Listening to Matt Drudge last night I picked up the predictable-as-the-sun-going-down rightwing spin on the Iraq war: basically, if we fail in Iraq then a lot of people will blame the media for making it happen. He’s absolutely right, as long as by ‘a lot of people’ you mean Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity and every other professional bullshit artist who wouldn’t accept responsibility if it was tattooed on Scarlett Johansson’s ass taped to a cute, fluffy kitten (ass removed at owner’s request).
When you attribute mystical powers of coercion to “the media” any number of things begin to make sense. Obviously these fifth-columnist fifth-estaters from the fifth dimension forced Bush to put incompetent hacks in charge of every aspect of postwar reconstruction, employing mind-control rays to force Bush and Rumsfeld to forego even the most minimal plannning for a rocky occupation (caveat: the rays apparently don’t penetrate the State Department, but that’s okay from The Media’s perspective because they can just force Bush to use reports from Foggy Bottom as trivets and table-leg equalizers). The philosophical implications are staggering. One has to ask whether the traditional concepts of free will and individual responsibility, principles on which our entire form of government is founded, have to be revisited in an era when The Media (and presumably The Left) possess awesome powers of mind-control-at-a-distance.
The group of hard-core blame-shifters isn’t actually that large. Folks from Francis Fukuyama to William Kristol to Bill O’Reilly have, in their own way, acknowledged that you can’t use the passive-tense any longer with respect to Iraq. Claiming tthat “Iraq was botched” lets the perps off too easy, specific people botched it. History will be especially unkind to Donald Rumsfeld (Greg Djerjian has written authoritatively on this) but the whole band of idealists and hacks who managed this operation will come in for their share of abuse. To pretend otherwise is both dishonest and increasingly untenable.
ppGaz
Don Rumsfeld? The guy who didn’t want to use the word “insurgents” not that long ago, and claimed that the unpleasantries in Iraq were just being caused by a few “dead enders?”
It’s hard to keep up with these arbiters of terminology
Slide
Its the media’s fault:
From Instapundit
.
Anderson
Well, I just want to go on record as 100% willing to accept the responsibility for anything, under those circumstances.
Davebo
Come on Tim. Any fool knows that Cindy Sheehan is the singular reason why the war went south.
Now quit your whining and clap louder!
Lines
Ok, lets say I want to blame the media for one of my pipes breaking this weekend. Do I just state that it’s the fault of the media? Do I have to threaten the media right away? Do I need to show proof that the media has committed egregious acts that have resulted in my pipe breaking or is it just a matter of faith-based fault fragging?
I really want to make sure I get it right, because when I do, I won’t have to pay the plumbing bill or mop up any water. I’ve left all the water there as is, because, well, it’s the fault of the media.
stickler
Remember, the Enemy Within is always more dangerous than the Enemy Without. And for many folks, that’s very comforting. For one thing, it means that your country is still (despite any objective evidence to the contrary) mightier than its enemies.
Plus, if you’re among the crowd of hacks who screwed the pooch, deflecting blame to the Enemy Within has certain benefits for your future employment.
It’s been done before, and with great success, you know.
Blue Neponset
Apparently the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs thinks something similar to Drudge. This is from yesterday’s Meet the Press:
I expect politicians and pundits to make excuses like this but it is very unseemly, IMO, for a four star general to do it. The Pentagon and the White House have been aware of their poor performace in the Iraq public relations war for a good long time. If they can’t figure out how to fix a problem they are well aware of then they only have themselves to blame.
VAMark
In order to argue that either “the media” or “the opportunistic Democratic politicians” (yes I’m broadening the argument) lost the war, I think you have to answer a key question. Exactly what did this administration want to do in Iraq that either of those groups blocked?
It appears to me that the Bush administration was able to do exactly what they wanted when they wanted to do it, with the exception of contraints imposed by the physical realities of logistics or the political needs of our key UK ally.
Given that, the results would seem to reflect the wisdom of their choices a lot more than the interference of the media or the Democrats. What am I missing?
Blue Neponset
A link to the MTP Pace interview transcript noted above.
Jason in MO
Ask not who your President can blame for you but who you can blame for your President.
RonB
I completely agree,Tim. If they can’t accept Scarlett Johansson’s ass, thats the side I dont wanna be on.
Jim Allen
A bit off topic, but I’m beginning to think that, if John doesn’t come back soon, this blog may be up for a Koufax award.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
stickler
Wow. Gen. Pace is really working hard in that interview.
Gosh, why is it that those lazy reporters aren’t getting the news out? You’d think that just one or two of them had the guts to get to the real story of Iraq, wouldn’t you?
Oh, one of them did. How’s old Bob Woodruff doing?
Well, that sounds pretty good! Still under sedation, but he is able to react to their voices! He’ll be ready for prime time any day now. So what’s the MSM’s excuse?
The Other Steve
It’s interesting how it’s following the same pattern was Vietnam. The generals are giving the rosey assessments again.
When reality is, they have no fucking clue what’s going on.
ppGaz
I’m not sure that the man we saw on MTP yesterday wasn’t DougJ, and not General Pace. Not even a spoofer could have spewed more baloney in just 15 or 20 minutes of air time.
I must say, DougJ looks good in that uniform, though. Handsome devil.
Faux News
LOL. I was thinking the exact same thing! “well, now we know whos DougJ is”
Ancient Purple
I forgot where I read it, but there was an interview with a reporter who stated that this administration wants reporting different over there than it is at home.
For instance, if 75% of East Coast residents were suddenly without water or electricity, that would be front page news. Rightly so. You wouldn’t shove that story off and put up a story about the latest kid’s mural at the local elementary school.
Why are the expectations any different in Iraq?
If the electrical grid is running at 100% and potable water is available to everyone from the kitchen sink, then that “good news” would be on the front page of every paper. But Iraq is a mess, soldiers are dying, civilians are dying, people are being tortured, death squads are roaming, and sectarian violence could plunge Iraq into civil war.
Pardon me if I think the new paint job on the Ministry of the Interior building shouldn’t be today’s headline.
Tony Alva
While I understand what it is you are saying and am unwilling to let Rummy et al off the hook for botching the invasion aftermath, let’s not get so pompous as to deny the power of the media as a big influence on the American people support of the war and allow them a free pass on fair, balanced, and accurate reporting of failures AND successes in Iraq and what they’ve simply gotten wrong in the past.
I’m 2/3’s the way through a book called Stolen Valor by B.G. Burkett and would recommend it to anyone at this point who may be interested in how bad the reporting was during the latter half of the Vietnam conflict actually was and how it shaped the conventional view of the Vietnam vet. Story after story of big network sloppiness and lack of fact checking sources, many whom were nothing but phonies being thrust upon the American public each night on the news with wild stories of wanton killings and massacres as if they were everyday occurrences (all a little too similar in detail to Mei Ling). Stories of Vietnam vets so withdrawn that they live in groups out in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. None of it checked out and upon further review found to be complete BS, but nonetheless reported as fact by Rather and his ilk. Is what you are saying is that the media reports have no baring on public opinion, or are you claiming that media reports we are getting from the MSM outlets fair and balanced?
Sorry, but you’re wrong on both. There have been mistakes made undeniably and better strategy in Iraq seems to still elude us, but to give the media exoneration is extremely naive. The truth is we don’t know what the true state of things are over there. We should all be a lot more skeptical with everything we read/hear whether it be jackasses like Hannity or jackasses like Chris Mathis.
DougJ
There’s something awful about watching a general forced to lie like that. I say “forced” because we’ve seen what happens to military men who dare to be honest about Iraq — Shineski comes to mind.
Lines
Ah, Tony, could you please enlighten us some more with your hard-hitting factual analysis of today’s media effects on the Iraq war? Can you please tell us how reporting on the state of politics, how factually reporting the numbers of dead Iraqi’s is somehow making things even worse?
Do you want us to ignore the facts? To ignore that Iraq is in a slow-burn civil war that is just teetering on a full blown societal collapse?
How about the ineffectiveness of their government entities? Should we not report on that, because it might make them more ineffectual?
Your view is ignorance, you are applauding the forced ignorance that the administration wants the American people to wallow in. Well screw you, Tony. Life isn’t about unicorns and happy happy sunshine when there are thousands of dead children and more adding to the tally that this Administration needs to own up to.
Steve
Of course the media often gets it wrong, in retrospect. The fallacy lies in assuming that they only get it wrong in one direction.
This is particularly true in the current war where so much of the “good news” in the media has turned out to be propaganda which was bought and paid for by the administration.
Slide
Genral Pace was an outright disgrace on MTP yesterday. How ANYONE can believe ANYTHNG these people say at this point is beyhond comprehension to me – from the death of Pat Tilman to the situation in Iraq its alway spin, spin, spin. Do they think they are actually convincing anyone other than the severely mentally chanllenged like the MacBuckets, Darrells and Stormys of the world? Wow, it was a breathtaking performance for General DougJ errrr.. I mean Pace.
ppGaz
No, let’s.
1) Americans don’t trust the media, by huge polling margins.
2) Americans ignore the news media. What percentage of them actually watch any national news coverage at all on a regular basis? Check the ratings. I’d wager it is not 15% of the population.
3) The press does not exist to serve as a conduit for government press releases and happy news items. It exists to be contrarian and skeptical. Proper consumption of information puts the responsibility for “balance and fairness” on the consumer, not on the producer, of news streams. Blaming the producers is the same thing as blaming McDonalds for the obesity of Americans. Consumers must take responsibility, or else the system cannot work, and will not work.
4) “Fairness?” If you mean that reporting a 75% power outage as “Thousands still have power,” then you are right. Facts are neither balanced, nor fair.
You are dead wrong. The people govern in this country, not the generals and not the cable news directors. The people are responsible, and will learn to take that responsibility or else they will give up their power to interests that don’t put the people first.
Faux News
DougJ, please don’t be modest. You really are quite fetching in that uniform! Methinks Stormy will be sending you sexually suggestive email from now on.
Mark Jones
Tony Alva, give me a break. Dan Rather is gone. Long gone. He never was to the Iraq War what Walter Cronkite was to Vietnam. People like you need to stop living in the past. The Big 3 networks have very little, if any, influence on american opinion on the war. NOBODY watches them. Rather’s ratings were through the floor, and he’s gone now, anways. You people still believe that media influence, and not intractable enemies, poor strategy/planning and non-stop wishful thinking on the part of the Pentagon, are what caused the mess in Iraq. Get real. You sound as deluded as that robot, masquerading as the Chairman of the JCS, on MTP yesterday.
Blue Neponset
I am saying neither. I am saying Bush & Co.’s failure in the PR war is another example of their poor planning regarding the War in Iraq. I agreet that the Press had a great deal of influence over the public perception of the war in Viet Nam. If that conclusion is so obvious to you and me why couldn’t the Bush Administration figure it out and do something about it?
stickler
Re: Vietnam. Let’s also remember that the major American media outlets were relentlessly optimistic about the war effort all through 1967. They repeated what they were being told by the Pentagon because that was the patriotic thing to do.
Even when there was obvious evidence before their eyes that we weren’t “turning the corner” or whatever the talking point might have been. And there was a lot of happy talk in 1967, all of it coming from the Johnson Administration.
The media’s attitude toward the Vietnam War only began to shift with the Tet Offensive in 1968 — and polls suggest that the media changed at about the same rate as the American public. The media, then, followed popular attitudes. It didn’t “lead” or “shape” them.
Tim F.
“The media” is a lagging indicator of popular opinion here as well. Ideas which most reporters treat as ‘fringe’ or ‘crazy,’ such as questioning whether the war was worth it or whether we have a chance of winning, have majority support in the population at large. Turn on the Sunday bobbleheads and you’d think nobody but crazy Howard Dean ever suggested such a thing.
That’s changing, but not because “the media” is pushing it. It’s changing because “the media” is pushing in the other direction, and losing.
don surber
Oh boy another thread on Iraq so we can re-hash Vietnam
ppGaz
Triumph the Insult Dog checks in …..
Jim Allen
Those who don’t remember the past are stupid.
Richard Bottoms
The Wingers strategy will only work if we cower in fear that they might say bad things about our patriotism, or if we accept their false premises when they point to someone outlandish on our side and say we are all like them.
**cough Cindy Sheehan**
And isn’t it about time Howard Dean got an apology after by some on his own side for bstating the obvious about Iraq, just happens he was first to do so.
capelza
Well that explains my little PNW village. Not only did they move in groups here, but continue west daily on their fishing boats. I always wondered why there were so many Vietnam vets around here…I kid, only slightly.
Christ on a crutch, does this mean the admin actually is admitting the failure, before they admit it?
Ancient Purple
I am SO disappointed, Don. I was half expecting you to say that us Lefties are rooting for civil war. Then, I could call you a maniacal clown.
Now, I will have to settle for calling you a petulant gasbag.
Pug
Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity and every other professional bullshit artist who wouldn’t accept responsibility if it was tattooed on Scarlett Johansson’s ass.
Well…actually, Drudge would be more interested in Hannity’s ass, but there are millions that would accept any responsibility tattoed on the aforementioned ass (not Hannity).
Ancient Purple
us = we
Need more caffeine.
Lines
Hey Don, isn’t there a missing white girl somewhere that is demanding of your journalistic talent?
