Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan
– John F. Kennedy
Via Djerejian, Ahmad Chalabi blames the neocons:
“The real culprit in all this is Wolfowitz…They chickened out. The Pentagon guys chickened out…We would have taken hold of the country…We would have revitalized the civil service immediately. We would have been able to put together a military force and an intelligence service. There would have been no insurgency. We would have had electricity. The Americans screwed it up…In Wolfowitz’s mind, you couldn’t trust the Iraqis to run a democracy… We have to teach them, give them lessons….We have to leave Iraq under our tutelage. The Iraqis are useless. The Iraqis are incompetent [in Wolfowitz’s mind]….What I didn’t realize was that the Americans sold us out.”
Neocons blame the administration:
According to [Richard] Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, “The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn’t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don’t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty.”
Administration supporters blame the Generals:
In a Wednesday appearance on CNN, Boehner was asked for his view on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the U.S. policy in Iraq. “There are a lot of people who want to blame what’s happening in Iraq on Donald Rumsfeld, but when you look at the transformation that our military has been through, it’s nothing short of remarkable,” Boehner said. “The fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge.” Boehner acknowledged that “there have been mistakes along the way,” but did not blame Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, Boehner said, has been pushing the military to transform, but the uniformed military leaders have resisted. “You have to understand that the generals who have been in charge of the Pentagon have been very resistant to change,” Boehner said.
Practically every retired General blames Donald Rumsfeld, as do the major newspapers serving the US military:
Just days after President Bush publicly affirmed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s job security through the end of his term, a family of publications catering to the military will publish an editorial calling for the defense secretary’s removal.
The editorial, released to NBC News on Friday ahead of its Monday publication date, stated, “It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.”
Time‘s Blog of the Year blames the Iraqi people:
Unfortunately, though, more was required of the Iraqi people than just voting. The situation called on them to elect leaders who would work in good faith for national reconciliation, rather than tilting substantially in the direction of one sectarian faction. The Iraqis failed to do this when they voted in the Shia-militia-friendly Maliki government, thereby making it difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to work with the current government to curb sectarian violence.
Greenwald responds:
What makes Paul’s excuse-making extra disgusting is that — like so many of these war advocates who are blaming others for this debacle by claiming that it’s all due to past mistakes by other people which they never criticized at the time — Paul praised Maliki’s election in April as the key event for achieving “national unity”
Unsurprisingly, practically everybody involved with the glorious clusterf*ck in Iraq has switched into desperate damage-control mode. Michael Leeden’s personal dodge (Supported the invasion? You must mean some other Michael Leeden) is particularly funny for its mix of mendacity and flopsweat. Pity the poor schmuck too dim or personally invested in Iraq to even admit the existence of blame to deflect:
Woodward says that no matter what has occurred in Iraq, Mr. Bush does not welcome any pessimistic assessments from his aides, because he’s sure that his war has Iraq and America on the right path.
“Late last year he had key Republicans up to the White House to talk about the war. And said, ‘I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.’
History will not be kind.
Proud Liberal
Had enough America?
John Thullen
In other news, Barney has been receiving massages from a poodle.
gene kinnaly
Shoulda, woulda, coulda….. if it weren’t for the Dixie Chicks being so outspoken……… Damn..
jcricket
You know we’re about one teensy tipping-point-in-Iraq moment away from all those same people (except the generals, who will continue to point the finger at the right people, because they have integrity) blaming the 70% of America that opposes the war for the failures in Iraq. Oh, and the liberal media. Not the military leadership, not the civilian/political leadership, not our Commander in Chief or his Vice-Commander, not the military contractors, not the neo-con adventurists, and not the insurgents. But other Americans.
Despite a near-total lack of war protests (those that happen are tiny), the embedding of the media with the military and the significant lack of media scrutiny up until recently. I guarantee Powerline and others will start blaming most US citizens and the media very shortly (if they haven’t already). You can already see it with RedState casting people like John Cole as traitorous liberal-Kool-Aid drinkers.
This is otherwise known as the “Tinkerbell theory”. They haven’t been pushing this one for a while, but I guarantee that when the history books get written we’ll at least see one or two from Regenry or another Scaife imprint blaming the media and or “liberals” (that 70% of America that opposes the war will be transformed into a “tiny minority of America haters” in these books).
We’ll need to have vigilance against the same kind of historical revisionism (and worse) the neo-cons and other war-mongers are already trying to peddle.
searp
There is one, and only one, person to blame for the Iraq war, George W. Bush.
There was only one person that gave the order to go to war. The generals, Rumsfeld, etc., these folks were action officers – once the order came. Their views were not determinate, only the views of one official, the President, were determinate.
Of course, we are free to attach any amount of opprobrium to others who advocated such a catastrophic policy, but theirs is the sin of advocacy as opposed to commission.
The generals are especially vulnerable to propaganda, because if they are active duty they are bound by law and custom to just shut up and take it. I bet the majority, that is right, the majority, hate their jobs and stay mostly because they think they can prevent things from getting worse for the troops.
