Apparently, if you think the war is lost (and I do- I have thought this baby was over for some time now and we are just refusing to admit it), that is tantamount to being a traitor. Clearly, something needs to be done to the American Public:
Nearly half of those polled believe the situation in Iraq has gotten worse over the past three months, while 37% believe conditions have remained about the same and 12% said the situation improved. A majority of Americans polled (55%) believe victory in Iraq is no longer possible, while 36% are more optimistic and believe victory can be achieved. Nine-percent were unsure.
A majority of individuals surveyed (56%) now side with the Democrats in Congress, who want to set a deadline for troop withdrawal, while 37% agree with President Bush, who does not want to set a deadline.
Maybe there is still time- only 86% think things have gotten worse and stayed the same. If the 12% who think things have gotten better act quick and leave their day jobs at Hughhewitt.com and Redstate.com and Nationalreview.com, there might be time to round up the rest of America and send them to re-education camps where they can be forced to view Michelle Malkin cheerleader videos until they break and agree the war in Iraq is a smashing success.
Remember in past elections, when Republicans would praise the individuality and innovativeness of the American people, telling you that the reason we need fewer regulations and less government is because the American people are smart enough to take care of themselves?
They were right.
This baby is over. Done. Finished. And the average Joe on the street knows it.
Rusty Shackleford
When I saw those numbers presented last night by David Schuster on Hardball my jaw dropped. How can the media and conservatives ignore those polls?
The Michelle Malkin video is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the Republicans are going to start throwing around. “Bush’s War” was their baby – they were going to use it to beat the sissy Democrats into submission and usher in an era of one-party Republican rule. The Malkins and Hannitys of the world are going to go into overdrive with accusations of cowardice and treason. Nothing is as desperate as a wounded, cornered animal.
The longer this surge continues the higher the likelihood it is that our soldiers are going to suffer terribly. The enemy is becoming bolder and more effective in their attacks (ie the Green Zone received some of it’s heaviest shelling in the last couple of weeks, insurgents breached a checkpoint and killed 9 U.S. soldiers a few days ago). The smaller urban bases seeded throughout Baghdad are vulnerable and it is just a matter of time before some group executes a perfect “smash and grab” of American troops and holds them hostage thanks to the intel they received from the militia members who serve in the Iraqi army.
And then there is Petraeus with this gem:
U.S. Effort Might Become More Difficult Before It Gets Easier
Any predictions as to when it may become easier? How does Jan 20, 2009 sound?
Dreggas
You know what, let them. After watching Buying the war last night and seeing these poll results they will have to scream their heads off because there are a helluva lot more of us than them and the only “treason” I could ever be accused of is not conforming to their “Party”. Fuck ’em.
Hyperion
hey, dreggas, i posted something on the other broder thread about the moyer’s piece. wow…it WAS amazing. i think it’s impossible to view it and not conclude that SOMEBODY was managing the whole obfuscation effort and the MSM just went along because they were AFRAID of having their patriotism impugned. a bunch of craven fake journos.
so i’m thinking…this is all THEY’ve got: malkin dressed up like a cheerleader and broder?
Rusty Shackleford
I DVR’d “Buying the War” last night. I wasn’t planning on watching until Saturday but maybe I’ll skip the news and watch it before the ballgame this evening.
over_educated
I am shocked and dismayed that no one in this thread has yet mentioned Bill Clinton’s penis.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
So even though we accomplished our main objectives (because Saddam and his government are literally and figuratively dead and Iraq has had democratic elections), we still lost the war because we haven’t solved the millennia-old problem of Middle East radicalism in four years? Wow. Tough crowd! I think the most anyone can say is that we won the war and are doing a bad job of reconstructing the New Iraq (both of which any True Conservative could’ve predicted — ahem).
But hey, if you really want to look for self-defeat, it’s always easy to move the goalposts further away and say “It ain’t Disneyland yet, and my crystal ball says it never will be!” Heck, I can easily “prove” that the US “lost” World War Two in similar fashion.
As far as “evidence” to back up your defeat assertion goes, your appeal to the consensus of Average (“Saddam did 9/11, Go To War In Iraq”, “Rove Controls The Price Of Oil!”, “Karl Marx was a Founding Father”, “‘Deal Or No Deal’ Is A Great Show”, “50 Cent Is The Shizzle!”) Joe is as cute and naive as a newborn kitten. Have you never seen Jay Leno talk to Average Joe? I submit that Average Joe is not up to the standard of judging Middle East policy until Average Joe can find the Middle East on a map. Or just plain “East.”
You’ll have to explain sometime why anyone but a pandering politician should care about what Average Joe “knows” about something happening thousands of miles away from him about which he “knows” virtually nothing except what he is spoonfed for a couple of minutes of bad news a day by those seeking to control the narrative.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
That sounds right. That’s probably the exact date we begin our withdrawal from Iraq.
‘Round these parts, Mister or Missy, we call it the Clenis.
Davebo
Proving yet again that free association by morons can produce hilarious results.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Well, you’ve got a point there. Saddam will never develop WMDs, not in this life. Mission Accomplished.