Once-ler
Has anybody really done that? I must have missed it. I guess numbers sometimes get attached to specific incidents, but overall it seems to me that this is an issue that almost everybody is trying very hard to ignore.
Pb
Man. And here I thought, the media was (in part) to blame for getting us *into* this war in the first place. They just can’t win…
Faux News
I prefer Shakespeare: “the past is prologue”. Rather apt in this situation.
scs
I have heard this refrain over and over again. But I still wonder, what planning was not done? Which incompetent hacks were put in place? I have not yet heard any details.
Of course the war has been complicated and hard and not successful. But could the utmost ideal planning by the most accomplished technicians have made it any better? Where is the proof or reasoning to show this? It was just a messy hard situation and their is probably no magic bullet. Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia are going to keep fighting it out in Iraq to spread misery there as long as they can. How can we stop that other than just hunkering down and out waiting them? And for the left (and others) to keep acting like there was some other way, without showing HOW there was, is basically these people spreading lies and smears.
It’s a little bit like Brownie- everyone jumped on him with gusto for being a failure. Now that they actually find out about the details, instead of just GUESSING and jumping to conclusions about what went wrong, they say – Well, maybe he wasn’t SO bad after all.” See it’s too easy. If you keep repeating the same thing over and over again, eventually people will believe you and few people will stop to ask “Well what are the details?” I’d like to hear some details for once.
The Other Steve
Isn’t Burkett one of the Swiftboat Veterans?
Look, here is the fucking reality of Vietnam. I’ll use small words so you can understand.
We walked into an ongoing Civil War. Some Vietnamese were unhappy with being a colony of various foreign governments for the past 1,000 years or so, whether it be China, Japan, France or the United States.
That war was between those who thought Vietnamese should determine Vietnam’s future, and those who were making a comfortable profit off the colonial relationship.
After the French gave up, some moron in Washington decided that it would be in our best interests to get involved, and they gave us a bunch of bullshit about how we had to be involved to stop communism, or the teetering dominoes would fall over all of Asia.
The longer we stayed in Vietnam, the more people we pushed to the other side of the conflict, who just wanted us the fuck out. There’s no way to *win* in that scenario.
So it doesn’t matter what the media said. What the people back home said. The whole affair depended on what the people in Vietnam thought.
You can go on and claim otherwise, like your buddy Burkett, but you’re just denying reality.
This is what Marine Commandant David M. Shoup had to say afer resigning his command in protest to our involvement in Vietnam:
Most modern day understanding of Vietnam has been created by the historical revisionists still trying to justify our wasted effort over there.
AkaDad
First, I want to go on record as being pro tattooing Scarlett Johanssons ass.
Second, so the party of “personal responsibilty”, is going to blame their incompetance, corruption, and failure, on the media. I say, bring it on…
Lines
I’d answer scs, but I’m laughing too hard. I laugh, only so I don’t cry, of course. To really be slapped in the face with such witless ignorance and to fully understand that there are more people like scs out there in the world is almost too much to handle.
I guess in the end, all I can say is “wow”.
Faux News
Would you like some KCN to go with the grape kool-aid?
scs
Lines, still waiting for the details. But I forgot, you’re a grown man too busy playing Sybil to actually come up with some details.
Richard Bottoms
The planning for the possibility that we might not be greeted as liberators and what to do if sya, they started shooting at us, even after we won.
The option we tried of shouting ‘hey that’s no fair!’ didn’t seem to work.
Donald Rumsfeld. Paul Bremer.
scs
Faux News/Lines/Sybil – still wating for details.
The Other Steve
Where’s the proof? About 4 millenia of human history.
There’s two ways to win a war.
– Don’t fight a war.
– Fight it with everything you got.
I find it just staggering that you would sit there and defend Rumsfeld. This isn’t a question of how could anybody know. Rumsfeld dismissed anybody who said otherwise, because he had a theory of minimal warfare to prove.
Well, Rumsfeld was wrong.
Faux News
ux News/Lines/Sybil – still wating for details.
The Other Steve
scs – I’m convinced you are a DougJ spoof.
I mean seriously, nobody could possibly this stupid and/or uninterested in things as to post the nonsense you do.
scs
Well we won the actual “shooting” war in a few weeks. As to the insurgency- what can you do? Nothing really. Other than try to win hearts and minds and start the political process. If you all have any other brilliant ideas – I’m sure Rumsfeld would love to hear them.
You would have to tell my a few details about HOW they were incompetent. Or WHO would have done better?
scs
See- the leftish insults and smears- but no facts or logic. As usual. It’s only “stupid” to you because it goes aginst your propanga you all soak up. Still waiting…
Blue Neponset
Compare the statements of Administration officials before the war to the current situation in Iraq. I think that should give you enough data to form an opinion about the planning before the War.
scs
Just because Collin Powell said that doesn’t make it the only course of action. There is no way to fight an insurgency “with everything you got”. That’s the nature of the insurgency – it’s underground. The only way is possibly to pull a Sadam Hussein and round up and kill and torture thousands of people to scare people into keeping them in line. Other than that – you have to win hearts and minds- if you can. A large military presence is no guarantee it will work.
Steve
Well, I wouldn’t call it “guessing.” Given that the head of FEMA was a former lawyer for an Arabian horse association with no experience in emergency management, and that his own emails from during the crisis made him look like an utter buffoon, I think there was an awful lot of evidence to support the view that he screwed the whole thing up in a major way. Just because there’s been a pushback doesn’t mean the original consensus view, with all the evidence that supported it, was just “guessing.”
capelza
scs…show the proof that they DID have proper planning….so the success of the “it will only cost 1.7 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq” gang.
Can you do that?
scs
I’m not sure which statements you mean actually.
ppGaz
Shorter scs: The amount and quality of planning was perfect. It could not have been done better. Either more, or less, planning would just have made things worse.
Why in the world do Tim and John let you post here? Are you the comic foil, the village idiot? Could you possibly be any more ridiculously stupid about these things?
The war has been “not successful,” so why question the planning?
You HAVE to be a spoof. Nobody …. nobody …. could be that dumb.
Blue Neponset
Any of their statements. The Bush Administration spoke quite a bit about what to expect during and after the invasion of Iraq.
scs
He had a few silly emails about his outfit etc. Come on, you’re going to judge the man’s performance by a few silly lines in an email that probably took about 3 minutes in total to write over his actions of weeks? I hradly believe those few lines were “evidence”. That is what I mean about propaganda.
DougJ
Scs, here’s a list of incompetent hacks appointed by Bush:
Treasury Secretary Snow
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff
Joint Chief of Staffs Myers
UN Ambassador John Bolton
National Security Advisor Rice
Secretary of State Rice
Head of PBS Ken Tomlisson
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
Press Secretary Scott McClellan
Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith (“the fucking dumbest guy on the planet”)
Former Proconsul of Iraq Paul Bremer
Karen Hughes, whatever her title is
The 24 year-old college drop-out they put in charge of NASA — his name escapes me right now.
Head of the CIA Porter Goss
Possibly-soon-to-be-indicted right-hand man of Goss at the CIA — Foggo.
Head of Federal Procurement (now indicted) — David Safavian
The 25 year-old intern from the Heritage Foundation they put in charge of the fledgeling Baghdad Stock Exchange.
Attorney General Abu Gonzales
Assistant Attorney General John Yoo
Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher
Reporter Jeff Gannon
scs
Wrong ppgaz. Where is the logic that any DIFFERNT planning would have made any significant difference? If you had put Howard Dean in Paul Bremer’s place, would the Bathists and Al Quaeda have then suddenly thrown up their arms and said – “That’s it. We love that guy Howard so much, we are not going to bomb Shia’s anymore! Screw our thousand year old tradition of hating Shias. We love Howard Dean!”
I don’t think so.
The Other Steve
scs is obviously a troll. Nobody reasonable would respond like this, lashing out at the imaginery ghosts and liberals.
It’s best, people, if we just ignore her/him/it.
CaseyL
What’s the word for the condition the guy in Memento had? the one where your long-term memory never gets updated from your short-term memory, so every day is like Groundhog Day for you?
That’s what scs has. She learns absolutely nothing from day to day – and hasn’t done so in the past 10 years. Her thought processes are frozen at a 9th Grade level.
In short: Yes, she can be that dumb. Even better, she’s sublimely unaware that she’s that dumb.
scs
Because I actually have something to say -instead of just calling people “Stupid” all the time with not one shread of logic to back it up. You should try logic and facts sometime Gaz. You might actually learn something and break out of your psycho partisan hit man mold.
ppGaz
Groan.
scs
See what I mean? Youa re all blinded by propaganda. You should all be able to respond – yes, here here and here. Instead you all just talk about how “stupid” I am. It’s shows your weakness and your shaky foundations.
capelza
Wow….
Nice feign to the left with the Howard Dean reference, but completely useless. DIFFERENT planning wouldn’t have made a difference? Oh I don’t know, planning for say, an insurgency, might have made a difference. Don’t know about you, but I figured there be reisistence…don’t know why the big brains in Washington couldn’t either. And they ignored their own Sec. of State’s “Powell Doctrine”. Jeez, the one guy who might have acutally had a real clue about the region.
scs
By the way – please excuse my multiple spelling errors/typos above. Must proofread.
Tony Alva
Look guys,
Not once did I mention dropping the entirety of the problems we’re experiencing in Iraq into the lap of the media. Nor did I disagree or take issue with those you all have pointed to be accountable. What I am saying is that public support of our nations efforts over there are heavily swayed by what the American general public gets on their evening news, and I do NOT believe we are getting a balanced view of everything that is going in Iraq. Why? Because we were bullshitted before during Vietnam by the very same people. It’s unfortunate that Vietnam has to be the comparison because most (and you all prove the point) immediately jump to the conclusion that I’m making Iraq/Vietnam policy comparison when all I’m addressing is the powerful impression the media made on the general public. That also happens to be the jist of the book I recomended as well. I think you guys are looking to argue about policy and that’s it. I contend the media has an agenda other than providing balanced reporting on the war in Iraq. I think to those that have jumped down my throat about my comment wouldn’t believe a hundred Iraqi’s or Amercian soldiers who told you a different story of what’s going on there and would instead dismiss them as administration ass kissers.
“Dan Rather’s gone…” Only tho be replaced by whole new bunch of agenda filled blatherers who are repeating the process only now you’ve got more of them and opposing agenda. Many of you will use the “Must learn from history…” meme. Well, MSM did a poor job during Vietnam and I have seen no indication that they have learned from their history. Don’t take my word for it, read the fucking book and check the guys footnotes. They seem to be in pretty good order to me.
Tim F.
You’re showing your inexperience, SCS. When an insurgency begins in earnest your only hope for success is an overwhelming military presence. You can still fail with a large presence, but without one failure is guaranteed. This is why Powell and many military leaders (Shinseki) argued that we should go in with many more boots than Rumsfeld thought necessary, or else not bother.
You ask why people toss around words like ‘incompetent,’ there’s your answer. Rumsfeld and the neocons saw Iraq as their personal sandbox for testing their distinct ideological fantasies. Rumsfeld believed that the modernized army could go in and knock over countries at will with far fewer boots and casualties than had ever been accomplished before. A lot of folks dissented, and golly gosh a lot of folks were ignored or stifled. The neocons separately believed that oppressed peoples will join hands and sing happy songs about America if we go in and kill their leader, which would lead to an entire world of hand-holding happy-song-singing America-lovers if we knocked over enough despots.
Both Rumsfeld and the neocons had to stifle quite a lot of dissent from people with real-world experience, which they accomplished with Cheney’s eager help.
If you want details, it’s not unreasonable for me to tell you to do the most minimal bit of reading first. For example, read my post. There’s a helpful link in there for you. Try recent posts from this same blog. You can’t make an argument from ignorance (that’s a logical fallacy rather than a general accusation) in a blog that addresses the topic regularly and expect to be taken seriously.
The Other Steve
Show me one example in history where the “hearts and minds” has worked.
BTW, Japan and Germany following WWII don’t count. Those are examples of “hearts and minds” being used to prevent the occurence of another war. This is in opposition to the WWI strategy of making them pay restitution which was ineffective, or the Roman strategy of murdering the women and children, plundering the city of all wealth, and salting the earth so nothing will grow for 20 years which was incredibly effective but not very nice.
scs
It’s not enough to list names. Besides, I am not saying that no one in the Bush admin is incompetent. I’m saying that is not the point for this discussion. The point is- what should have been done differently in Iraq, and would this action have really made a difference to deter determined groups of people (Baathist, Al Quaeda) to cause and keep trouble in Iraq?
The Other Steve
Obviously a parody troll.
Blue Neponset
scs,
I thought I answered your question without calling you names. What don’t you understand about comparing any of the statements the Adminstration made before the invasion of Iraq to the actual situation on the ground in Iraq today?
scs
I don’t know if there is any planning for an insurgency. It’s just a battle of will and patience and politics.
But now must read other long posts above.
scs
TimF, if you want to post general accusations about the war, I think it would behoove you to actually accompany such writings with some backup in the same post for once. I’m guesing I know as much about the Iraq war as you do, we read the same basic media everyday -mostly all based off of AP info. For you to act like I am more ignorant than you on this is once again for you to play your ‘superiority’ trump card, based on little evidence.