KC
We’ll see on Tuesday if people will hold the “one, and only one, person” accountable for the travesty in Iraq. I think it says millions that the Dems aren’t sweeping the House and Senate at this point.
Diebold Election Systems, Inc.
Not if we have a say in it.
We Won’t Rest.
Punchy
I blame Michael Moore. He is, ya know, fat.
jcricket
Wow, it’s already started. I never thought we’d already get to “damn bitches and their periods” this quickly.
I don’t think it says anything, really. Republicans run good campaigns, and in a significant number of states Democrats have just decided “Hey, we should run candidates here”. The ridiculous negative ad against Ford apparently worked very well. Democrats still haven’t learned how to run better negative ads and how to respond to these ads.
My predictions: Democrats will take the house, but probably by a small margin. A lot of disaffected Republicans will still pull the lever for “R” – They’ll say “I hate everything Republicans are doing, but those Democrats might raise my taxes or force me to marry a gay, so ‘R’ it is. And my guy’s not that bad, right? He’s not one of those ‘R’s.”
I personally doubt Democrats will re-take the Senate, but it looks like they’ll gain 3-4 seats. It’s always difficult to take the non-representational Senate for Democrats (too many Democrats concentrated in already Democratic states).
I think it says millions that even in this atmosphere (total Republican control) Democrats can re-take the house and win seats in the Senate. On the other hand, it looks like Republicans won’t take a single seat from Democrats. The closest is the Steele/Cardin race in MD.
So, Democrats win all over the place, and Republicans lose, except where they already hold seats. Tell me which party is the American public turning towards, and which one away from? Hopefully it’s just the start of a trend. If nothing else it will make the Republicans have to work really hard to do anything ridiculous in the last 2 years of Bush’s term. If they try and re-vive things like Social Security privatization, or run as if maintaining a teensy majority (or being in the teensy minority) means they still have a “mandate”, except even worse results for them in 2 years.
SeesThroughIt
That’s my favorite wingnut, Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush. Well….sort of. He takes it one step further: Iraq is actually an unbridled success, it’s just that the damn media won’t tell you that. Basically, just as jcricket is predicting–Noonan’s out in front of that trend and has been for a while. He actually believes it’s the media’s fault for not reporting the glorious success of Iraq. Pretty remarkable, really.
srv
Nice post, Tim.
Walker
Go read the comments on Kevin Drum’s blog. Already happening.
JPL
I actually heard the blame the generals awhile back. It came from connections with the Texas Air National Guard. Somehow they still feel the need to protect GW.
Baby Jane
The blame lays at the foot of Ralph Nader’s ceramic gargoyle bong.
stickler
Well, let’s not jump the gun here:
That very much depends on who is writing the history. Michael Ledeen is already furiously scribbling away. Give him a year, and he’ll have been heroically warning Bush away from invading Mesopotamia. Two years, and he’ll claim to have founded ANSWER.
Pb
Hahah. And I suppose Simone Ledeen‘s father is also some other Michael Ledeen? What a bunch of liars. Oh, and it’s somehow appropriate that the National Review published that dreck, considering that she got the job thanks to the Heritage Foundation.
p.lukasiak
I think it says millions that the Dems aren’t sweeping the House and Senate at this point.
wow, talk about dumb….
The very idea that six seats would change hands in the Senate was considered risible a year ago….
more to the point, political gerrymandering has made it virtually impossible to replace an incumbent member of the house — yet in addition to the open seats that the Dems are expected to take overwhelmingly, there are now a significant number of GOP representatives on the endangered species list.
The fact that there are so many seats that were designed to be “safe” for the GOP that will be going to the Democrats this year tells you all you need to know about this election…..
jcricket
Hmmm, Michael & Simone Ledeen? Jonah and Lucianne Goldberg? George HW & George W Bush. I sense a trend here.
Hmmm…
Ah yes…
I can only hope that at some point Republicans will have spent so much time demonizing the press, that the press will wake up and realize there’s no appeasing the right-wing, short of shutting down and just re-printing Republican press releases as fact. Nothing would destroy Republican political chances more than an actual, functioning, independent press (the kind that doesn’t present false equivalence on every issue).
Pb
I fear that even that wouldn’t be enough sometimes–then the Republicans could release a *new* press release, and attack the press for the outdated and obviously false talking points found in the old press release. There’s just no pleasing these sociopaths.
chopper
actually, boehner did this just recently.
jcricket
Pb – That’s the last part of the quote:
Hence Tony Snow saying the President “never said we were going to stay the course” or even “only 8 or 9 times”. The history re-writing has becoming increasingly frantic and brazen already. Just imagine what happens in 5 or 10 years.
GW will be an even more important, brilliant + glorious president than Ronald Reagan.
stickler
Let’s all remember how effective rewriting history has been in our own recent past.