The elections are a crock, though. The country is in the midst of a civil war, and once we leave there’s about a 99.9999% chance it’ll become a Shiite theocracy. Saudi Arabia and Iran will fight tooth and nail over the corpse of the Iraqi nation (already are, in fact). If part of the mission was to destabilize the entire region, and squander our national treasure, our prestige, and our military capability, the war’s been the most successful one waged in American history.
The wingnuts are so unhinged these days that you can’t even really spoof them anymore.
The average American is a moron, except when he supports President Bush and the Republican Party. Then, he’s astute enough to see through the media filter and the Democrat lies.
Actually, Iraq is a paradise. The reporters are distorting this fact because if Americans found out how nice it is over there, we’d all want to move there and then the place would get overcrowded and shitty. Think of Los Angeles 60 years ago versus today. Iraq is like L.A., circa 1947.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
There’s probably a wonderful poem kicking around in EEEL’s head somewhere. If he ever goes BIRDZILLA on it, it’ll come oozing right out.
Tsulagi
Hey, props to the Lambchop for not devolving into his usual CPE, Clinton Penis Envy.
Tagging Iraq in response to 9/11 made as much sense or even less than hitting Canada. If the brilliant prep school cheerleader (he must be jealous of MM about now), the model of Republican manly manness, had gone that route, the war would have fared much better.
Logistics would have been light years easier. The people there speak sorta the same language. The Canadians would have self-corrected the strategy, or really lack thereof, from our brain-dead CIC and Cheney’s butt boys like Wolfie. Cost would have been hundreds of billions cheaper. Plus, our guys wouldn’t feel like an egg boiling in their body armor during the summertime, and much less traveling when on leave. A win all around.
If that fucker Osama wasn’t such a cheap bastard and had any honesty, he’d be running ads for the upcoming prez election. Ending with “I’m Osama bin Laden, and I approve of these Republican wingnuts. They’ve worked for me.”
Pb
Mission accomplished, time to get out!
Apparently, we didn’t get out while the getting was good–ah, the dangers of nation building (as performed by incompetent Republican hacks).
Yeah, I guess we just didn’t have enough troops to forcibly occupy all of Germany, Japan, and Italy for years on end. And of course they were a mess after those years of British rule, artificial boundaries, coups, and US-supported dictatorships.
Maybe it has something to do with that whole We The People thing–you know, representative Democracy, the government works for us? Oh, right, I forgot, the Republican aristocracy never really believed in that either.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Of course, most of the people of Iraq disagree with the American Left on both of these counts — they say there’s no civil war on and predict that there will be a democracy — so the American Left ignores them and screams the preferred narrative. Because the truth is inconvenient to them. And who knows more about Iraq, anyway — actual Iraqis, or arrogant American leftists who will never be within 5000 miles of Iraq?
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Funny, the American people were moron Jesusland freaks (I believe Michael Moore called Americans “idiots”) when 51% voted for Bush in 2004. Now, all of a sudden they are foreign policy experts, even though they can’t even put their finger on Iraq on a map.
Let’s let “the people” do heart surgery, too. Because of the DEMOCRACY!
So, obviously (OK, it helps if you are brain-damaged), the answer is that we should set all policy based on polls of the American people (wow, you guys sure put a lot of faith in corporations who do polling!), regardless of their expertise on the subject matter? Sanjiya would be Secretary of State in a month, and the lefties would be very unhappy with other outcomes, as well.
Dreggas
Can I have some of what your smoking?
Krista
True. But there’d be an awful lot of desertion and side-switching once we unleash our secret weapons: Montreal strippers and Unibroue beer.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Got a link to those polls? Who’s doing the polling, Marketplace McCain? Do you seriously think pollsters are going door-to-door in Iraq, Mac Buckets? Sounds like a pretty good job. If things are going so well over there, why don’t you sign up for it? Prove us all wrong. Go to Iraq, travel around unescorted, and send back reports of how safe it is.
tBone
I’m not a big fan of ad hominem, but really, how can you read this drivel and not ask “When did Mac Buckets become such a fucking retard?”
Was it a head injury, Mac? Too much paint huffing? Inquiring minds want to know.
Nikki
Remember those glory days of yore when the right spent gigabytes of data and tons of paper excoriating the left for thinking the left was so much smarter than the “Average Joe”?
Good times.
grumpy realist
Now the betting is what percentage of Americans are going to have to scream GET US OUT OF THIS FUCKING WAR before the MSM gets what is known as a clue.
Any bets? I think it’s going to have to be 85% or higher before the bimbo goldfish get the point.
The Other Andrew
Um, if we’re going by Iraqi polls, I seem to recall that a healthy majority of Iraqis think that attacks on US troops are acceptable…
tBone
That was totally different. In past years, Average Joe was an expert who was cruelly ignored by the Clinton junta – nothing at all like the modern-day Average Joe, who underwent a lobotomy in 2001.
Let’s let Mac Buckets tell us all about it:
OK, we shouldn’t set policy based on polls of Average Joe, who is an idiot. Got it.
So, we should set policy based on polls of Average Ali, who is a genius? Um . . . OK.
We shouldn’t put so much faith in polls conducted by corporations. Unless they are polling Iraqis, in which case the data is rock-solid.
Logic this tortured should qualify for protection under the Geneva Conventions.