Al Maviva
It is interesting how quickly we’ve gone from cautious optimism to calling Iraq a complete writeoff, as if it is a pizza that arrived in 26 minutes, it’s a minute late so it must be completely unpalatable. That an all out civil war hasn’t broken out, and that key leaders from all factions are calling for calm (including Ali Sistani), gives me some hope. A US withdrawal as security forces continue to stand up will probably draw a lot of the sting out of the domestic side of the insurgency; I’d suspect that all the major parties will probably crush the domestic insurgents quite brutally when they have outlived their usefulness as a wedge against the Americans. It appears that it is a lot harder for people who live there to throw in the towel on notions of self rule, something like the rule of law, and something resembling a plural society.
It’s also interesting and unironic that Tet comes up. Tet was an unmitigated disaster for the Viet Cong and NVA. Gen. Giap admitted as much in his memoirs. Ho Chi Minh theorized a general offensive would give rise to a widespread popular uprising – that all it would take was the NVA launching major offensives in the North, while the Viet Cong (heavily augmented by NVA) attacked hundreds of targets simultaneously around the southern and central portions of South VietNam. These attacks were splashy but gained limited tactical traction, and in the end resulted in the near eradication of the Viet Cong, and the destruction of several strong NVA divisions. From that point on Viet Cong formations were destroyed as an effective fighting unit, and fought on only to the extent they were staffed by NVA members in civilian clothing. The media’s decree that the war was lost – Walter Cronkite’s “what the hell is going on here” in particular – was a substantial contribution to the U.S. loss of will. Tactically, Tet was such a disaster that LBJ and his defense staff could barely be bothered to take their eyes off of Khe Sanh, which they thought would be the next Dien Bien Phu, occurring at the same time, but which also was a defeat for the NVA. Giap in his memoirs is very clear that he never believed the U.S. could be defeated tactically, but that if the U.S. media and peace movement could be encouraged to oppose the war loudly enough, that the war could be won via U.S. domestic politics. The North Vietnamese government pursued this strategy by hosting turncoats and useful idiots on well publicized visits, e.g. Jane Fonda sitting on the gunner’s seat of an anti-aircraft gun. The Vietnamese commmunists didn’t win that war, they just provided photo ops and news headlines that helped participants in U.S. domestic politics to lose it.
Comparisons to Vietnam aren’t out of line here. It’s not rehashing it to point out that the stupid errors are being made again by both sides, albeit the “defeat” at this point is being seized by us with only 4% of the casualties incurred in Vietnam, at the hand of a much, much weaker foe, that lacks the military support of outside superpowers. It is also different in that a failure to help reform middle eastern politics will probably come back to bite the US in the a55 in a way that a failure in Vietnam never did (hey, what’s a few million dead Cambodians between you, me, and Noam Chomsky, right?) but otherwise the dynamic bears out Clausewitz’s admonition that war is a test of wills, and the side with a greater will to win generally does so. The AQ attacks in Iraq especially aren’t aimed at achieving any military tactical end; the goal merely is to spray the walls and streets with blood, making for good coverage, to convince America and its allies to run. They can’t win tactically, but they can sure convince us that there’s no use resisting Islamacist terrorism and its goals.
Thomas
scs,
Just in case you’re serious, here are the greatest hits of post-war Iraq planning:
–the White House’s dependance on Ahmad Chalabi-style bullshit and their refusal to admit they were fighting an insurgency and the similar and continuous refusal to admit they needed more troops
–Paul Bremer and co.’s idea of post-war Iraq, a bombed-out, economically devastated country, as a laboratory for bullshit economic theories, resulting in high unemployment and complete fiscal distrust of the Occupation’s intentions
–the existence of a policy of torture and extralegal treatment of detainees (innocent or guilty) that completely and rightfully destroyed any moral authority Americans had as occupiers
There you are.
scs
You would have to give me a few first so I knwo which ones stick out in your mind.
DougJ
Okay,
(1) Bush shouldn’t have gone in
(2) once he went in, he should have sent in more troops so that there wasn’t as much rioting and looting in the early days
(3) Bremeber shouldn’t have disbanded the military
(4) This goes to who was put in charge of things:
(a) there should have been more people who spoke the language put in charge of important things
(b) twenty-something interns from the Heritage Foudation should not have been given important positions
(5) Bush shouldn’t have countenanced torture at Abu Ghraib
(6) the commanders shouldn’t have launched that raid on Fallujah after the deaths of the contractors
(7) there should have been less emphasis on artificial deadlines for the constitution and more on reaching a consensus
I could keep coming up with these all day. But the larger point is this: this is what happens when you ignore the advice from experts (like those at the Army War College) and appoint hacks to be in charge of everything. It’s pretty simple. You’d think the “MBA president” would know a little more about management philosophy.
DougJ
It is interesting how quickly we’ve gone from cautious optimism to calling Iraq a complete writeoff, as if it is a pizza that arrived in 26 minutes,
Does that mean we can get the $300 billion back?
The Other Steve
Honestly, I think it goes back further before the insurgency. It goes back to the looting.
That was a sign we had lost control. Our offensive forces had out paced the supply lines, and then on top of that we did not have sufficient forces to move in and control the towns along the way, most specifically Baghdad.
In WWII, when the Allied forces moved into Berlin, we had hundreds of thousands of forces. There were soldiers stationed on nearly every street corner. And, we had soldiers in all the towns we had fought and captured along the way.
At that point it isn’t about conquest, at that point it’s about law enforcement. It’s about maintaining public discipline. It’s about crowd control.
When the looting started, we’d lost Iraq.
DougJ
Come on Steve, we all know that the looting only happened because the media was egging the looters on. Remember that newscast where Dan Rather talked about how easy it would be to loot? He was practically begging people to loot. It’s a disgrace. That man should be in Gitmo. He single-handedly lost the war for us.
scs
Well sometimes it may work, sometimes it doesn’t. For instance it seemed to work fairly well in Afghanistan. It didn’t work in Iraq because we have foreign interference there – Iran and Syria are turning it into a Shia/Sunni battleground. I don’t think that sending in massive troops would squash foregin elements and Al Quaeda because they are getting their reinforcements from abroad.
I think there can be a third way, I think people, Sunni’s, can be convinced over time that democracy and peace is to their benefit. And in fact some of them already have come to accept voting and some ideas of a shared government. To me this conflict will be like N. Ireland and Ireland. It will take generations but will slowly resolve. It will take time, not massive US troops sent in in vain hopes of changing ancient mindsets by force.
The Other Steve
This is *REALITY*.
I’m sorry, you don’t like reality. But in a Democracy when you wage a war, you had better have the people 100% behind you on it. You can’t accomplish that unless the war is so central to the nations survival that few question it. Like WWII.
Otherwise, people only like it if you win the war.
You launch an elective war, you’d better be damn sure you can win… because otherwise you won’t keep the support of the public back home.
So quit your fucking whining about how we’re all unpatriotic because we thought going into Iraq was a mistake.
Tim F.
The ‘argument from ignorance’ is a logical fallacy, not a general accusation, which I pointed out to you. Here’s a link. If you’ll stop overreacting and think you’ll appreaciate that it’s exactly what you made. Or if you were not making an argumentum ad ingorantiam, then you were simply pointing out that do not know whether something exists.
As I said above it doesn’t seem unreasonable for me to point to a link in this selfsame post as an answer to your question. Many more have been kindly provided by other commenters. I will assume then that your question, if it was a question, has been answered.
capelza
So, if the Bush Admin had said, FROM THE BEGINNING, that the war in Iraq will take GENERATIONS, do you honestly believe that there would have been much support? They did not say that, btw, they said it would be short, sweet and only cost a few billion dollars and would be over in weeks (hence that pesky “Mission Accomplished”). Not to mention that equally pesky “they’ll be throwing flowers at our feet” thingy.
The Other Steve
It doesn’t matter. If you do answer her seriously, she appears obtuse and un-interested. She just keeps asking stupid naive questions, rather than looking for answers her self.
I’m convinced she’s a parody troll. Seriously.
The Other Steve
They were also supposed to greet us with sweets.
They haven’t greeted us with flowers because of the extreme flower shortage in Iraq as a result of the brutal oppression of Hussein. Obviously.
scs
Well I agree. But I still don’t think that or ANYTHING will make a difference in the long run. Al Quaeda will be Al Quaeda for a long time to come, and they will do what Al Quaeda does- blow people and things up. No one can stop that. Now Al Quaeda thinks it sees an opportunity to cause the anarchy it so longs for by stirring up Shia and Sunni trouble, just like they stirred up ethnic tensions in Afghanistan. And they seem to be getting support from regioanl governments. It will have to die on its own (or not), and the people of Iraq will have to kill it- not the US.
scs
I ask questions as a way to try and make you all think. If I just made long invloved statements, you wouldn’t be effected.
Lines
Tony:
Why? As someone pointed out above, it’s both easier and more effective to report on a bombing than it is to state how great the new paintjob on the constable’s headquarters looks. Painting buildings to cover up the blood isn’t something to be reported on.
Lines
scs:
I’m not going to answer your bullshit diatribe because it would only be a rehash of everything said across the blogosphere for the last 3 years.
Too many times have we pointed out the actions of this administration that have directly resulted in the lost lives of both American soldiers and innocent Iraqis. For you to come here and expect us to list everything all over again, just for your pathetic enjoyment is ridiculous and exhausting. For you to have even asked for it just shows that you are either trolling or you’re one of the most ignorant apologetic dipshits in existance here.
So which is it?
scs
Sorry, but I ACTUALLY saw people throwing flowers, you all. I saw some Kurdish women throws flowers at soldiers on CNN during the initial stages of the war. The Kurds and Shia (80%) of the country DID rejoice at the invasion. The Sunni’s (20%) did not. It is not as simple as you make it out to be by your constant repetitions of useless propaganda.
Blue Neponset
I know. I just find it easier to discredit trolls & such by actually taking their bullshit arguments seriously. They usually don’t respond to people who actually answer their dumb questions, so it makes them look even more troll-like.
scs
But see that is how propaganda gets started. Someone in a leadership positions makes an argument (a blog writer in this case) and everyone follows along and agrees. Then these same people do not ever question that argument again and fix those ideas as facts in their minds for years to come. They don’t bother to keep asking themselves the relevant questions they need to, to keep refreshing their opinions. That’s why I posed the questions here. If the details are so fixed in your minds, it shouldn’t be difficult to come up with a few.
Ancient Purple
Wow. Just wow. This is about as plastic as “you go with the army you have, not the one you want.”
scs’ new foreign policy: Just do it. Because nothing will make any difference in the long run.
scs is undoubtedly a parody.
scs
Pleeease Tim F. This is what you wrote:
What makes you convinced my argument is from ignorance? Again, that is implying that your knowledge on Iraq is superior to mine. As I read the papers everyday, I doubt it. You can’t play it both ways.
Pooh
I think SCS is Doug Feith in disguise.
scs
Well actually, I know you’ll laugh at this, but, yeah. When it comes to an potentially dangerous dictatorship supported by a potential insurgency you have three choices. You do nothing and hope this country doesn’t develope into a future threat. Or, you go in with overwhelming force, and cause great sacrifice to the country in terms of money and casualties. Or, you try the third option. Overthrow the dictatorship, set up the best system you can, and try to wait out the insurgency – which could die of its own steam, by offering a steady stream of carrots and sticks. I still think in this case, the third option was the most practical for our situation.
capelza
Well scs, back up your arguement then with some facts….show us where this admin did NOT say the things they said in the lead up to this war. And you never answered me, if you had known that changing iraq would take generations BEFORE we invaded, would you have supported it? If you knew there would be an insurgency lasting YEARS would you have supported it? If you knew that the reasons for invading Iraq were, well, bogus..would you have supported it anyway?
Asking what you consider “relevant” questions is not working, because what you have been asking for is three years old, though you can still find it online IF you are willing to look. Come back with something tangilbe (besides pictures of some Kurds throwing flowers).
Show us how, if they had gone in with the overwhelming force it would have still been the same. Be careful, though, that it doesn’t lead you to a Vietnam analogy…because there you might find some wingnut quicksand.
The Other Steve
I agree. scs is clearly not ignorant.
She’s just a wonderful parody troll, even better than DougJ.
scs
Maybe not. But he did say the War on Terror will take generations. And that is what this is part of now. I think the actual set up of the system of Iraq should be done, (as much as we can do anyway) within a year. So far, it seems to be roughly on schedule in terms of elections and setting up a goverment. Little slow on the Iraq army but getting there. Anyway, this stuff is not easy people. You just have to do the best you can.
Tim F.
SCS,
I don’t know why you insist on mistaking a formal fallacy for a general accusation. Here is the important part of your first post:
That is either a general statement that you don’t know what was done by which incompetent, or else a clear cut argument from ignorance as defined here. If you insist again that I’m calling you ignorant in a general sense I’ll assume that you’re trying to get on my nerves and leave you for other people to deal with.
In fact well-informed people are more likely to make an argumentum ad ignorantiam, and make it persuasively, because it doesn’t mean anything if a generally ignorant person doesn’t know something. For example, I could argue that I’ve never heard of a poop quark but who cares, I’m not a physicist. If I wanted to prove that there wasn’t a poop quark it’s not an argument that I’d choose to make. On the other hand if Stephen Hawking claimed that he’d never heard of a poop quark he’s still making an argumentum ad ignorantiam but it’s nonetheless good evidence that there’s no such thing. In other words argument from ignorance is a tactic that the well-informed are even more likely to use, because only they have the credibility to use it.
