Greenwald has a good catch that deserves to be teased out just a bit more. Sen. Kit Bond:
While I agree that we had the wrong plan for three years, we now have the right one, and the right man to lead it.
Whoa. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like Bond just said that for four years he and all of the other elected, media and online war boosters were completely wrong when they argued that everything was under control, we had a great plan. By Bond’s own admission the warhawks had no real basis for telling folks like me to just stop all the damn complaining and let the misunderstood geniuses on top do their job. The war critics had it right. By any normal measure that would mean that war critics, having correctly perceived the situation four years before he did, have credibility on the issue and the war boosters do not.
Good to know. So why does Kit Bond think that we should listen to him now?
Keith
Not just going towards admitting following the wrong plan all this time, given the rhetoric that Congress doesn’t know how to run a war – “the generals on the ground do” – why should I think he knows whether the current plan is right?
demimondian
Why should we listen to Kit Bond? Well, there’s this small matter of him being the senior senator from the State of Missouri, you know.
A better question would be to ask “What’s different about the current plan form all the others? If you acknowledge that the others were pipe-dreams, then you need to explain why this one is not. What is the key difference?” As far as I can see, the only difference between the current plan and its predecessors is that this one hasn’t yet been acknowledged to have failed.
rachel
Yeah, maybe somebody sat him down and talked some sense into him. I place no great dependence on it, mind, but it could have happened.
ThymeZone
Why should we listen to him now? For the same reason he has changed his tune:
Republicans are calculating how many seats they will lose on the Hill in 2008, and they are looking for ways to keep the damage to a minimum.
We should honor their dedication to public service, and hear them out.
jrg
Because Saddam was a bad man. Any strategy to remove him, no matter how expensive or ill-advised is better than sitting around, waiting for him to nuke us with his imaginary weapons.
Besides, leadership means being firm and resolute in an air-conditioned office, unless leadership means changing course when your constituents figure out your plan is not working. The
definition of leadershipplan changes aspollsfacts on the ground change.Leadership has nothing to do with accountability. When a leader makes a mistake, it’s someone else’s job to get their face blown off. Thankfully, the brave warriors in the GOP understand these sacrifices and have great respect for the sacrifices of the men and women of the armed services. Bond cares about our military – that’s why he is speaking up now, after three years of cheerleading this murderous clusterfuck of a war.
Remind me again… Who hates America? Who wants America to loose?
jg
We have a plan?
Cassidy
I thought “real Democrats” didn’t try and exclude others from the debate.
jrg
For those of you confused by this particular troll, please note that this comment is in response to another user’s post on a different thread, about a different topic.
But hey, Cassidy, a Dem said it once, so by all means – feel free to quote out of context, and attribute it to any Democrat, during any discussion.
Tim F.
Keep trying, bro. To put it another way – when somebody with a proven credibility gap says, “trust me,” would you? Say yes and you’re a chump. Say no and your dig has no substance.
Andrew
You’re catching up to Darrell’s level of stupidity trolling faster than anyone thought possible.
chopper
but the new plan isn’t any different from the old one, the the man leading it hasn’t changed any part of his tune. this whole statement is just batshit crazy.
RSA
Exactly what I was thinking. I’d cast the questions slightly differently: “What made you realize that the old plan wasn’t working? Is there any reason to think that the same criteria, applied to the new plan, wouldn’t give the same results?”
Also, I want to hear one of our corn pone Senators come up with an aphorism that’s completely the opposite of “You dance with the one what brung you,” and “You don’t switch horses in midstream.”
Ripley
It may not be different but it’s new. And I think most people prefer new things: cars, houses, girlfriends, music, plans for billion dollar clusterfucks with spectacular levels of death and destruction but no defined goals…
Honestly, though, this is just standard retail marketing: New Look! Same great taste!
These clowns would starve if they worked in the private sector.
Rick Taylor
“By any normal measure that would mean that war critics, having correctly perceived the situation four years before he did, have credibility on the issue and the war boosters do not.”
Now do you understand why Bush never admits to making a mistake?
–Rick Taylor
Rome Again
it’s a shame they don’t, eh?
Cassidy
I’m not the one who said it in the first place. I’m just curious about the inconsistency of the said position. One minute it’s “Cassidy is not a good democrat because he would exclude others from the debate”. Next its “we’ll exclude him from the debate for (blank reason)”. The position is inconsistent, bordering on hypocritical. personally, I wouldn’t listen to the guy, but I’m’ already on record as saying some folk’s opinions are’t worth a damn.
demimondian
Hmm. So, let me get this straight, ok? Pointing out that someone’s position provides a prima facie justification for listening to them is somehow “excluding” others from debate?
