I mostly agree with mistermix that House Republicans are opposing Operation Delta Dawn because they hate Obama, but I also think that young Conor has a bit of a point. I think the Republican party may move away a bit from being being the party of perpetual war (given what DC Democrats are like these days, I should maybe say the “party of even more perpetual war than Democrats want”). Rank-and-file Republicans supported Iraq because they like Lee Greenwood, because the W cult of personality is strong, and because Saddam had been effectively Hitlerized, but the strongest and earliest cheerleading for the war came from DC elites.
DC elites like war because they know they know they won’t have to go themselves, because wars are an opportunity to show off how much they know about Kurdish or whatever, and because they see themselves as citizens of the world who should care passionately about the “freedom” of this or that people (that last bit sounds more condescending than I mean it to be, I think). Teatards don’t feel the same way on any count, so they need a different line of persuasion — this guy is Hitler, we can take their oil, it will be a cakewalk etc.
I don’t know any people in real life who think the Iraq War was a great idea. Occasionally I hear “we had to it” and then they try to change the subject but that’s about as far it goes. But Bobo, Bill Kristol, and the rest still claim it was a smashing success, that it set the stage for the “Arab Spring” and so on. Obviously, not many people rank-and-file conservatives make these arguments.
I do wonder, and maybe I’m wrong, how frequently Villagers can convince even the most gullible teatards that the capers they’re planning will actually be cakewalks over a Hitler types.
Svensker
You haven’t met my brother and my male cousins who are all convinced it was brilliant and the only thing that kept the Muslim hordes from conquering us between 2003-2009.
PatB
Tangential reaction: Was at the Vietnam Memorial last night with a niece who’d never seen it. She was subdued. All I could think was, “What a waste, what a god-awful waste.” Why do old men think war is necessary? Why do mothers of sons let them have their way?
AAA Bonds
So we’re talking, who, Barack Obama here? Hillary Clinton?
Doug Harlan J
@Svensker:
I don’t know anybody like that, I know plenty of people who voted for Bush, but I don’t know anyone who talks that way. I’m sure they’re out there, but I don’t think even most Republicans believe that now.
ornery
Republicans supported Iraq because they like Lee Greenwood … DC elites like war because … wars are an opportunity to show off how much they know about Kurdish or whatever, and because they see themselves as citizens of the world who should care passionately about the “freedom” of this or that people”
Aaaaaaaaand he’s OUT!
Do you buy lipstick by the case, DougJ? Dem is sum purty pigs.
Warren Terra
@Svensker:
Are they the sort who think the Muslim hordes did take office in January 2009?
In any case, it’s important to remember that while the Republicans are muttering about Libya, they also were upset about intervention in Kosovo – after previously complaining about inaction in Bosnia (McCain was an exception, because his position on Kosovo was predictably that more war was needed). Democratic-led wars are portrayed as being inherently unAmerican (and not only Democratic-initiated wars; think Somalia in 1993). We are told that the Democrats are intervening to further the one-world-government, or some namby-pamby liberal ideals. On the other hand, Grenada and Panama must be invaded to protect the American way of life.
Basically, the Republican base is composed of morons who are easily led, and the non-morons who write the opinion pieces people like us read tend to have flexible if any morals, to have little if any memory – or simply to be irrelevant. I can assure you that should a future Republican back a war, all these hopeful signs you think you see will utterly vaporize, either through their advocates abandoning their current position or through the rare principled and consistent advocate losing their soapbox.
gene108
In all honesty Congress NEEDS TO DECIDE whether or not to continue our actions against Libya.
The President already laid out his rational. Congress had sixty days from the commitment of sending U.S. forces to act against Libya to approve or disapprove of the action.
I wish the media would point out to whining House Republicans that they have also HAVE to make decisions on these matters and the Constitution (which they hold so dear) designates Congress as the war making body – not the President.
I wish I cold stomach being a Republican. Life would be good, because you can get away with whatever you want. Everything is O.K., if you are a Republican. You will always be a very serious person, no matter what crimes you committed (see G. Gordon Liddy and Ollie North).
Cliff
I don’t know any people in real life who think the Iraq War was a great idea.
I’m pretty sure there’s at least two at my work who do. I’d rather bite off my own arm than talk to them about it, though, so I won’t be confirming it any time soon.
Anyway, give it a decade (if we survive that long), and the Iraq War will be right up there with Vietnam in the list of Glorious American Conflicts for the right.
nancydarling
Doug, Seymour Hersch was on Amy Goodman’s DemocracyNow this past week. His take is that Iraq is not going well and a crisis is looming there. It’s worth a listen to this segment where he also talks about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/3/seymour_hersh_on_the_arab_spring
mr. whipple
That would be 100%.
AAA Bonds
I think it’s totally awesome how President Obama got us into a war with Moammar Gaddafi.
That was one thing I was thinking when I went to the polls in 2008: “I want a restrained war of choice against Moammar Gaddafi. Not an overzealous one – just something to help bring down the Libyan government at some undetermined point.”
