably thought it couldn’t be done, we know we did, but we were wrong. The Imperial Blogfather done did…

  5. insignificant thoughts says:
    August 3, 2003 at 12:52 pm

    This is too damned good…

    John Cole writes about the Credibility Gap Democrats face by combining all their positions on the War on Terrorism into a stream of consciousness. Read it and try to keep up. It’s well worth it when you get to the…

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