None of which will have any impact, and you’ll go on thinking that I’m talking about a state of being rather than a tactic.
scs
When has that ever happened? First of all, when I do ask some questions, sometimes I get bombarded with responses at the same time – so it is difficult for me to answer back to all of them. Unfortunately, I am human, and sometimes I may pick out the most insulting one to respond to, because it got my ire up. But never fear, I still read the serious ones with interest.
scs
As much as the Left loves to play gotcha on that, what they said does not interest me much. If they estimated the war would cost a certain amount or last a certain amount of time, I took it for what it was – an estimate. Everyone knows no one has a crystal ball into the future. Most people who supported the war didn’t support it based on those statements, but on a view of the situation in the Middle East.
The answer is yes to all above. I think it was worth a try to spread democracy in the Middle East. The place needs some help. A peaceful Iraq may take generations, but most of our work should be done in a year. Then maybe just troops in bases after that. On balance I think the good effects of our invasion should outweigh the bad. Hopefully anyway. But anything is better than the status quo.
capelza
Lordy, girl…if a car repair man tells you all your car needs is a new headlight that’ll cost a hundred bucks and take a few hours, then when you go to pick up the car (after weeks of being put off) and find he’s replaced your engine for several thousand dollars (with a crappy engine to boot), you just say, “oh well, it was just an estimate”?
Krista
Yeah, it’s working a treat in Afghanistan. That’s why Canadian troops are getting their asses shot off. It would be because your president had such a hard-on to get rid of Hussein that he pulled troops out of Iraq before it was even CLOSE to being stable. UN forces had no problem going with the US into Afghanistan, because of 9/11. But when the U.S. basically said, “Okay guys, see ya later!”, and then left their allies to try to clean up the mess — well, it’s leaving a bit of a bad taste in people’s mouths. If you go help out a friend in a fight, you don’t expect him to take off in the middle of it, in order to go pick a fight with someone else. And after awhile, when you’re battered and bruised, you start to question why the hell you’re still there.
Ancient Purple
I didn’t laugh. I cried with pity for you.
Your position is simply awful because it cannot withstand itself. Tell me, when are you up for invading China, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, and a host of other countries with tin horn dictators that are “potentially dangerous.”
You should have no problems with us invading them all tomorrow because: “Just do it. Because nothing will make any difference in the long run.”
I am sure you will be volunteering tomorrow at your local Army Recruiting Office.
Faux News
True, and the good folks at RedState still refuse to believe that the “dancing and flowers” phase is over in Iraq.
scs is merely a Troll, hence why I want him to drink the KCN Grape Kool-aide. He is akin to the creationists who want scientist to prove evolution when they can not prove the existence of God.
My favorite quote regarding this conflict still this far is Ahmed Chalabi:
“I am America’s BEST FRIEND in Iraq!”
Ancient Purple
But that was NEVER a selling point for the war until after the fighting started. The war was sold strictly as a necessity to stop the proliferation of WMDs. That was the focus, including the famous 16 words and terminology like “mushroom clouds” to rally support.
The “spreading democracy” meme came much later.
scs
Okay TimF, I skimmed your link. I think I see what you are saying a little better; however, I still think you snuck in a little attitude there. Anyway, you are are claiming that I am making an ‘argument from ignorance’, making a claim that I don’t know of any good details to support your thesis, therefore your claim is not valid. But I disagree. What I wrote is slightly different than an ‘argument from ignorance’ because as argument from ignorance seems to me to be trying to prove a negative. For instance, if I tried to question the existence of a ‘Poop Quark’ there would be no way for you to respond. But in this case I am not actually questioning or denying the EXISTENCE of general accusations about the war; of course I am aware of the generalties, however, I am questioning their validity and relevance and have not heard many specific details of these general accusations. Even if all of them were accepted as truth, I doubt that it would have made a difference to the outcome. So in other words, it’s more like ‘argument nullifaction’. I am asking YOU to prove you your opinion that you portray as a fact by providing backup. I’m not sure which Latin argument category this falls in to; however, I still think it’s a valid tactic.
Krista
And evidently, our government is now borrowing a leaf from your government’s book.
I believe I shall weep. Fortunately, where we’ve been exposed to this kind of bullshit via your administration for the last few years, I don’t think we’re going to swallow this line.
scs
You obviously haven’t worked with home contractors like I have. An estimate coming in on budget and time is a miracle.
scs
Well maybe we all read between the lines. It was perhaps a conspiracy of the masses. After all Bush was reelected even after we knew about “WMD lies”. We must have agreed with him for more than that.
scs
The Middle East is different. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand much.
capelza
scs…I’m a grown up, with my own house and everything. When a contractor tries to pull some bullshit on me, they find it a little more difficult than it apparantly would be with you. Sure there are cost overruns, but if I (here I go again) say want my kitchen sink replaced I don’t expect or accept that they’ll have to tear my house down and rebuild it. Maybe you have diminished expectations from your contractors, I pay mine to know what they are doing (and findng out the house is rotten AFTER they give me the estimate is just pathetic. Even more pathetic would be accepting it after the fact…”oh well”.)
Krista
True, but if your contracter gives you a quote on your kitchen, and then winds up re-doing your entire house and charging you for work you never approved, that’s a little different.
ppGaz
Oh, we did. We did. We thought, and now we are certain.
capelza
My god, that’s just so…profound. Like wow, my mind is changed, totally.
What is different, pray tell…explain please.
scs
DougJ, I have a new observation about your writing style, which you can try to fix. Not only short, simple sentences, short posts, talk about religion, but you separate your sentences into one line paragraphs. Your posts look like a business letter with head, body, and conclusion. You might want to work on that.
Krista
capelza – okay, that was weird. I wrote that before I read yours.
scs
Religious fanaticism. A desire to bring a clash of civilizations and to bring it to us in our countries.
scs
Believe me, I do. I need to get some of your contractors.
Lines
scs = DougJ on Mountain Dew’s new MDX?
Look, scs, how many expert opinions from around the world saying “Iraq is a mess” have to come in before you admit it? A soldier handing out a pen to a school-aged child isn’t success, its just a single gesture of goodwill. The soldiers are doing their jobs as well as can be imagined, but the orders from on high have created a dangerous situation in Iraq that they were overwhelmingly warned about. George Bush Sr and Clinton both knew that any invasion of Iraq would create a situation that was more likely to get out of hand than resolve itself.
But if you want one example of where liberals would do better? Let the Iraqi’s work out their political issues themselves. Using force to try to create democracy isn’t working. Their government is largely seen as an empty figurehead. The positions in that government are routinely assassinated, so do you think they are filled with the most capable?
Unlike other countries that have accepted Democracy, Iraq has no single figure that they can rally behind, there is no single message that can be spoken that will rally them all together to work together. Hence why the stongarm tactics of Saddam were considered a relatively peaceful alternative to civil war and chaos.
capelza
Yours was shorter and sweeter though..:)
Scs, so the WHOLE FRICKIN” ME wants to bring it to our shores?
Whose buying the propaganda again?
Slide
Al Maviva said:
Hardly. It was a military defeat for the Viet Cong and NVA no doubt, but it could hardly be considered an “unmitigated” disaster since it unintentionally had a great impact in the US and contributed to the changing perceptions which ultimately led to the US pull out. Many have described Tet as being a “turning point” in the war. A war that the Viet Cong and the NVA won I’ll remind Al.
What Al and many war supporters always seem to lose site of is that insurgencies don’t have to “win” battles to win. They win by not losing. Our Generals in Viet Nam were always telling us we were “turning the corner”. They proudly announced the lopsided enemy body count weekly. They told us convincingly of every battle won against the enemy. But the sad fact is that we lost. I am old enough to remember VietNam and the optimistic rosy predictions that were made by politicians and generals alike. I had a sense of deja vu listening to General Pace on MTP on Sunday. The war in Iraq is going “very, very, well” he said. I was just waiting for him to follow up with, “we’ve turned the corner”.
jaime
How else would the Rapture ever come about?
scs
I won’t admit it for five years or so. Then we will really know. And, yeah I guess if we REALLY wanted to quell the insurgency, we could borrow a few ideas from Saddam. But we don’t want to go there. That’s why we have to use more ‘subtle’ means and just tough it out, and hope the people come to their senses eventually. I’d say the chances are 50-50.
Tony Alva
Lines,
My personal view of media motive has to do with MSM ego and a desire to be PART of history vs reporting it. I studied journalism as an undergrad foolishly thinking it might be a decent career choice and was very surprised back then (23 yrs ago) how self centered and partisan 99% of all my professors and the professionals who came and spoke to us were. As a naive undergrad, this came as a big surprise that this was the case since all the journalism indoctrination mantra was all about objectivity, objectivity, objectivity.
We talked a great deal about Vietnam during our course of study. Not about policy and politics, rather about what I would soon discover was journalism’s high water mark, the professions triumph of all triumph’s: influencing the outcome of a major conflict, at least that’s how I came away from it. The whole scope of journalism changed in Vietnam from TV coverage to sheer volume of reporters in the theatre. Again, without really having a strong opinion on the war due mostly from lack of studying it enough historically at that time I thought that these media mavens were quite full of themselves and I thought they sort of “celebrated” our retreat from Vietnam. This caught me off guard quite a bit. I think MSM has taken to attempting to best this triumph with their efforts during the Iraq conflict.
That’s why the Burkett book has been so interesting to read. Story after story of reporters on all levelsimply buying the BS of some phony wannabe even after fact checkers uncovered the lies for them.
After learning about what happened to the South Vietnamese after our withdrawal and how little press was given to the atrocities (i.e. the consequences of our disengagement), it was clear to me what had transpired with regard to “objectivity” and the MSM. How big media handled the “Cartoon” story only shows how weak and unreliable they really are. I read it, but with a healthy amount of skepticism.
Faux News
scs reminds me of a poster called “Uncle Meat” on F*ckedcompany.com who would purposely troll and bait people, using the “prove it” arguement. Of course once he was totally discredited (OWNED) he would then admit to the troll and type “DANCE LITTLE ANT, DANCE”!
Sorry scs, I won’t do your Uncle Meat Ant Dance. You’re a boring Troll. Now be a good girl and drink the KCN grape kool-aide.
Andrew
The only idiots who think this are ex-neo-imperialists like Buckley and Fukuyama. Other idiots, such as yourself, are still optimistic.
Mac Buckets
LALALALALALALALA! We’re not listening to you! Constant whining and naysaying never has any effect on anything!
Signed,
Democrats
Mac Buckets
Wrong.
While it wasn’t the lead, liberating and democratizing Iraq were highlighted in every speech Bush made in the walk-up to war (in fact, the “freeing Iraq” bit was the only point where Bush seemed quasi-eloquent). It wasn’t a “meme” that was scrounged up after we didn’t find WMD.
Lines
Mac’s Mother: Son, please don’t put that knife in the outlet
Mac: Your constant naysaying has no effect on me! ZAAAAAPPPPPP!
Mac’s Mother: Son, please don’t stick your fingers down the garbage disposal.
Mac: Your constant whining only proves that my chosen path is the correct one! GaaahhhHHH!!!!!!
Mac’s Mother: Son, the pickle slicer is for pickles only, please don’t put that in there.
Mac: Because of your earlier naysaying and whining, I have to! OWWWW!!!
Mac’s Mother: yes doctor, because of my constant whining and naysaying, my son continues to hurt himself, can you please place him into a protective padded room?
Mark Jones
scs, you are one stupid motherfucker.
Is that detailed enough for you?
Jorge
Um,
Is SCS arguing that we had a good plan going into Iraq and that incompetents do not run the war?
Because when you consider the stated expectations before the war and the actual results after the war, she’s made the most convincing argument against this war that that I’ve ever read.
jaime
Ummm…when the “naysayers” have no power to affect policy and strategy…yeah.
Slide
I second Mark Jones
Steve
I think Al has brought up a fundamental truth that is worth considering. Many wars are, in fact, won by the side with the greater will to win. (This is obviously not true in all cases – I doubt many nations could match the fanaticism of the WWII Japanese, for example.)
We are a democratic nation with all the political strengths and weaknesses of democracy. Not only do we have to win the war, but the government has to convince the public that the war is being won or at least winnable, to sustain public support for the war effort. On the other side, we often face totalitarian opposition that has no capacity for self-doubt. In Korea, the Chinese were willing to pile up as many of their own bodies as it took to win. In Vietnam, the same dynamic applied. Body count mattered to us, but it didn’t matter at all to the other guys, which gave them an immense psychological advantage.
Some in the US regret that we are not more like the enemy. They lament that the American people do not have greater resolve to “pay any price, bear any burden” in order to win the war at hand. They regret that there is a tipping point past which the American public will no longer agree that the war is worth it, and they regret that our form of government forces the administration to be subservient to the public will and its weakness of character.
All in all, I’d prefer to be part of a democracy that risks taking a loss or two, rather than a totalitarian society which wins every war that is physically winnable. I think it’s worth the tradeoff. Others, particularly those who feel our very survival is at stake in the current conflict, wouldn’t agree. I think it’s important to recognize how deep the fundamental disagreement is along these lines.
capelza
MacBuckets…exactly how many years, excuse me decades, do you think we should have devoted to Vietnam? I mean the names on the wall start in 1959, when did the last soldier die?