As to excluding you, personally, from debate — I’m not. Whether or not I ever would, in your case, ask yourself: “Why would he (demimondian) care enough to do that?” As I’ve told a number of trolls here, you don’t matter enough to me for me to waste my time trying to drive you away, particularly since I’d be unlikely to succeed.
Tim F.
Are you trying to irritate me? Either you misunderstand the sentence that you blockquoted or else you have no idea what the word “exclude” means.
Beej
Stating one’s reasons for giving no credence to someone’s opinion is not equal to “excluding from the discussion”. Mr. Bond is welcome to discuss. By doing so he makes himself subject to judgments about his credibility. John Cole made such a judgment. This does not “exclude Mr. Bond” from the discussion, it simply states an evaluation, based on past performance and evidence, about the credibility of that discussion from this person. Got it now, Cassidy?
jrg
I get your point, but it only goes so far in describing the situation. Bush and congressional republicans (including Bond), have put off implementing portions the bipartisan ISG. They have accused the Democrats of undermining the war effort at every turn during the past three years. Take for example Bond’s quote in Greenwald’s article:
Republicans always represent two viewpoints – the party line, and the strawman liberal. Limiting the credibility and relative air time of war cheerleaders like Bond and including more real voices in the debate means the same damn thing.
You agree that Bond has less credibility to speak on Iraq, so all you are doing is muddying the waters with semantics.
juandos
“Whoa. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like Bond just said that for four years he and all of the other elected, media and online war boosters were completely wrong when they argued that everything was under control, we had a great plan“…
Leave it to sniveling cowards and libtards to get it wrong…
Cassidy
JRG–I’ not disagreeing with the position of this thread. The man has no credibility, as neither does any Republican pol, so of course I’m not gonna pay attention to anything the guy says.
That wasn’t my point, though. The point is that earlier, it was very plainly stated that I’m obviously not a democrat because a “real democrat” wouldn’t exclude anyone from the debate, in reference to me hoping that the shrieking left would be somehow silenced (rhetorically, not literally) close to voting time as I don’t want their hyperbole to hurt a democratic candidate. Then, in this thread, this little gem is found:
Why should we listen to Kit Bond? Well, there’s this small matter of him being the senior senator from the State of Missouri, you know.
That sounds like exclusion to me. it’s the faulty logic of the “real democrat” part that is being called into question, not the above quote. So, according to the “What makes a Real Democrat” guidelines, set forth in this blog’s comments section, demimondian s not a “real Democrat”.
And Tim, I understood the phrase just fine. I’m not trying to irritate you, but I refuse to allow hypocrisy and dishonesty reign supreme.
Rome Again
You could have fooled me.
Mick Stockinger
Y’all sound like morons to me. War isn’t “a plan”, its a conflict with changing strategies and tactics on both sides. The plan or strategy is to establish a functioning democracy in Iraq. If that’s a bad plan, then say so–go ahead and say that Arabs are subhumans incapable of peaceful coexistence, while your barbarian ancestors managed it because of their delightfully white skin. I have long ago ceased to take the left seriously at all because they simply endlessly recycle their own rhetoric.
Have some balls and discuss the real issue: If the plan is “bad” and democracy can’t be established in the middleeast–meaning not Jeffersonian democracy (another left-wing piece of misdirection), but a political system that allows conflicts to be resolved politically rather than by militia and coup, what do you think the eventual outcome will be in the middle east? What will it do to global stability? How will China react to a fossil fuel shortage because no one can get a minutes peace to pump some oil out of the ground of the Arabian peninsula?
Why is it that you have no faith in democracy when recent history clearly demonstrates that democracy is the potent political and philosophical force the world has ever known?
Grow up.
Cassidy
Well of course you’d have missed it. Lying and breaking promises are okay in your ethical system.
Rome Again
Really? Please prove where I said such. Please show me my lies and broken promises. The problem is you believe your oath is intact when it isn’t. You are the one breaking promises, not I. You see no problem in fighting a war that was based on lies and without the support of the international community. You see no problem with breaking treaties and the Geneva convention to make America safer; and we’re not even making America safer. Keep believing your fantasies, little man.
Cassidy
I don’t answer to the international community. Nor are they a part of my Chain of Command.
Rome Again
Your chain of command doesn’t honor treaties it agreed to, that makes you someone who agrees it’s okay to break promises if you support your commander in his position to go to war without provocation.
Oh, I forgot, you’re just doing a job, getting paid to kill people and doing what your boss tells you to. Does your resume state Professional Assassin?
Cassidy
if only. I’d get paid better.
rachel
Hmmm.
jake
Yes.
SA2SQ, Vol. LMX
jrg
Where to start? Here, maybe?
There are countries of many races all over the globe that are not democratic. The largest democracy in the world (India) consists entirely of South-Asians (obviously), whose appearance differs only slightly from Iraqis. White people were white during the dark ages. Race has nothing to do with it. I’ve never seen anyone on this board argue otherwise.