Richard Nixon was the peace candidate in 1968 (well, “peace with honor,” whatever that meant), and he barely eked out a victory against Humphrey. He then botched up Vietnam even worse, got another 20,000 Americans killed, and in 1972 trotted out the same “secret plan to end the war,” and Kissinger came up with some crap about peace in October.
South Vietnam was a wreck of a state by 1973 and Nixon got us out while the going was good — and even left behind a few hundred POWs in his haste. South Vietnam was doomed, propped up only by a river of American cash which made the corruption and graft worse day by day. When the final Communist offensive hit, the regime collapsed.
But go and read Tacitus or Redstate or “No End But Victory”: for those folks, it was Jane Fonda and the Democratic Congress and hippies who lost the war. Anybody but Westmoreland or Kissinger or Nixon. The Dolchstoßlegende was repeated over and over and over so that even rational Democrats half believe it today.
They will try this again — hell, they’re already doing it. Iraq will be the fault of everybody BUT George W. Bush. Get ready to fling their own words back in their faces. Over, and over, and over, and over again. Because if you don’t, they’ll craft another bright and shining lie, and this Republic won’t survive a third bullshit adventure halfway around the world.
Pb
jcricket,
Indeed. And I’m sure they’ll point out how wrong the liberal media was, even if said media was actually just repeating their own (now inoperative) talking points at the time!
t. jasper parnell
Libby Dole says “Democrats are content to lose” today on Meet the Press, video on crooksandliars.com. So I quess it is false that Repulicans smear those who oppose policies. This incident is both illuminating of the depth of wretchedness of the Republican leadership and illustrative of the requirement that anyone who seeks to ensure the defeat of this cabal of louts, boobs, and crooks never ever back down in the face of their crapulence.
Richard 23
Powerline must’ve been talking about the GOP. Vote.
Pb
What’s happening in Iraq:
etc., etc.; on the other hand…
scs
My vote is for the Iraqi people. Rummy could have put in a million troops un there and put in all geniuses for adminstrators, but the Sunni and Shia would still be shooting and bombing each other.
We should also blame the Dems for having unrealistic expectations – expecting it all to run smoothly, that Shia and Sunni’s will start to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, and if not declaring we’ve “lost”. This is a distance game here. Our game is just to hang out in Iraq as long as we can, as a constant thorn in their sides, trying to prod them into a more modern way of thinking and of life. That is the new war people- get used to it.
The only thing I hope is that we could find a way to reduce casualties while we attempt this. I suggest pulling the troops back to the base more, but keeping them in country as a more symbolic statement- like, look out Arabs, we’re still here – so behave yourself.
semper fubar
You know we’re about one teensy tipping-point-in-Iraq moment away from all those same people …blaming the 70% of America that opposes the war for the failures in Iraq.
Well, it worked for them with Vietnam, didn’t it? Conservatives really don’t have any new ideas – they just keep repeating the same ones over and over, counting on the fact that Americans are too dumb to remember or learn anything from history.
How many assholes in America wouldn’t vote for Kerry in 2004 because he criticized our involvement in Vietnam in 1971? Plenty, I can tell you.
These are the same idiots who blame Jane Fonda, the hippies, the media, the liberals for losing Vietnam.
Nothing changes.
Wait 20 years. It’ll be Murtha, Sy Hersch and Michael Moore who lost Iraq. If only our glorious leader Bush had been allowed to turn the sands of Iraq into glass, we coulda won!
ThymeZone
That’s right, you preposterously stupid idiot, what American mom and dad wouldn’t be proud to have their son sent to stand in harms’s way to make a “symbolic statement?”
AnonE.Mouse
scs,damn good idea you have there about hanging and prodding in Iraq.You first.
Baby Jane
See how that works, scs?
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Why should we have to do anything differently in Iraq? Last time I checked, things there are going just fine. Now that Saddam’s been taken care of, things should finally settle down. The Iraqi people will continue to enjoy the fruits of freedom, nad we can help ourselves to their oil to pay for our expenditures in securing it for them.
I don’t blame anyone for what’s going wrong in Iraq, because I don’t think anything is going wrong in Iraq. Blame Saddam for messing the place up before, but now the only people to blame are the defeatists and doomsayers who say that things aren’t going well there. Those are the people who want to leave before we finish the job.
searp
SCS, I have news for you: we already tried pulling the troops back to their FOBs (forward operating bases). Problem there: things got even worse on the “outside”, generating, ahem, real bad publicity for our effort there. “Symbolic statements” are the worst sort of statements in this environment – you get all of the hate and none of the influence.
Our problem is simple: we have already lost the Iraqi people, we just haven’t realized it yet. We are faced with a real simple choice:
(1) Force the Iraqis to do what we want them to do. I can think of several sorts of strategies: collective punishment designed to kill anyone even in the vicinity of a problem, controlling food supplies, allying with someone who is willing to do all of this and more (essentially creating our sonofabitch).
(2) Get out of there and use money, weapons, diplomacy, etc. to try to retrieve something from the situation. That is, try to re-gain a constituency in Iraq and the Middle East.