I’ll go with what my husband says about Tet, they didn’t ever do that again, they went back to the tunnels and the war of attrition. He was there, I’ll take his word for it.
And what would we have “won”? If we had thrown everything we had at them? It was a fucking Civil War, we stepped in where it wasn’t any of our business. “Bombing them back to the stone age” to save them from the commies.
I am always reminded of that phrase when I hear talk of the nuclear option in the ME. We’ll nuke them to save them.
Mac Buckets
No, they win by eventually taking control of the government. Everything else is just forestalling the inevitable.
There is not one sane individual anywhere (even on the intertrons) who really believes that the Sunni terrorists in Iraq have any chance of ever regaining control of the government in Iraq. That’s why, in real terms, it is clear that Saddam lost the war, and the US-led Coalition won the war.
ppGaz
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scs is:
A: A real person, without a clue
B: A troll/spoof, perpetrator unknown
C: John Cole
D: DougJ
E: A high school class project
F: Your sister
G: My sister
capelza
So we “won”..why the hell are we still discussing it three years later then?
Mac Buckets
I have no opinion. I was barely alive. All I’m saying is, according to Giap’s statement, the enemy sought to exploit American anti-war protesters (who didn’t have a shred of governing power) to win the war. Draw your own conclusions.
Ancient Purple
I never said the meme happened AFTER we didn’t find WMD. I said it happened post-mushroom clouds/chemical weapons/etc.
Nice try though, Mac. I give you 2 out of 10 for the attempt.
Slide
bucket boy:
another very stupid comment from a rather stupid individual
ppGaz
Gee, how brilliant of them, Mac!
Now, which is more brilliant, do you think?
Anti-US forces trying to capitalize on US war protests, or Pro-US forces — such as our own government — trying to capitalize on those protest for their own purposes?
Which disturbs you more?
Don’t answer, big boy. It’s a rhetorical question.
Mac Buckets
We should be discussing it because we still have troops there, but that doesn’t mean we lost. Hello, two elections and a Constitution! Saddam in jail! Any of that ring a bell?
Shorter answer: Because George Bush is president and the Democrats are out of power.
Ancient Purple
My vote is:
H. A human/animal hybrid cloning attempt gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Mac Buckets
I hope it’s a rhetorical question — rather than just a dumb one — but we can never be sure with you guys sometimes.
ppGaz
We’ve started two wars against his regime in the last 15 years. What was the total time required to overcome his organized resistance, the sum for both wars?
Thirty days?
Forty? Twenty? I am too lazy to look it up. How many days, total, in two wars did this “reincarnation of Hitler” manage to hold us back from our goals?
Can you look it up for me? I’m busy doing a crossword puzzle over here.
Lines
better answers: because it was an illegal invasion that is poised to disrupt a tenuous stability across the middle east?
because Iraqis and American Soldiers continue to die on a regular basis?
because the Liberals were right all along?
capelza
Every enemy seeks to exploit..we are doing it too.
You have to realise that that war, like this one, was lost at home because it dragged on with no seeming end in sight. Regular people began asking “What are doing there?” and the answers became more and more hollow…that last being “Peace with honor”. It took another four/plus years after Nixon first spouted that for us to finally get out.
Isn’t Bush Co. looking for the sound bite exit stratgey now? Something that won’t look like turning tail, but getting us out nevertheless….I can’t keep track anymore, last corner we turned found 1300+ dead Iraqis laying in the street.
EL
I have worked with contractors, and they are usually somewhat off, true. But if they’re off by a factor of over 100 (the difference between “this is it” for 1.7 billion for the American taxpayer, and the approximately 250 billion we’re up to currently) I’d report that contractor to someone. Some overrrun, is expected. But at almost 200 times the estimate, you’ve got to be kidding to make that sort of comparison.
scs
I’m arguing that we had an average plan and average people running the war. Not the best, but not the worst ever. We took the logical steps needed- rebuilding, army, government. It wasn’t done that well, but could it really have been done that much better given the circumstances, even if John Kerry and Nancy Pilosi was in charge? I doubt it. Steve again wrote a good post and like he said, it comes down to will and patience in the end.
Blue Neponset
The White House has lost the PR war and it is all because of those big, bad Democrats and that nasty traditional media.
If it is true that the ultimate power over something is the power to destroy it then I guess we know who is really in charge of this war. It apparently doesn’t matter what Bush does in Iraq becasue he doesn’t have the ability to effectively counter the Democratic and MSM spin. What a great leader.
Al Mavia mentioned Clausterwitz above. I wonder what he would think of a leader who couldn’t maintain support for a war? My guess is he wouldn’t blame the whiners and naysayers for the declining support like you do.
Perry Como
Settle down folks. Elizabeth Cheney is now our democracy czar so everything is sure to work out fine.
And all of our energy needs will soon be solved by attaching a dynamo to Orwell’s grave, because someone actually came up with the term DEMOCRACY CZAR.
Mac Buckets
Clearly, you don’t read your own posts, then.
0 out of 10 points for backtracking.
I mean, of course you’d still be wrong, since the first Iraq nuke “mushroom-cloud” scare wasn’t even attempted by the Bush administration. It was by Madeline Albright in 1998. But I didn’t expect you to know that.
scs
Of course. Anyone who disagrees with you is stupid, right? That’s because you are so enlightened.
ppGaz
Whoops! Wrong answer!
Now you have to talk straight.
Which is more concerning … Giap “using” the protests, or Nixon using them? Al Qaeda using them for their purposes, or Bush using them for his?
Come on, answer for real. I double dog dare you.
capelza
The media…it’s the media’s fault..I just had a conversation elsewhere about who is watched more and I am told that it is Fox and Rush, etc by the very same people who are blaming the liberal media (who according to them, nobody watches anyway) and the Democrats (who are the party out of power and don’t control anything and are LOSERS).
Which is it, guys?
Perry Como
Iraq needs some freedom pogroms.
scs
By the way, this is off topic, but I have a little conspiracy theory on the Iranian guy who tried to run over people in UNC. I think he did something on purpose to get into a prison, to try and get Muslim recruits in prison. I mean it was too pathetic otherwise.
Jorge
The Iraq portions of the 2003 State of Union.
It shows the proper balance of ‘free Iraq’ reasoning to ‘you will die from WMDs’ reason.
7,000 words talk about the dangers of WMD’s and disarming Iraq. 168 words about the freedom of Iraqi people.
Oh, and the thesis that boils down why this war will happen and how it can be avoided?
“We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.”
Not a bit about Saddam freeing the people of Iraq as a condition to avoid war.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States. (Applause.)
Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons — not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.
Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct — were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq’s regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.
The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.
The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin — enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He’s not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.
U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them — despite Iraq’s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.
From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.
The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.
Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. Intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.
Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.
With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.
Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans — this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause.)
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. (Applause.)
The dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages — leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained — by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. (Applause.)
And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country — your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. (Applause.)
The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi’s legal — Iraq’s illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups.
We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. (Applause.)
Tonight I have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in or near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lay ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you. (Applause.)
Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make. The technologies of war have changed; the risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come.
We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means — sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military — and we will prevail. (Applause.)
And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies — and freedom. (Applause.)
Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril; from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.
Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.
Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity. (Applause.)
We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know — we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.
May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
ppGaz
Were you there? Seriously, he might just have been aiming for you.
scs
It’s all of the above for blaming Bush for all things bad in the Middle East. Look, Al Quaeda happens. We just do what we can.
scs
Why, do you know the guy? Seriously.
EL
But we didn’t take the logical steps. As an example, the defense department threw out the State department’s planning for the post war period, and had nothing to put in its place. They hired 20 somethings with no experience or training to run things. If you think that’s “average” performance for our military planning, you wrong the US military.
I’don’t have to scrounge for the link, but I remember reading late in 2003 that many commanders had noted with concern that they had not been given the key “phase 4” plans.
capelza
scs..so Fox is responsible for “reporting only the bad news”?
Seriously, I had conversations like this one with my teenagers awhole lot. You have to be a troll…
capelza
Like scs?
ppGaz
No, but I’ve seen your, uh, work. Seriously.
If I were you, and a pedestrian, I’d stay in neighborhoods where they don’t know me. Why invite trouble?
ppGaz
I had forgotten that litany of manipulation and lies, Jorge.
Thank you for posting it, and for reminding us how completely we were had by those lying cocksuckers.
scs
Huh? No the left (and others) is responsible for unrealistic expectations. The news is bad in many ways, but what does that prove? That Al Qaeda exists and likes to blow up Shias? You can’t blame Bush for that. Try blaming Bin Laden instead for once.
jg
Is there any point? Is there a goal to attain here. Arguing with right wingers? They are trained to ignore your facts and simply attack your source or your political perspective. This is just practice for them. Facts? Who needs them. They support the previous reality. Why argue about the reasons for the war or the post war plans? The war ended years ago. Now is important and now will be studied years from now so move on.
Jorge
capelza
You mean the ones that the government told us to expect?
I quit, you are either a twit or a troll, or maybe a trolly twit…whatver.
scs
Yes they “told us to expect” what? I think they told us to expect a long and difficult War on Terror.
The Other Steve
I’m more convinced than ever that scs is a parody troll with the purpose only of making the Republican party look not just ignorant, but willful idiots.
Pb
ppGaz, capelza,
Agreed–A and B, a real troll, without a clue.
DougJ
Try blaming Bin Laden instead for once.
Can we blame Bush for not catching Bin Laden?
Lines
Hey scs, how’s that War On Drugs going? How about the War on Poverty? Have you heard anything about the War on Communism? How about when you and Stormy channel McCarthy? Can you give us an update on the War on Words that Sound Evil?
Pb
I have it on good authority that the main danger in Iraq is that US soldiers and local mosques are actually being smothered–buried beneath the weight of all the candy and flowers. Also, many of the locals have been partying themselves to the point of exhaustion, or even death. Block parties have caused wanton destruction in cities and Chinese restaurants alike. No one could have anticipated the exceedingly high level of catastrophic success we’ve had in Iraq.
scs
OSteve, fine I’m a troll. Does that make you happy? Does that make you automatically RIGHT? If you spent less time analyzing me or my intelligence and actually thinking about the issues, you might not end up the brainwashed sheep that you are.
Ancient Purple
Sorry, Mac. Try again. Unless you are bending the space/time continuum to suggest that the moment the fighting began we knew there were no WMD. Why, some of your righties brothers and sisters are still maintaining that there are WMDs in Iraq, or in Syria, or in (fill in favorite pro-Saddam country here).
The “spreading democracy” meme was put forth well after the whole WMD meme, so I stand firmly by my statement.
As for Albright, I didn’t realize she was working for the Bush administration on foreign policy. Since she isn’t and I assume the Bush administration will act on its own, I give you this from the King’s own mouth:
scs
Only if you have actual evidence that it was/is in his power to capture him, including taking into account military realities and political realities of relationships with countries such as Pakistan and Iran.
Joey
You keep bringing up Al Qaeda and the War on Terror, which has little (Al Qaeda has NOTHING) if anything to do with the war in Iraq.
ppGaz
I think Tom Tomorrow did the best job of explaining the reason for war:
“It’s the threat of WMDs, or was, only now it’s the Liberation of Iraq, unless we find WMDs, in which case, that’s the reason again.”
Ancient Purple
Care to provide a link from anyone left of center who said that the oil revenues from Iraq would pay for the war?
I can provide you with the names of people who said it would:
Donald Rumsfeld
Paul Wolfowitz
Ari Fleischer
Richard Armitage
Unrealistic expectations from the left?
Yeah. Right.
jaime
WHAT? “The left” told us about a 1 Billion dollar price tag, no insurgency, being greeted with flowers, all the WMD we’d find, and the grand democracy orgy about to begin in the middle east?
I think we should start a collection. SCS, and Mac…if we raised the money, would you spend a week in Iraq outside the greenzone?
That’s all. A week outside the green zone to report on all the “good news” the entire liberal media (Fox included) refuses to report. I can’t guarantee we can raise enough money for your ransom…
Andrew
Wow, scs, you’re a genius. Get in touch with the Orange County DA, ASAP.
The College Republicans had a “protest” rally here today, demanding that UNC revoke the wacko’s degree. What brave soldiers they are in the global struggle against violent SUVism.
jg
scs
It does now. I submit that the major attacks on Shias are Al Quaeda based. I’m not talking about the roadside bombs that kill US troops but have little effect on the Iraqi’s in their day to day lives. But again, I know what you will say now – and we can’t blame Bush for Al Qaeda being in Iraq. It was an inevitable consequence of trying to bring democracy to Iraq. Should we not even try to bring democracy there because Al Qaeda would fight us on it? I don’t think so. We shouldn’t be intimidated by terrorism.
DougJ
Only if you have actual evidence that it was/is in his power to capture him, including taking into account military realities and political realities of relationships with countries such as Pakistan and Iran.
You mean big tough guy Bush is Iran’s and Pakistan’s bitch?