India, BTW, became the largest Democracy in the world after the British left.
If we want Democracy in the Middle East, forcing it at gunpoint is counter-productive. There is a democratic movement in Iran that does not want to be associated with America at all, because we have supported (and do support) anti-democratic regimes.
Face it – the justifications for the war had more to do with politics in Ohio or Florida than Baghdad or Kurdistan. At the beginning of the conflict (right before the 2004 elections), a lot of other stuff was being strewn about the airwaves– things like “weapons of mass destruction”, “oil”, “the party of national security”, and “no nation building”.
“Democracy” was a talking point, and it came later.
If you’re asking me if the $9,000.00+ I owe (so far), as a taxpayer, was well spent for the lofty goal of “spreading democracy in Iraq”? My answer is no. If philanthropy is the goal, I’d rather the money be spent on some poor, hungry, “minority” kid who has no idea “democracy” even exists.
jg
Since I’m the one who said democrats don’t exclude others from the debate and we all know I’m not an authority on democratic party behavior can we move on past this obvious distraction?
jrg
Well, obviously he considers you to be some sort of arbiter of absolute truth. Tell him that in order to be a “real Republican”, you have to buttfuck a chimp in a nun’s habit.
rachel
Yeah! I vote that we discuss Senator Bond’s position on the Military using “Separation Because of Personality Disorder” as another way to exploit injured servicemembers. Is it pure politics? Has he finally wised up to the awfulness of the situation and started doing the right thing? What’s up with this?
DougJ
This kind of stuff just makes me laugh. It’s like The Ice Man Cometh or something.
Cassidy
I’d pay to watch you do that.
TenguPhule
I believe when Iraq did this, they were called a rogue nation.
Be sure to give our new Chinese Overlords a big fat kiss on their shoes.
Punchy
Uh….maybe, just maybe, they dont want a fucking democracy. Ever think of that?
Ya know, BMW makes a great car. Should we force those autos on every Iraqi, too? Should we force Rolexes on their arms, being that they’re the best on the planet, ya know?
TenguPhule
In order:
Yes.
No.
Bond doesn’t want to lose his seat. The Asses are in the Wind and it’s an ill stench blowing his way.
TenguPhule
Yes they did.
The Old Plan
Step 1: Attack Iraq
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit! Flowers and Candy for Everybody!
The New Plan
Step 1: Deny Everything
Step 2: The Democrats backstabbed us and lost the war!
Step 3: Look! A jackalope!
Step 4: Profit! Pages and Hookers for Everyone!
rachel
Nice imagery, TenguPhule. Are you saying they’re farting in his general direction?
Make7
I thought ‘Step 1’ was Collect Underpants.
chopper
love it. the false choice fallacy is one of the best, especially with the race card thrown in.
bravo, sir. you’ve brought stupid to a new level.
demimondian
Oh, it’s better than that. The first sentence “The plan or strategy…” is a beautiful example of demagoguery. the claim should be that “the *goal* is to establish a functioning democracy”. Even granting the truth of that statement, that’s not a plan or a strategy.
The plan or strategy was and is
(1) Rush in, take Baghdad
(2) Paint the Republican party as the “party of victory in Iraq”
(3) Exploit that to win the 2004 election
The truth is, that plan went off like clockwork. It’s the part which happened after the war ended, after the “Mission Accomplished” sign went up, and after the election which hasn’t quite gone so well. That’s the part for which there’s a goal, but no plan.
Tim F.
To be more specific, the Sunnis know that a democracy will mean a giant red-hot shaft up their ass. The Kurds, having several non-negotiable demands (Kirkuk, autonomy) want a parliamentary system where they can play kingmaker. The Sadrists never believed in Democracy to begin with. Rather, for them overthrowing Saddam meant taking their turn on the despot seat. AQ in Iraq just wanted Shiite blood any way they could get it.
The problem is not so much that Iraqis didn’t want democracy. Some did, some didn’t. The problem was always that the Iraqis who did want democracy were outmatched in numbers, arms, enthusiasm and organization by the groups who did not want it, and our actions (abu ghraib) weakened their hand further.
Tim F.
You forgot Chalabi.
rachel
Or, to put it another way, there are at least three “dêmos” and all of them want the “kratia.”
Dreggas
Damn, beaten to the Unerpants gnome comparisson…
jenniebee
Cassidy – it’s the difference between dismissing somebody because his ideas are discredited hogswallop and wanting someone to please just shut up because their ideas are embarrassing hogswallop. One is arguing against someone who is already talking, the other is… anticipatory argument neutralization, if you will.
Add a soupcon of idealism to counteract whatever self-examination inadvertently made it into the mix, and you’ve pretty much got the difference.