It will be interesting to see where we go. I am betting (2), with rhetoric designed to make it sound like we are actually staying the course.
Eventually, it goes without saying, those that are against the war will be blamed for losing it. W and his folks stabbed in the back, etc.
skip
The fact that Ken Adelman is still giving advice proves there really still is some free speech in this country. Yes, anyone has the freedom to make an ass out of himself; but only friends of Wolf Blitzer get to do it on live television, again, again and again.
t. jasper parnell
I blame the John Cole’s of the new Wobblies. Had he not drifted from full-throated defense of the current crop, public support would be at all time high.
James
Commander in Chief?
Who needs a frigging Commander in Chief when Generals can be in charge.
jcricket
You want to be more depressed? Check our Today in Iraq – by Daily War News.
It’s one thing to say the media “focuses on the negative” when complaining about the over-representation of child abduction cases or deaths from gun accidents in America. There’s a legitimate beef that the media “hypes” threats that most of us shouldn’t be worried about, and under-plays true issues (the gradual de-funding of the American safety-net, for one).
However, it’s another thing to make the same claim when the world media is instead reporting about the thousands of violent deaths every couple of weeks, along with mass unemployment, blackouts and war crimes happening in a country we invaded and currently occupy. It’s real, and it’s happening, and claiming otherwise is not only disingenuous, but the height of disrespect for our troops and the Iraqi people, whom we’re supposed to be protecting.
Acknowledging the situation in Iraq is not just about being on the “right side” of politics in America. Minimizing (“just a comma”) the death, maiming and/or psychological trauma being experienced by the millions of Iraqis and the 100,000+ American soldiers every day is immoral and dishonest. Hatred, disdain and disgust are perfectly logical and appropriate responses towards people like Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney.
Practically speaking, even if you’re a “Republican”, I suggest you follow the lead of John Cole, Radley Balko, Andrew Sullivan and Gregory Djerijian and at least vote these current Republicans out of office. Anything less would be uncivilized.
Elvis Elvisberg
Good news for Republicans! They’re pissing off voters just as much as usual… but they’ve hit upon the ingenuity of pretending to be Democrats while doing so! Brilliant! Why didn’t W. just change his party affiliation a year ago?
Bruce Jacobson, a software engineer from Ardmore, Pa., received three prerecorded messages in four hours. Each began, “Hello, I’m calling with information about Lois Murphy,” the Democrat running against two-term incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach in the Philadelphia-area district.
“Basically, they go on to slam Lois,” said Jacobson, who has filed a complaint with the FCC because the source of the call isn’t immediately known.
FCC rules say all prerecorded messages must “at the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call.” During or after the message, they must give the telephone number of the caller.
“The way they’re sent is deceptive. The number of calls is harassing. The way her stances are presented in these stories is deliberately misleading and deceptive,” said Karlyn Messinger, another Murphy supporter from Penn Valley, Pa., who filed a complaint with the FCC.
NRCC spokesman Ed Patru denied any illegal intent.
“All of our political calls are in compliance with the law,” Patru said.
Not so, said the Democrats.
More here.
Pb
Spoofy McSpooferson, revealed–scs likes pie!
chopper
yeah, what really pisses me off is how the dems told us all we’d be greeted as liberators, with flowers and candy and we’d be out in ‘6 months, tops’. i mean, what kind of fools do the democrats take us for?
scarshapedstar
So, ah… which is it? Is this the Schrodinger’s cat of phone calls? Does anyone else miss the days when stories contained actual information?
Also, could we implement a national three-strikes policy for election laws? Or maybe even a one-strike policy. As in, you break an election law, you get tossed out of office. There doesn’t seem to be any recourse, really, for all these “overzealous staffer” incidents.
Wolfdaughter
scs said:
“We should also blame the Dems for having unrealistic expectations – expecting it all to run smoothly, that Shia and Sunni’s will start to hold hands and sing Kumbaya”
Hardly. It was Ken Adelman who said that Iraq would be a cakewalk. He now says that he predicted this based on his belief that the Bush Maladaminstration had assembled this wonderful team of people, the best since WWII or Korea, forget which. And that this wonderful team would so competently conduct the war that of course it would be a cakewalk. See his apologia in the Vanity Fair article.
No, scs, if you are serious you need to educate yourself. And for any of you that might be inclined to believe that we liberals thought any such thing, we DID NOT. Strawman, here.
I wrote all 7 of Arizona’s congressmen in 2002 expressing my wish that they not vote to authorize going to war. I said that Saddam could not have any significant amounts of WMDs, and that a war would be unwinnable ala Vietnam, and that it would inflame the Arabs as well as the Iraqis. I didn’t predict a civil war particularly, but I knew that the Sunnis and Shias weren’t always cordial.