Jim Allen
scs, why don’t you run along and play, now dear. The grown ups are trying to have a conversation.
scs
You’re not getting my point. I’m not denying that there is much bad news. I’m saying the bad news is an inevitable consequence of Al Quaeda and Syria and Iran fighting us out in Iraq. To expect things to be all rosy there and to blame it all on Bush is unrealistic.
ppGaz
Actually, yes we can. And do.
“Bring it on,” he said. So, they did. I’m sure the people of Iraq appreciated his bravado at their expense.
You know what scs? Just shut the fuck up, you are now at the point where you are not even a funny spoof any more. You’re just embarassing.
Joey
Of course it does now! Christ on a cracker, are you absolutely insane? You defend the administration, even though “bringing democracy to Iraq” wasn’t nothing but a foot note in the build up to invasion. We shouldn’t have tried to bring democracy there because it’s NOT OUR FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY. IF they started a large scale revolution and wanted/needed assistance, then we grant it. But democracy is not something that is granted. It has to be taken. It has to be wanted more than anything by the people.
ppGaz
Tell it to George “Remember the lessons of 911” Bush.
scs
Again, ppGAz, you didn’t get my point. Al Qaeda would have gone there REGARDLESS of how well spoken and efficient Bush was. They just don’t seem to like democracies in the Middle East for some reason and seem to want to fight their establishments. Who would have thought Al Qaeda thought that? What a surprise.
scs
80% of Iraqis voted at the potential risk of their lives. Sounds like the people want it.
Zifnab
Except that under Saddam’s reigme Al Queda wasn’t going there. They had roots in Saudi Arabia, in Sudan, in Afganastian, in Iran, and in the UAE, but NOT in Iraq. Bush broke ground for Al Queda. He softened the soil and the seeds spread themselves. Bush fucked up hard and he expects us, time and again, to smile and nod and say, “Well at least he tried his best.”
Bush’s best is hazardous to our nation and to the nations of the Middle East. He’s primed the pump for a civil war in Iraq that has inflamed sectarian tensions throughout the region drastically. He’s done nothing but stoke the fires of Terrorism. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was the military equivalent of Japan’s bombing Perl Harbor. A whirlwind split-second victory that unleashed a hornet’s nest of defeat.
jg
Let me get this straight. You’re saying Bush can’t be blamed because of all those things listed above? Al Qaeda and Syria and Iran?
But it was said before the war that Al Qaeda, Syria, Iran and others would tear this country apart if we invaded and knocked off Saddam. Bush ignored that but you don’t think he can be blamed?
Look up the reasons Cheney gave for not knocking over Saddam the first time when he was secdef under the other Bush (were you even born yet then?).
Which is one reason why it was a pretty stupid idea to go in there don’t you think? (Dumb question)
ppGaz
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……….
scs
No, because I think the end result is worth the risk. Should we not even try because we are scared of Al Qaeda? Is that how we are going to run our lives from now on? Let’s not do anything that might piss off Al Qaeda?
capelza
No…no…no…what “risk” is there for you, girly?
I’m just so sure that the Iraqi people are just so ever eternally grateful that we didn’t keep fighting in Afghanistan but instead brought the fight to their doostep. I bet they’re just giddy about it…
scs
.I’m sure the thousands of Shias and Kurds who may have ended up in the mass graves are happy about it. Better to face danger struggling for a decent government than being slaughtered by Saddam.
jg
No. Fuck Al Qaeda. We shouldn’t have tried because it was unnescessary. Saddam did not have wmds and wasn’t involved in 9/11. We took this on ourselves. We chose to do this so we are responsible for and stuck with the result. It didn’t need to be done, it wasn’t pressing, we had other, much more important priorities and certainly other uses for the buckets of cash we’ve wasted building a new Iran and Kurdistan. We didn’t have to do it. You will realize that one day, probably in twenty years, but still someday. The only reason you think this undertaking was worthwhile it because the only people against it are those you don’t respect anyway, their opinion is suspect. Those who you choose to listen to are with Bush so you hear their reasoning, such as it is, but ignore the counter argument if you are unfortunate enought to be faced with one. You’re very common. I have at least three of you at my poker table every weekend.
capelza
Why? Because YOU say so?
I’m sure Iraqi who has had a loved one blown up, burned or killed is saying exactly that, yeah…right. “At least someone besides Saddam killed them, that makes it better!”
Zifnab
That’s funny, cause I only remember hearing about mass graves and executions back in the 80s when the US was a big Iraqi backer.
In fact, with increased survallience and pressure from UN weapon inspectors there was a greatly reduced capacity for Saddam to perform much genocide.
jaime
Wanna know what their unhappy about? That the same country that gave Saddam the chemicals to put them in mass graves and who sat back and watched Saddam repress them from the safety of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia bombed them back to the stone age…ya know, for freedom.
jg
But the result fucks us. Don’t you see that? We didn’t do good by America. Even if you believe there are truckloads of happy shia’s and kurds the region is less stable than before and this is the region that produces people who fly planes into buildings. How is this better for us? Iraq wasn’t a terrorist breeding ground previously but we’ve turned it into Afghanistan circa 1985.
Thomas
Just realized that for the likes of scs and MacBuckets, the next few years are going to be the best of their lives, faux-persecution being the Right’s wet dream and all. Every bit of wingnutness has prepared them for this moment…’You say George W. Bush publically went to war because Saddam wouldn’t disarm? Why, here’s a context-less phrase or two saying freedom. Now let’s set up torture centers and hold people without trials. Don’t say nothing about neither, fucking liberal, or you’re objectively undermining our national will. We don’t even know what’s going on, anyway. How can we trust people who bring us inconvenient facts? Brainwashed pessimists, they should be locked away or ‘balanced’. Why are you calling me a fascist, liberal? That’s Bush Dementia’ etc.
Sometimes I think the best bet for America is if we can set up an alternative media reality, where America verges daily between victory over an unknown enemy and liberal subversion, with every night the same happy ending of the liberals beaten, crushed, and admitting the innate superiority of conservatives. They could vote in fake elections, sponsored by this channel, and have a fake president, who will be embarass and humiliate the Harvard lesbian eco-scientist with glasses running against him. (Sometimes, for parity, the manly candidate will show her what it means to be a ‘man’, but this is only late night). As president, he will do many fake things about fake threats, and he will speak about fake issues with facts straight from Creationists and the AEI. Wingnuts like MacBuckets could wake up each day, tune into this channel, and get their daily intake of wingnuttia, without, let’s hope, being forced to challenge theirselves in the real world. Everybody would be happy too. The wingnuts could live out their little id fantasies, and real people like me could go back to being opposed to their moderate government.
Fox is on the right track, but the leadership needs to be shown the true way. Right now, they still believe in working up the wingnut with half-seen visions of reality. It’s cheaper, perhaps, but has the unsettling problem of being tied into to other parts of reality. If they withdraw from reality completely, and allow for a completely scripted world, then they could manipulate the bile and self-defeat in much more productive ways. Just my two cents.
scs
No you’re right, we didn’t. We could have left the status quo. But the status quo didn’t seem so great after 9/11. So I supported the effort to bring democracy to the Middle East and shake things up around there. We will see how it turns out.
But with that, gotta go. You may continue without me. pPgaz, I know my absence will sadden you deeply, but try to hold down the fort.
Steve
I really expected scs to be welcomed into this thread with flowers and sweets.
jg
Plus the shia’s who should be so grateful we came to rescue them are the little ten year olds who were watching us watching Saddam slaughter there fathers and older brothers and uncles after we encouraged the Shia to rise up after the first Iraq War. Yeah. They’re ecstatic we’re back.
Whats with Bush administrations thinking the situation will work out all right all by itself? Is the war on science preventing them from ever hearing the term entropy?
capelza
Are you going to your local recruiting station scs? For the freedom..and all.
chopper
and we can’t blame Bush for Al Qaeda being in Iraq. It was an inevitable consequence of trying to bring democracy to Iraq.
in 2003 a majority of iraqis didn’t want a democratic system.
in that part of the world, where religion is king, you can’t push democracy on people or there’s a hell of a backlash. one of the consequences of pushing a secular system on muslims in the middle east is the religious take offense to it and freak the fuck out.
jg
Scary.
Slide
resident moron:
huh? piss off al Qaeda? al Qaeda is ecstatic that we invaded Iraq you moron. This is the best thing we could have done for them. Invading iraq has swelled their ranks, have increased their popularity, have been a training ground for terrorists that have already migrated to Afghanistan, has drained America’s resources, has tied up our military, has diverted attention away from them. Pissed off? lol..Pissed off? Bin Laden probably has a photo of Bush in his cave thanking his lucky stars that America has such an idiot in charge. Bush fell right into bin Laden’s hands. To invade an oil rich muslim nation on lies (WMD) couldn’t have assisted bin Laden any more than if Bush burned the Koran on nationwide tv.
Lines
You know, I get hornet nests all summer long, and they could be dangerous, but I never feel the need to go “shake things up” with them. There are better things to do with pests than “shake them up”, and in all things there is a right way and a wrong way. Poor scs just keeps getting stung and doesn’t get it.
chopper
Should we not even try because we are scared of Al Qaeda?
shit, we shouldn’t have tried because getting a fractured country like iraq full of sectarian groups that hate each other and are managed by outside influences in the middle east to all go along with anything together is like herding cats.
who the hell didn’t know that before the war? like all these people were suddenly going to drop all their beefs with everyone else and have a nice big happy party? fuck that.
sometimes the best of intentions just aren’t good enough to get around the reality of the situation. and the reality was we weren’t going to get iraq to drop everything and turn into a shiny functioning democracy.
jg
Of course, saved them the trouble of removing Saddam themselves. There can be no caliph if there’s a secular leader in Baghdad. Which is of course why all arguments that Saddam was an active sponsor of jihadi terrorists ulitmately fail. He’s not a part of their future. He may throw a bone to them to establish some muslim cred but thats it. He’s as scared of them as Bush is. Actually Bush isn’t ascared of them, they provide an election winning fear to drop on voters.
RonB
Scs-don’t take our word for it-please read this book.
That’s my site, it was easier to cough it up from there, there’s an amazon link so you can buy or read reviews.
RonB
I dunno. This isn’t fair. If scs is tuned in to the Wurlitzer she wouldnt hear the cold reality that Don Rumsfeld had NO plan for reconstruction at all. She believes in a particular ‘side’ of things right now but theres nothing saying she can’t change that if she becomes curious enough, if the questions keep nagging.
RonB
See, I go and defend you and you mess it up. Take my word for it, scs, the reason why they won’t “tell” you is because they really don’t want to have to start at the beginning to explain it to you. We already know what has happened-no one here wants to write a novel to you getting you a jumpstart on 2003 up. Hence my book recommendation.
RonB
Yeah, Al, but this pizza is 3 years in the making and the driver is no where in sight…
RonB
(slaps forehead)You really have no idea what you are dealing with here. I beg you, I implore you, realize you are the one that needs to do the thinking on Iraq. Or the reading.
RonB
Ooooh, Pooh, that was baaaad, brother. Pretty fucking funny though.
Mac Buckets
The big PR battle was generally lost when no WMD were found. The smaller PR battle centers around the current state of Iraq, which Americans, because of our media coverage, think is much worse that the actual people of Iraq think it is.
The propaganda effect is unquestionably real. If people get 90% of their news from Big Media, and 90% of it is sensational bad news, then it’s not surprising that Americans eventually flip-flop their initial position on the war (which Americans supported by a two-to-one ratio in 2003).
The poll figures in Iraq certainly indicate that the Arab media’s anti-American propaganda is having an effect: Even though 70% of Iraqis say their lives are better than they were before the war, less than half say their neighbors are better off than before the war. Classic propaganda effect. I mean, if the media only reports bad news, and my personal news is good, then the bad news must be happening to everybody else, right? Only my neighbors, who are also likely better off, think that I must be the one suffering!
Are you prepared to state that the “all bad news, all the time” of the American media coverage of Iraq is reflective of the good news/bad news ratio on the ground there (I don’t think I’ve heard anyone delusional enough to make that claim)? In that sense, the media’s sensationalist coverage does not help our PR effort.
jg
For us its bad and I think most americans care more about americans. Not that anyone I know watches anything but FOX and most americans hate the media so just how influential are they really. Maybe its the facts that are biased.
We were told about only a rosy scenerio. We supported it (9/11 having a lot to do with that also). Then it turns out to be completely different than what we were told but you blame the messenger for our turn around?
Is it now OK to play the blame game? I usually wait for a conservative to let me know when its safe to start blaming the responsible parties. I figure since they always tell us when its too early to play…..
Lines
Hmmmm, lets see, 70% of the time the power isn’t working, the temperature is close to 115 deg F and the water isn’t working either…….
Have you ever studied the abused wife syndrome, BucketBoy? They are more likely to take the blame for that newest black eye than admit that their abusive spouse slapped them around for 2 hours last night. They are afraid of telling the truth because they don’t want their spouse to beat them anymore. Even after escape from the situation, the beaten spouse is likely to cover up for a new spouse or dominant figure.
Juan Cole went through this a few times, the mentality behind falsly answering polls in order to appear favorable to the ruling class.
But of course that doesn’t fit into your needs for this poll to show how Iraqi’s feel about the US, does it?
jg
Since I’m not much of a conspiracist (is that a word?) I’d say the ratio of good news to bad news is directly related to ratings. Bad news sells. A headline with ‘30000 planes landed safely today!!!’ wouldn’t sell many papers.
ppGaz
Please present the facts to support this crazy notion.