I am just a nobody, with no special access to information, and certainly not classified information. But I am a student of human nature, and am capable of putting myself into others’ shoes. How would we Americans react if the Chinese, say, invaded us? Would we greet them with flowers and candy? Hardly. So why would the Iraqis greet us that way? Their “insurgency” is just defending their homeland, for heaven’s sake. DUH.
Weapons…the IAEA was saying it wasn’t finding any. Scott Ritter who had run the weapons search and confiscation effort was saying there weren’t any as of 1998, and with Iraq under international sanction and satellite observation, how would he be able to reconstitute significant weaponry?
Vietnam was unwinnable because the local populace didn’t particularly support us, and I knew that would also be true in Iraq. History shows that invasions don’t work in the long run if the locals don’t want the invaders there.
So this liberal correctly predicted at least part of what happened. And this liberal favors tough sanctions, trade deals, etc., but also offering carrots, when dealing with others. And agreements which offer something to everyone involved always work better than trying to utterly humiliate a faction. And Marshall Plans work better than WWI Armistices. And understanding the people you are dealing with means that you will find effective ways of dealing, whereas lack of understanding guarantees mistakes and lack of success. That’s not the same thing as Kumbaya, scs.
Zifnab
Ah, the blame game. The Republicans are just begging for lefties to get caught up in it after November. Let the blame game rage and, with luck, nothing will get done. We can have a nice big protracted war of words and editorals and news network standoffs and hot air. And when the dust clears we’ll be just as fucked as we were the day after the elections. And the Republicans can proudly crow about how Democrats don’t have a plan.
I may not like Pelosi all of the time, but her 100 Hours plan has legs. Get on the floor of the House and start passing legislation like its going out of style.
~DKos
Get in there and get your noses ditry. Reform, reform, reform. And just let the Rethuglicans cry foul as loud as they please. Let them try and obstruct and knuckle drag and whine on their personal media outlets. Then we’ll see which party “has a plan”.
ThymeZone
!
scs is written by none other than John Cole himself.
The man enjoys a good practical joke.
scs
Those are the worst kinds of critics in my opinion. We all knew full well, well anyone with half a brain, including Republican supporters like Sullivan and our own John Cole, that this was going to be nasty and long going in. I mean what did anyone expect? It’s the Middle East after all.
And now that it is going it’s predictable course, and things are tough, these rightie Benedict Arnolds are pulling back and running away and pointing the fingers, blaming everyone else but themselves? NOW they are righteously indignant? Please – give me a break.
I respect George Bush because he is not pulling a Sullivan or a Cole and he is “staying the course”. He is not such a phoney or a coward to run away when the going gets tough, or when it’s popular to do so, and pretend that he never supported it all along.
scs
He wishes.
scs
By the way, I’m pretty sure that Victory/Defeat quote is an old Chinese saying, not originated by JFK. But I’d have to look it up first to be 100% sure of that.
scs
Yes, but the Iraqi forces are stronger now. Maybe it’s a better time to try it again.
John S.
The new conservative method:
Advance a belief for which you have no evidence whatsoever as if it were FACT. Of course, it’s only a fact of which you are 99% sure because in order to be 100% sure you’d have to actually reconcile your claim with reality.
That’s scs and her “beautiful” mind.
ThymeZone
Oh really? You might want to do a little research; your government was touting the thing as a cake walk, America seen as liberator, easy victory, short occupation. No particular long terms plans were laid for a long occupation, no plan was laid for an insurgency.
“We knew full well?” Who did? When were the American people informed of this?
I guess somebody forgot to tell the generals to prepare for a war longer than World War Two?
Who knew what it really take, and when did they know it? If they knew it, why didn’t they plan and execute the plan accordingly? If they knew, was Rumsfeld just lying? Or was he ill-informed?
demimondian
Particularly when a quick trip to Teh G00G would have shown that Tim F. was, in fact, correct; the quotation is typically attributed to JFK.
srv
scs, Fisk this:
Robert Fisk, April 17 2003
TenguPhule
Or we could make an even more symbolic statement and turn you, Coulter, Malkin and the rest of the Republican Political Whores over to the Iraqis to become complete whores instead.
Baby Jane
Agreed. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Blanket Fort Bombardiers couldn’t put together half a brain between themselves.
Sine.Qua.Non
I think everyone is going to get a big fat surprise on Tuesday.
The Other Steve
I would highly recommend our Republican friends go see Borat on tuesday night.
It’ll help ease the sorrows of being so wrong.
Elvis Elvisberg
Among those who warned of how difficult an invasion would be: the US, back in the pre-magical thinking era.
Randy
I love listening to all these guys who were for the war say that it’s all Rumsfeld’s fault. And what do these guys propose we do now? That’s the 64 thousadn dollar question.
The timing seems especially specific. How many of these guys are really Democrats, I wonder?
Randy
I love listening to all these guys who were for the war say that it’s all Rumsfeld’s fault. And what do these guys propose we do now? That’s the 64 thousadn dollar question.
The timing seems especially specific. How many of these guys are really Democrats, I wonder?
AnonE.Mouse
scs,your argument for staying the course would be more persuasive if it were postmarked Iraq.Not to be too nosy,but please share with us what you’re doing now or have done in the past that could be construed as leading by example.What’s your answer to the assembly of high school seniors you’re trying to convince to become human rose bushes in Iraq when some smart-ass wants to know why you’re lecturing here instead of hanging there?I’m sure John Cole doesn’t need my help defending himself,but referring to someone who doesn’t share your optomism as Benedict Arnold is rather odious.It’s my understanding that Mr.Arnold-I mean,Mr.Cole-if he were challenged by your young heckler,could point to a distinguished military service.How about you?
jcricket
Au contraire. The wheels of justice move slowly, sometimes grindingly, but they do move. Now, of course, we still don’t know the whole thing (looks like there are ties to the White house), and plenty of people involved still work for the Republicans, but it’s a start.
Abramoff is a start. Safavian is a start. Libby is a start.
Democrats, once elected need to start making GOP voter suppression and dirty campaign tricks into federal crimes, with far harsher monetary and legal penalties. It will be hard for the GOP to oppose that kind of stuff, especially if Dems make it part of the government oversight/transparency push. If Democrats take both houses, and especially if they have a solid majority in the House, they need to push this kind of stuff at every opportunity.
It shouldn’t be the main thrust of their legislative agenda, but a broad-based effort to make it more difficult for Republicans to suppress votes, among other things, is a good start.
Pb
You know, much like John Cole, I may not always agree with Andrew Sullivan, but I do think that he’s at least consistent, and generally rational and honest as well, which makes his opinion much more interesting and valuable than that of the many irrational syncophants out there. So…
Andrew Sullivan then:
And Andrew Sullivan now:
jcricket
Ah yes, the party of principles and personal responsibility
And my favorite Republican justification for this? Politics is dirty, get used to it.
This is the Republican party. Calling John Cole and Andy Sullivan traitors, is the Republican Party. Haggard and his hypocrisy is the Republican party. And anyone who keeps voting for these fools is voting for their hate, their lies and their world-class incompetence.
I can’t wait until the convictions for all the behavior start piling up. It’s not revenge. It’s justice. It’s punishment and they deserve far worse than what they’ll get.
lard lad
“These guys” have more important things on their mind, Randy, than coming up with solutions for the Iraq debacle. Their schedules are currently filled up with frenzied ass-covering.
AnonE.Mouse
Randy,I apologize for calling you a hopeless fucking idiot in a previous thread.You’re a clueless fucking idiot.
lard lad
Hahahahahahaha. Oh slap me on the back, I’m choking.
Unbridled hilarity is the only sane response to the repugnant spectacle of neocons turned into a bunch of overweight Bart Simpsons, each standing next to a busted vase yelping “I didn’t do it!”
Richard fucking Perle and Ahmad goddamn Chalabi, both busting a gut in a crazed race to make sure someone, anyone else gets the blame for the Iraq clusterfuck. Anyone but them.
Tell you what — I’d give a thousand dollars for the chance to bang Perle’s and Chalabi’s heads together, really hard. Just once. I’d be smiling for weeks.
searp
Randy, Src:
OK, I think I get it. Now that this administration has spent years turning Iraq into Vietnam, the Democrats must figure out a strategy.
I love this question/comment: “the Democrats don’t have a plan”.
I have news for you: the Decider in Chief hasn’t had a plan for Iraq for the last 3 years, and he ACTUALLY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING PLANS.
You want a plan, direct your questions and ire to… the party that is actually responsible for making a plan.
No, “stay the course” isn’t a plan.
scs
Give me another break. What about this list was a complete surprise? Did we know for certain where the WMD’s where? Did Sullivan expect a completely casualty free war, with perfect behaviour by all American troops, and sudden stability in Iraq? This is the utmost hypocrisy and none of them should be let to get away with it.
Every war is a RISK. War is not a picnic. When you approve of a war, you go in knowing full well that it could all go to shit. When you make that decision, you don’t make the decision based on the certainty of having no problems. You make the decision believing that you are accomplishing a worthwhile goal – namely the removal of Saddam Hussein and the attempt to start a democratic movement in the Middle East. Those worthwhile goals still exsit and are still attainable. You just don’t run away because the war isn’t “easy”.
If “easiness” were the criteria – and we know that no war is easy, why the hell did they approve of the war in the first place?
lard lad
You’ve backhanded yourself into an excellent question there… too bad that, for you, it’s only a rhetorical one.
You can refuse to acknowledge the facts about the matter all you want, scs, but the clear, blinding truth is that the Bush administration repeatedly told the American people and their own operatives that this war was going to be fast and all but painless. I could provide you with quotes galore to make this crystal clear from Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Hadley… even bit players like Lawrence DiRita and Andrew Natsios… but I’m not gonna do your research for you. Go read Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco — you’ll see it all laid out in exhaustive detail.