Do you actually pay attention to anything?
Taken literally, the ratings for all national broadcast and cable news combined …. how many people?
How many people in the country?
Divide B by A. What percentage of people are paying any attention to this info stream at all on a regular basis?
O’Reilly+Olberman+Zahn = 700,000 households.
Combined. Even if one person per household were actually paying attention, which is not likely, that’s one third of one percent of the population. And that’s in “Prime Time.”
Where are all these people who are being swayed by the media, and when are they tuned in? And what are they tuned into? Fox News has more viewers than CNN and MSNBC put together, most of the time.
What the FUCK are you talking about?
Pb
RonB,
I don’t know about you, but if I was paying hundreds of billions of dollars for a pizza, waited 3 years for it to arrive already, and the pizza company has already had 2,000+ drivers get killed while trying to get the pizza to me, I might just suck it up and go with DiGiorno instead.
What’s that? Dumb analogy? Dammit Al…
jg
There doesn’t actually have to be numbers th90% of people are swayed by bad press from Iraq. All you have to do is say htat the MSM is biased and only tells you of bad news from Iraq, then point oput soem good news found on a blog and the folks believe you that the MSM sucks and can’t be trusted.
As was said by Steve. Its easy to get people to believe what they already believe.
ppGaz
Pb, I agree. DiGiorno for President!
Whoever (s)he is, can’t be any worse than the alcoholic little prick we got now.
Pb
ppGaz,
And even then, even if we were all tuning in, who says we trust them. Does it matter what they’re reporting, if 70%-80% of their audience isn’t buying it…
jg
If it doesn’t support the presidents goals apparently it is important. Isn’t that what a mass media does? Tells us what we need to know to support our (republican) president.
Pb
Flash forward ten years later…
Why are you still talking about Iraq, you nutty liberals? Sure it’s a mess, but that’s because *you* didn’t clap hard enough! The same goes for Iran, too–why don’t we ever hear the *good* news about destabilizing the Middle East? And why do you and your commie liberal buddies in the MSM have to bash Our President’s war effort in Syria? Seditious traitors…
Slide
what guys like bucketboy don’t get is that everything the adminstration told us about Iraq proved to be false. The american people have come to that very rational conclusion after the facts slowly became evident.
Its not the media’s fault that there were no WMD in Iraq.
or that the Iraq was wasn’t the “cakewalk” we were led to belive.
or that Iraq oil money hasn’t financed the war.
or that the few small pockets of deadenders haven’t been defeated.
or that the water, electricity and oil production are all below pre-war levels
or that billions of dollars of reconstruction money is just “missing” while being administered by the wiz kids from the Heritage foundation
or that we didn’t “destroy” the Badr militia as General Kimmett told us.
or that we tortured prisoners in the very place that Saddam Hussein tortured prisoners.
or that one of the most sacred holy places for Muslims was blown up while we are in control of the country
or… well.. you get the point don’t you? its not the media, its the news that has turned Americans against this war. They have lost confidence in the bull shit that this administraton shovels out on a regular basis, like General Pace did this Sunday on MTP. “the war is going very, very well.”How dumb do they think Americans are? How fucking insulting to talk to us that way. You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time…. except MacBuckets apparently.
Pb
jg,
That’s what the Bush administration thinks, anyhow–over $1.6 billion dollars spent on propaganda since 2003…
ppGaz
Exactly. What’s amazing to me is that this bogus “blame the media” for any trend you don’t like theme has been peddled for so long and isn’t challenged for being what it is .. pure bullshit, and fully contradicted by all available evidence.
CNN tried for several years to offer a “moderate” alternative to the rightwing noise machine crap that Fox puts out, and got killed in the ratings for it. Now they’ve given up entirely.
Network (broadcast) national news is now mostly a coiffed head reading the same news that you can get on the front page of the Council Bluffs Daily Cornhusker or any other smalltown newspaper in America every day. With pictures, of course.
There is no influential national media at this point, liberal, or otherwise.
As for reporting on Iraq in particular …. there hasn’t really been any, pro or con, to speak of. How many people do you know who can name, or find on a map, three of the ten largest cities in that country?
ppGaz
Jere’s your influential media at work
We’d have a better country if the government could just pound its message of the day into the heads of citizens without interference.
Freedom would surely then be on the march!
ppGaz
Jere = here.
Damned keyboard.
Krista
Well, seeing as scs accuses everybody who disagrees with her as being DougJ, I’m going with the “doth protest too much” rationale and will pick D. :)
JimAllen
I’m going with A.
EL
Ron B, I’m afraid it’s a waste of time. I posted examples above and never got a response.
ppGaz
This is the hospital where Kirby Puckett has died today; use the Satellite view and drill down.
A sad day for baseball fans everywhere.
Story
Steve
Who will ever forget Kirby Puckett’s extra-innings homer to win Game 6 of the possibly-best-ever 1991 World Series?
Once upon a time I was a participant in a call-in radio contest where the question was, “Which of the following people is not an actual professional baseball player?” at which point they rattled off 4 or 5 highly improbable-sounding names. My guess was Kirby Puckett. Guess what, I was wrong.
Mac Buckets
LOL! That may be the single most desperate straw-grasp I’ve ever heard — it’s absolutely laughable in its transparence. I’m not surprised that Prof Cole drew that one up (“This way, no good news ever counts! Genius!”), but I’m shocked that anyone with more than six active brain cells actually entertained it for more than a nanosecond. I mean, I’m not surprised you believed it, but…
ppGaz
Snort. You’re just jealous, Mac.
Bob In Pacifica
I just stopped by the for the first time since early this a.m. I can shed some light on veterans living in the woods in the Pacific Northwest.
You see, after 1980 the level of funding started dropping at the VA. There were a lot of people who came back from Vietnam with PTSD, many who didn’t know what was wrong with them, some who didn’t want to admit it. The combination of less funding and psychiatric disorders left a lot of people out on the streets. Or the woods.
People get ruined in war. No matter how much is spent on VA hospitals people still fall through the cracks.
It’s a little disingenuous to blame some vets’ alienation from society on a couple of incidents. Mostly, people forgot about the war once it was over. The Reagan Administration certainly did. Most people I knew, and I travel in liberal circles, weren’t hostile to veterans, quite the opposite.
As we speak the BushCo Republicans are praying for all those soldiers who will soon be vets. “Lordy, Lordy, get them out of my sight!”
Zifnab
Probably the biggest bullshit line the Republicans ever pitched. Beware the Flip-Flopper!
Remember kids, changing your mind in the face of conflicting evidence, new information, a changing public outlook, or even just an evolution of thought is a bad thing. Politicians aren’t supposed to change their minds. They must continue trumpeting the same sour chorus time and time again no matter how factually or ethically wrong their stance becomes over time. Flip-flopping is weakness. Once you’ve committed to a quagmire you can never, ever, ever, ever, ever back out under any conditions.
To (mis)quote an old line I saw on here a while back, “We’ve lost alot of money at this poker table over the past three years. That’s why we have to keep betting. To pull out now would disrespect the money we have lost.”
Richard Bottoms
Here’s why I’m not afraid of these Republican bastards. Dick Cheney is less popular than Michael Jackson AND OJ Simpson. And he’s got three years left to piss people off.
Mac Buckets
I never said it was a bad thing, necessarily. I said it was a perfectly natural and understandable thing in the face of three years of sensationalist, “all bad news, all the time” coverage. Propaganda works, which is why everyone does it.
It would be a better thing if the changes in the “evidence, information and public outlook” were somewhat accurate and reflected both the successes in Iraq as well as the failures…but I expect too much of the media, which know that people watch and read what is most dramatic and shocking, and daily successes are neither.
Mac Buckets
Yeah, you’re right, Ppg. Most people obviously get their news from travelling to Iraq and looking around for themselves, or by asking soldiers who have been there for awhile. My bad — I was a fool to suggest that most people get their news from…the news.
Mac Buckets
And where do you get your news, Joe?
Perry Como
I get my news about Iraq from Bob Woodruff. We were chatting the other day. It went something like this:
PC: Hey Bob, how is it going in Iraq?
BW: Mmmrpmphgrlg.
PC: Oh, they just painted a new school?
BW: Frshaasttlash.
PC: Great Bob! I’m glad you are giving us a fair and balanced account, unlike all of the other America hating journalists.
BW: Mashffflal MMMRGGGGH!
PC: Good to talk to you too Bob. Keep up the great work.
The Other Steve
Doubly so for those of us from Minnesota. He helped win two world series titles. Quite the player.
I’m just afraid of how his death will be used politically. :-(
The Other Steve
HEH! You’re good.
I love it. Because I don’t believe the Republican party line, I’m brainwashed. Awesome!
jg
You seriously think the public opinion has turned against this war because of the bad news being reported? Not the fact that the bad shit has occurred, the fact that it was reported?
If it was exactly balanced out with positive news of soldiers bringing school supplies and stuff do you think the fact that the country is pretty darn close to civil war won’t seem such a bad thing? The polls would score higher then?
This is turning out the way a lot of pre-war critics said it would. People are realizing that and are actually starting to hear what people have been saying since the start, what they’ve previously tuned out. This didn’t have to happen, and it certainly didn’t have to happen this way. A lot of shit has gone dead wrong and some of it (to be conservative) can be attributed to the leadership’s refusal to hear voices that weren’t spouting what they wanted to hear.
The lookouts screaming ‘iceberg’ while the captains fantasizing about the headlines when the Titanic shows up a day early. ( Yes thats weak but Nazi comparisons give you fuckers an excuse to derail the topic)
scs
Okay El, I apologize for not responding earlier to your efforts to give some details but I had to deal with a lot of trolls first. (Why do we use the word ‘trolls’ in this context anyway?) Anyway, this is what you gave me:
Plus a big old long link to read, so that is something that takes time first. So anyway, I read it and this is what I get from your link. I will summarize some points for others.
Apparently there was an issue that a project called The Future of Iraq Project, drafted by the State Department before the war to plan for after the war, was not put into place, apparently at the orders of the Defense Department. Apparently there was a lot of squabbling between the two departments.
This may have been a terrible mistake but from the link, it is not exactly clear yet. Again, we are not getting both sides of the story here. It’s like listening to Chertoff complain about what a horrible job Brownie did, but then when you listen to Brownie’s side, you get a whole different perspective. We need to hear some more from the Defense side about why this project was scrapped. And according to one interviewee, it seemed that much of this squabbling was solved by the time Paul Bremer was put in charge- pretty early in the war, so I’m not sure this project scrapping had much more effect than in the earliest part of the war.
Anyway, as a little from the other side- here is Kanan Makiya a INC member from your link. He actually had a pretty interesting statement.
So according to him, the State Department was the bad guy in this situation, trying to thwart democracy in the country by keeping control over the process. So yes, this Future of Iraq project was scrapped. But the questions not answered fully answered in this link are – Why was it scrapped? Was there a good reason to have it scrapped? And what else came in its place, under the new control by the defense department and was it necessarily worse, and in which way? Until we have that all answered, we don’t know the full story.
ppGaz
Most people get “their news” from local news coverage.
Almost nobody pays any attention to national news outlets. The numbers are out there for anyone to look up and draw their own conclusions.
The top three prime time cable news shows don’t even draw half of one percent of the population, Mac. Even if you add the network broadcasts, you can’t get five percent of the population.
What is that you believe? That the liberal members of that tiny slice of the population is somehow influencing the rest of the country? Or …. what?
What exactly is your “theory,” Mac? Take all the time you need to explain it. Really, I mean it.
I said earlier that the combined cable and network totals wouldn’t be 15% of the population.
I get about 9-10% based on the numbers I saw today.
So, how does that ten percent manage to talk the other ninety percent into a particular set of opinions?
What evidence do you have that people form their opinions based on “news” in the first place?
Rush Limbaugh alone has 15 million listeners a week.
What’s the audience total for conservative talk radio, nationwide, Mac?
Compared to the audience for national news media?
Which is more influential?
I say again, what the FUCK are you talking about?
Pfffft. Write back when you have something.
ppGaz
Correction: You can’t get fifteen percent of the population.
Perry Como
The INC is the same group that said this would be a cakewalk. Take any statement from its members with the appropriate grain of salt. Makiya does say something interesting, which I believe is most likely in a condescending manner:
The State Department had a comprehensive plan to quickly bring back the services that the people of Iraq were used to. People living in Iraq were used to electricity, running water, garbage collection, etc., while Saddam was in power[0]. While those things are small in the big picture, they are big in the small picture — the lives of everday Iraqis. The State Department realized those things. Apparently the Defense Department didn’t.
According to Makiya, the State Department and the CIA were “undermining democracy” because they wanted to make sure the people were safe and happy before they started planning for the big picture. Restore the services, make sure Iraqis have constructive things to do, then have the Iraqis figure out the big picture stuff.
When you have rotting garbage on your doorstep, electricity for half the day, and running water half the time, who cares about the big picture? Only people like Makiya that are sitting in the US bases planning their political future. The rest of the Iraqis are trying to make a living.
Details matter. Things like looting are a big deal when it happens to your family business.