Furthermore, the administration repeatedly kicked those among their own people who dared to question their sunshine-and-lollipops scenario straight to the curb — Anthony Zinni, Eric Shinseki, Tom Warrick, Jay Garner, Joe Wilson, intelligence operatives galore, the entire State Department…
Considering how completely wrong the White House’s predictions about the reconstruction were (especially in the face of reams of good advice and wise counsel that they elected to ignore), two possibilities present themselves.
The Bush administration was either a) lying to the American public (and by extension, the rest of the world), or b) they were lying to themselves.
Which means that they are either a) manipulative fucks who put our men and women in harm’s way, bullshitting them at every step about the difficulty of the task at hand, or b) utter idiots who can’t be trusted to run a doughnut shop, let alone the United States of America.
Which one is it, scs? Knaves or fools — Which one best describes the Bush White House that you so happily support?
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Why can’t it be both?
And why is either necessarily worse than a windsurfing flip-flopper like John Kerry?
Faux News
scs redux:
“We are not at war with Eurasia, we are at war with Eastasia. Eurasia is our ally. Eurasia has always been our ally”.
Doubleplusgood that scs! Don’t forget to use the Tinkerbell defense (The Libs didn’t clap hard enough) or the “we were stabbed in the back (by the Libs)” arguement used by Germany after WWI.
Keep mindlessly repeating all 3 of these talking points on as many blogs as you can. I’m sure it will bring our dead soliders back to life.
Tulkinghorn
John Kerry supported this was before he learned the administration was not serious about winning it.
So it is his fault. Really.
Plus he hates teh troops. QED.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
You forgot to tie in the windsurfing. Kerry was too busy windsurfing to come up with a plan for Bush to win the war. Windsurfing, flip-flopping, and hobnobbing with Jane Fonda are all Kerry is good for.
Zifnab
I’m certainly not voting for John Kerry on Tuesday.
Randy
Great responses here from the Democrats, all “it wasn’t our fault, so we’re not fixing it.” Way to pitch in guys, way to be a true patriot.
You may not like what the president is planning for Iraq. But he has _a plan_. Is it really a Plan For Victory? Only time will tell. But you can’t beat something with nothing. You should have learned that in 2004.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
That’s the spirit! I didn’t vote for a single Democratic Senator this election.
(Bernie Sanders doesn’t count, he’s a Socialist. And he’s up in the polls by 30 points, wingnut motherfuckers! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
Tulkinghorn
Way to pitch in?
Anything any Democrat said (increase troop levels, decrease troop levels, send more armor, reconfigure how the forces are set up, conduct more aggressive diplomacy, etc) has elicited a “F*** you, defeatocrat, what do ou know?” response by this administration and its lackeys.
The fall-back is to declare we have no plan. Whatever–there is no point debating with dishonest people.
VidaLoca
scs —
Why yes, we did. Rumsfield told us exactly where they were:
Oh good. Now the lecture starts. But at least you’re half right: for you, the war is a picnic — because for you, it’s not a risk. You don’t have any skin in this game; you never did and you never will. It’s easy to pontificate about how we should shoulder the white man’s burden to bring civilization and light to the poor subjugated brown people in the dark corners of the planet — quit whimpering, that’s exactly what you’re doing here — but you’re never going to get blown out of your HUMV by and IED and you’re never going to go out into the street to find the tortured body of your brother/uncle/son/father and you’re never going to be afraid of going to the market to do some shopping because that’s where the car bombers show up. If you want to read something by a rather savvy woman who does have to put up with the latter daily, start here.
No they probably never held any such expectations, so from the beginning it’s a straw-man argument.
However, you should look up the definition of hypocrisy because it does not mean what you seem to think it means. Sullivan, Cole, Djerijian are former supporters of the war who are trying to explain how they came to hold their previous positions and how they have come to realize how those positions are fundamenally bankrupt. There is nothing of “pretending to hold beliefs, feelings, morals, or virtues which they do not practice or posess” or of holding others up to a standard which they do not meet. They’re trying to be honest, they’re trying to warn others away from their mistakes, and they’re trying to salvage a moral position in this mess. You can disagree with their conclusions and you can disagree with their premises but there’s no hypocrisy there.
But wait — there’s more! They’re not just hypocrites, they’re traitors too? This is the bestest! Tell me, is everybody who opposes the war a traitor? Are you going to go out on that limb?
AnonE.Mouse
No one approved of a war,scs.What was approved by the congress was an authorization for the use of military force.Possibly one or two of the yes voters thought it was a club that would be wielded by adults.It’s disingenuous to pretend that many Democratic votes weren’t the result of political posturing in 2002 when Bush had considerably more popularity than now and memories of 9/11 were a little fresher.(Stay the course.)
Thank you for your didactic on the risks of war.Is this based on first hand knowledge?You seem to studiously ignore a simple question about your own experiences in uniform or your avoidance of military service.Perhaps you just like picnics.If that’s the case,let me remind you that an army travels on it’s stomach(I’m 100% sure I don’t know who fucking said that).I’m sure there’s a position for food service workers in Iraq if you’re afraid of or too old to join the infantry.(Stay the course.)
I’m happy for you that you’re out of the coma in which you apparently spent 2003,but that democratic movement thing wasn’t exactly front and center in the selling of the war-I may be aging and who knows about the effects of all those drugs I sampled,but I do remember pretty clearly that WMDs and terrorism were pushed rather hard.(Stay the course.)
Not to beat a dead horse,but there’s a simple minded innocence present in both yours and Randy’s comments that lead me to think you both are relatively young.Specifically,18-39 year old young.Why the hell aren’t you over in Iraq being part of the solution you endorse?(Stay the course.)
grumpy realist
SCS, just go and enlist, okay? Then we’ll know you’re putting your money where your mouth is.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
She already did. She’s an officer in the 101st Keyboardists.
Judging by what we’ve seen, that unit has suffered atrocious losses lately.
chopper
we’ll see if that attitude changes once they realize that they may have racked up $100 million+ in fines for the operation.
jcricket
Don’t forget the lawyer’s fees. $6 million and counting in just the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal.
The only downside is while we have the Holocaust-surviving foreign Jew billionaire on our side, they have the Hillary-hating, black-helicopter-fearing oil-baron billionaire on theirs. I suspect Scaife will start diverting his money from paying for astroturf organizations and Swift Boat liars and towards the RNC defense fund.
I won’t feel bad about us bleeding him “dry” (or less wet) and diverting their attention, of course.
Perry Como
Wasn’t there a transfer to the 82nd Chairborne?
Andrew
Ann Althouse said…
Intelligent. Principled.
Pb
This just in: scs intended from the beginning to engage in war that was not, it turns out, the last resort; a war that has authorized torture; a war that has led to a civilian casualty rate of around 7,000 a month; a war that has unleashed far more terrorism than it has stifled!
The Other Steve
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
– JFK
The Other Steve
I was going to say shrill and hackiliscious.
ThymeZone
Does your mother know that her 11-year-old little girl is swearing at adults on the Internets?
tBone
All good spoof should read like a bad Zen koan, IMO. Nice job, Randy!
tBone
EDIT: Nice job, DougJ.
searp
Plan for victory: hire Moqtada.
scs
I didn’t mean literally traitors to their country, I meant figuratively traitors to their former ideas and party. I still don’t think the reasons put forth by Sully and others are surprising enough to warrant a complete about-face. Although certain members of the Bushie crowd may have been overly optimistic before the war, again, I say anyone with half a brain knew better – and now these guys are pretending they are SHOCKED SHOCKED by the messiness of war. Who knew war had casualties, right? But if we were “winning” and things were going smoothly, these same guys would be the first crowing about how right they were.
It’s kind of like marrying someone, knowing full well they had a certain bad quality, and then divorcing them soon after marriage after their spouse displays that same bad quality. You either wonder why they agreed to marriage in the first place, or why they didn’t have the character to stick it out and keep their word.
The Other Steve
Thank god some of us correctly pointed out this war was dumb to begin with.
Otherwise we’d be stuck in scs’s strange little world where nobody can change their minds on an issue.
VidaLoca
scs —
So your Benedict Arnold reference was just a throw-away line? He is, after all, one of the more famous traitors to this country that the country has produced.
Let me guess — divorce is another experience you haven’t tried yet, right?
John has put up a number of rather eloquent posts wondering exactly why he agreed to the marriage in the first place. If you want to carry on with the marriage analogy, he sounds like a spouse who’s had it with being put down, pushed around, cheated on and lied to. Smart spouses in that situation head for the door.
The other kind carry on about “sticking it out” and “keeping their word.”
lard lad
Well, well, well, scs…
Does that mean you are willing to give credit where due to those of us who saw this quagmire coming from five miles away and weren’t afraid to say so — people like, say, Howard Dean? Cause it sure seems like your logic is carrying you in that direction.
lard lad
Well put.
AnonE.Mouse
scs,have you ever been married,or is that something else you talk out your ass about?Still waiting on that military resume,General.
ThymeZone
So, a marriage can’t really be dead? Like people, marriages have the capacity for life, no matter how moribund or lifeless they may appear on the outside?
Love, like life itself, is forever, isn’t it, hon?
ThymeZone
I like that you are proud of who you are.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Please don’t turn this into another thread about Terri Schiavo.
Sine.Qua.Non
I seriously can not believe people are still questioning the fact that there were NO FUCKING WMD in Iraq. Cripes! Get a clue people. What does it take for you?
I’m also sick and tired of people impugning John. Here’s the deal kiddies: people of intelligence ask “WHY?” In fact, they ask all the time. It is a sign of intelligence. It is also a sign of intelligence, that when asking why, and getting the answers, the facts, that a person of reasonable intelligence and with critical thinking skills, changes their mind. It IS allowed. In fact learning=change=growth. Try it sometime.
So, lay off.