[0] – along with the torture, rapes, and killings
Beej
Ohmygod! Will someone PLEASE issue a moratorium on pointing out that the Bush administration LIED about the reasons for going into Iraq? Okay, they lied. They made huge mistakes. They refused to listen to reason. They’re the most incompetent a**holes to ever squat in the White House. It’s all true. I agree.
Now, please explain to me how we just drop everything and leave without convincing Al Qaeda and the entire rest of the world that all you have to do to make the U.S. turn tail and run is to make enough noise, spill enough blood in public, and make sure it gets on the nightly news often enough to cause some political fallout at home, some sharp words from abroad, and a general concensus that “there’s no way to win this war”. Then please explain to me just how this country can ever expect to be taken seriously in anything we do to contain, say, Iran or North Korea, when both will be only too aware that when it comes right down to it, we have no teeth and no will. And, incidentally, saying that this is all Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s fault does not answer any of these questions.
And just for the record, no, I don’t think the MSM is a bunch of traitors, I just think they’re doing what every news organization has always done, living by the credo that “if it bleeds it leads”. That’s not a criticism, by the way, it’s just the nature of the beast.
Okay, all together now, “Beej has to be a troll, nobody can be that stupid and clueless.” Right, I got it. Now answer the questions.
Perry Como
Well, Beej, first you’re DougJ. After that you’re a troll.
You seem to be setting up a false dilemma. Either we stay the course in Iraq or we give up. Good luck with that.
So, in an IK system, is it better to pre-script a move or time pulses to get a realistic effect?
RonB
SCS, this “we don’t have the full story” way of dismissing something is not going to do. The Defense Department had no plan, they were going to drawdown to 30000 troops by May 03 thinking the international community would take over the reconstruction. When the insurgency upped the stakes and it stopped being the cakewalk it was supposed to be, we got left holding the bag.
This is the type of things that really has anti-occupation people tearing their hair out trying to tell you. Defense didnt give a fig about the reconstruction and they bullied State out of the planning process the whole way. That is quite enough for me to say…”Hmmm…the Defense Department is run by total assholes” without having to hear their ‘side’ of the story.
Pb
Beej,
It takes a certain amount of strength and courage to fess up when you’ve made a mistake, and take responsibility for your actions. That’s probably the first thing the United States has to do to start repairing our credibility on the world stage.
Had we planned for it, we could have occupied and secured Iraq correctly, and with a minimum of violence and bloodshed–maybe we could have been out of there by now already. But we didn’t. We need to learn from our mistakes, and pledge to do it right next time, to listen to the generals, to listen to the best intelligence, and plan for the worst-case scenarios.
However, for the reasons you mentioned in your first paragraph, we cannot rationally expect this from the current administration, because they have shown no inclination for it. They do what they want, because they want to, consequences or opposition be damned. They spin and lie to justify it in the first place, and then when the truth is known, they spin and lie in the other direction to rationalize it after the fact.
So. We have the teeth, and we have the will. But until we get some sanity back into the executive branch, we might not have the good sense to use them properly. Getting Bush re-elected was the smartest thing Osama bin Laden has ever done, and we’re all the poorer for it.
Slide
To scs, BucketBoy, Darrell, Stormy and John Cole – this says it best:
.
Scarlett Johansson
Could we please keep my ass out of this?
Thank you,
S.
Mac Buckets
Quoting some partisan blogger as a source tells us all we need to know about your mental processes.
Iraq has been having a civil war for decades — but only Saddam’s side was allowed to fight it. Wide majorities of both Sunnis and Shia say that they want one Iraq and that fullscale civil war is not likely, mainly because the Sunnis aren’t all suicidal (if you’re Sunni, you learn the math at an early age — you’re outnumbered in Iraq 4-to-1).
But why listen to actual Iraqis when we have arrogant, leftian bloggers to tell us what’s really happening in some place they’ve never been?
DougJ
This is typical of how the northeastern elites don’t understand the culture of the red states. In red states, it is customary to blame everything that goes wrong on someone else. Maybe you’re out hunting, and you pepper your buddy. You blame it on him. Maybe you beat the shit out of some guy a bar for hitting on your girlfriend, then later find out that wasn’t your girlfriend. It’s not your fault — you received bad intelligence — everyone else in the bar thought it was your girlfriend too. Maybe you get really hung over from drinking too much jaeger. No one could have anticipated that large amounts of jaeger might give you a hang over.
Until the Democrats start understanding the mentality of the red states — the culture, the tradition — they won’t start winning elections.
Lines
Yeah Mac, I’m the idiot. You fucking maggot infested corpse of neo-conservatism.
Read Juan Cole sometime, a man that has been to Iraq. Maybe Dahr Jamal, an Iraqi blogger can give you a little schooling?
You’re worthless, Mac. You clap the loudest, so you think that gives you the right to determine “truth” for everyone else.
ppGaz
This, from the guy who claims that American opinion is shaped by an information stream used by maybe nine or ten percent of the population.
One thing you can count on, Mac …. nobody will ever use YOU as a source.
Lines
Mac, the point I was trying to make is that Iraqis are afraid of questioning or challenging those in power. Would you make yourself a target of the forces that regularly go out on midnight raids of homes? If you don’t believe that their time under Saddam isn’t still fresh in their minds, along with the deaths of some of their family under his rule, then you’re the one out of touch with reality.
Face it, that poll says what you want it to say, so you’ll just sit there and masturbate it all day long. The fact is, though, you really don’t understand what it means any more than most Americans.
Paul L.
SPANNING THE WEB – 3/6/2006
“Speaking of the Instapundit, he enraged the left wing half of the blogosphere when he made the rather banal observation, “The press had better hope we win this war, because if we don’t, a lot of people will blame the media.” The leaders of our media have revealed classified secrets, repeatedly distorted our war efforts, almost openly pined for disaster, and even fabricated stories that caused trouble such as the flushed Koran that was never really flushed. This poor performance has hardly been offset at all by any countervailing virtues. While the press likes to think of itself as brave, the Cartoon Intifadah certainly put the lie to any such notions.”
Mac Buckets
Not their Iraq news, they don’t. The Des Moines CBS affiliate isn’t sending their beat guy to Baghdad — they’re airing national CBS feeds. Same with local newspapers — international news is fed by Big Media wire services and major metropolitan papers.
Besides, local news is regarded as the most sensational news coverage around. Local news is where “if it bleeds, it leads” comes from, for Chrissakes. The dominance of “bad news” stories over “good news” stories in local TV news and newspapers is likely even more pronounced than at a national level.
That’s a per night number, and the same people aren’t watching every night, so actual penetration would be bigger than that.
Look, either you get your Iraq news from some form of the Big Media (either by watching/listening/reading yourself, or getting it filtered from others), or you get it straight from conversations with soldiers returned from the field. Those are the only two choices. How many people get their Iraq news from the latter? I was giving you guys a break with the 90% figure.
The problem really isn’t even how many people see the “all bad news all the time” narrative the media is plugging about Iraq. Even if I don’t watch TV, or read newspapers, or listen to the radio, I’m still going to hear the “all bad news” narrative repeated by people who have seen it, so — absent any opposing views — I’ll get the impression that it’s true, too.
The problem is that, unless the media reports good and bad news in some sense of accurate proportion (which they don’t and never will), then they are intentionally deluding the American people into thinking things are worse than they are. Now…why would they do that?
Note that not even the leftiest of the lefties on this page will take up my challenge and show that the good news and bad news regarding Iraq are being reported in anything approaching accurate proportions. The best you guys can say is “Not that many people watch the biased Big Media news, and if they do, they say they don’t believe the biased Big Media news!” At least you guys are honest in that respect.
Steve
Where do YOU get your news from Iraq, Mac?
ppGaz
Are ya paying any attention, Mac? MAYBE TEN PERCENT OF AMERICANS get regular national news from MSM sources. Check the ratings and judge for yourself.
Your “Big Media” bullshit is based on myth, not facts.
I’ll bet you that you can’t find five out of a hundred randomly selected people who can name two of the network anchors. I’ll bet you that you can’t find five people at all, in a whole day, who watch cable news prime time on a regular basis.
Fox News, a GOP house organ, owns the ratins on cable.
There is no big media pumping Americans full of liberal biases, Mac. You’re full of shit. Give it up.
I’m not saying “not that many people watch Big Media news.”
I’m saying that statistically, NOBODY watches it.
More people are in prison in the US than watch cable news, Mac.
Unless you can produce evidence to support your claim that American opinion is shaped by a Big Media message, you are done here.
Either put up, or shut up.
The Other Steve
You’ll have to ask George Bush that. He’s the one who threw Al Qaeda into the Briar patch and is now wondering why they are laughing at us. What the fuck did he think was going to happen, if his cakewalk scenario failed?
Frankly, I’m a done with the “Well we’re there, we have to fix it bullshit”. We don’t have to fix it. It’s not our fucking country, and it’s not our fucking job.
If you are so convinced you have to go fix it, then hop on a boat and paddle your ass over there. You can take old Georgie with ya for all I care.
The Other Steve
mewsmax.com. Where else do you hear about all the mews?
Krista
Actually, I’ve found the American news outlets to be remarkably administration-friendly. I usually get my news from CBC or CTV, but occasionally turn on CNN or one of the network affiliates (usually Boston or Rochester)just to see what they’re saying. I’ve found their reporting to be anything BUT critical of the Bush administration. Oh, they’ll report on what the Bush critics are saying, but I’ve found that they really gloss over it, and give it very little airtime compared to the rebuttal or “official response” from the administration. I’m wondering if there are any other non-Americans here who have also watched American news stations and are finding the same thing. Because when you compare Canadian reporting of the war, British reporting (I also watch BBC), and American reporting of the war, the prevailing theme I’ve noticed in the U.S. media is that America can do no wrong. Your country has armed and trained its own enemies. You overthrew the government of a sovereign nation without a comprehensive reconstruction strategy – a strategy that should have accounted for the rich and complicated religious history of that nation. Your leaders hoped for the best, but didn’t prepare for the worst, which common sense dictates would have HAD to have been done.
And I don’t see the American media reporting that.
Slide
bucket boy:
huh? what are you talking about? Civil war? Words have meaning bucketboy there was no civil war going on, a brutal authoritarian Sunni led dictatorship yes but not a civil war. Words do have meaning even for right wingnuts.
bucketboy making an ass of himself again:
ok..whatever you say. I’m tired of even trying to argue with you. History so far has proven me (and Brent Skowcroft, James Baker, and George H Bush) right on Iraq and how sectarian interests will split the country while your side was telling us about being greeted with flowers and Jeffersonian democracy. I’m pretty comfortable with my predictions made way back then how about you?
We’ll just let this play out and see where we are six months from now and one year from now…
Either bucket boy is the most ideologically blinded individual on the planet or the most naive. Haven’t quite figured out which.
Slide
Krista exactly. To suggest that the American media is biases AGAINST this war is so delusional it defies imagination. The press were basically stenographers for this adminstration. Remember all those inbeds… remember the heroics of Private Lynch… remember the heroics of Pat Tillman… remember how uncritically everything the liars at the pentagon (mainly civilian political appointees of the Pentagon I should clarify) said was reported? Some of these right wingnuts should read some foreign press if they want to get an idea how the rest of the world views the Iraq war. And I’m not just talking about al Jezerra but the reporting from our allies.
Blue Neponset
It doesn’t matter why they do it. If Bush can’t handle CNN, why should we expect him to be able to handle Iraq? It isn’t CNN’s job to rally support for the war in Iraq. It is Bush’s job and he apparantly isn’t up to it.
Slide
bucket boy:
The BUSH appointed REPUBLICAN US envoy to Iraq seems to disagree:
who ya goin’ believe?
Perry Como
But a guy from the Albany Times Union may decide to take a job with the Stars and Stripes in Iraq. Or maybe an editor for a small branch of Time Inc. will quit and take up a freelance reporting job in Iraq. You’d be surprised who has gone to Iraq to report things.
RonB
Mac, when you have armed militiamen rolling around in pickup trucks going through your town, would YOU give a shit about the latest coat of paint on a school? The news is in proportion to its overall importance in the greater picture.
What’s your theory?
Perry Como
The media really needs to report more on all of the white women that aren’t missing.
jg
According to Mac if it wasn’t for the media the US would be able to lose this war without losing public support for it. He hasn’t yet said we’re doing well, just that the media is out on some crusade to inform the american public about it. The bastards.
DougJ
Or at least report some of the good news about those that are.
They better hope some of those white women come back, because if they don’t, a a lot of people are going to blame the media.
Beej
TheOtherSteve,
Well now, you’ve taken some pretty big jumps in ascribing to me opinions which I didn’t express and don’t hold.
1. I did not say “We’re there, we need to fix it”. In fact, I would say that in that direction lies disaster. We need to get out. How do we do it?
2. You want to leave this up to Bush? Ohmyohmy. I really doubt that the dunderheads that got us into this are going to think of a rational, face-saving way to exit anytime soon.
So, once again, the question: How do we do it?
For the sanest answer I’ve seen so far, check out Pb’s post a few frames after mine. It’s time to organize for ’08.
Slide
bucket boy and this administration tell us it is “unlikely” that we will have a civil war in Iraq. Now of course these bozos have been completely and utterly wrong on every single thing they have ever said about Iraq, but lets see what some military and intelligence experts say:
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3596
and this news today can’t be encouraging to the bucket boys of the world:
.