MattR
Sorry. Meant to comment sooner but it took me a while to stop laughing.
Corner Stone
@nancydarling:
That’s his take? Well, that’s mighty prescient, ain’t it?
Chuck Butcher
When Clinton was concerned enough about OBL to send a couple missles his way; it was “tail wagging the dog.” That, naturally, was never mentioned as scaring the US public green over OBL to re-elect [R]s went on. It just vanished down some memory hole…
Carl Nyberg
My thinking has evolved to be that the United States economic group since 1939 is based on Military-Industrial Complex Keynesianism.
The corporate media exists to disseminate the propaganda that justifies things being the way they are.
Neo Liberalism has been a success for the elites and the bust for the rest of us.
To create jobs the United States of America needs war. Imagine how bad unemployment would be if we didn’t have Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya and the rest of the Modern Crusades.
The Iraq War was necessary to create jobs, but also to reinvigorate the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party was doing pretty poorly before Bush and the Iraq War.
The Iraq War created contrast between the Dems and GOP. This facilitated the Neo Liberal agenda (where there is little difference) to avoid scrutiny and to continue unquestioned.
harlana
@PatB: Unfortunately, mothers of sons in service, who openly and vehemently oppose war, are scorned or ridiculed by the masses who coincidentally, have no idea what it is like to have a child serving in a war zone.
Corner Stone
@AAA Bonds: Why are you disappointed? Candidate Obama campaigned on The Good War(tm) ! So we all knew he wasn’t against all war, just dumb wars.
If you voted for him then you voted for the use of deadly force anywhere around the globe that it made sense.
Ruckus
@PatB:
” Why do old men think war is necessary? Why do mothers of sons let them have their way?
The question for the ages. I would love to have even a glimmer of an answer. The only one I have lame and if it’s in any way true it is breathtakingly stupid. It is penis envy. I’d hate to think how many people have died because some jackoff wanted a bigger one.
Chris
“DC elites like war because…”
…because war makes them feel important. It makes what they do seem valuable – life and death stakes after all, coupled with the importance of
AmericanWestern civilization and what it does/can do/should do… ah, hell, Chris Hedges said it best: War is a force that gives us meaning.If it weren’t for war and the prospect of war, the DC elite would be circle-jerking itself daily in green rooms for *nothing*.
Better war, with its costs and casualties, than that.
Violet
@Doug Harlan J:
Doug, when’s the last time you spent any time in a red state, hanging out with the kinds of folks who proudly voted for W twice? You may not know them, but they’re out there.
Doug @ top:
Always and forever. Especially if there is any kind of attack, or even attempted attack on the US. But only if there is a Republican in the White House. Otherwise they’ll be skeptical.
Corner Stone
“The deal struck last December to extend the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush gave the average millionaire a tax break of $139,199 for 2011, according to the Tax Policy Center, or nearly $2,700 per week. Given that about 321,000 households reported incomes of more than $1 million in the most recent year for which there are data from the Internal Revenue Service, that means the Bush tax cuts provide millionaires with about $860 million in tax breaks every week—more than enough to stave off the $833 million in proposed cuts to WIC. “
I’d HT Atrios but I dasn’t agitate Master FlipYrWhig no more.
PeakVT
DC elites like war because . . .
There’s an iron triangle of sorts here. The media likes war because it means ratings. The foreign policy establishment likes intervention of one sort or another because if we stopped sticking our noses into other people’s business, their jobs would be much less interesting, and a lot of them would disappear. And politicians like war because it means a chance to bring jobs to their district, and also to get their faces in the media. They all end up referencing one another in support of some kind of action. And off the troops go.
Fred
Wholy over analysis batman.
They do it because they are idiots! Full stop.
J.W. Hamner
Meh… Republicans will be pacifists exactly as long as they are out of power. I honestly think “perpetual war” is going on into perpetuity.
cat48
@DougJ Rombo plans to increase the Military by 1M Troops so it depends on who wins the Primary
I don’t know how he feels about Libya. I would bet the CW b/c people who loves them War want Ground Troops ASAP! McCain and the rest.
Svensker
@Doug Harlan J:
It would be nice if my sweet but neanderthal relatives were one-offers. They’re all Tea Partyers and they live in 3 different states and don’t really know each other very well, so it feels to me like a big part of the country’s insane. Maybe it’s just me…
Violet
OT, but sort of related, I just got robo-called for some sort of tax program being held by my local GOP. I can only imagine what kind of craziness is going to happen there. The call said it was some sort of teaching/learning forum. I’m sure that means they’ll refrain from discussing tax policy, “fair tax,” that thieving Muslim in the WH, etc.
Cliff
@MattR:
Good catch, I’d missed that.
That’s pretty ridiculous.
bleh
Chris at 18 has most of it. Nothin’ like a Glorious War to get the people in line, goose the economy, etc. And there’s no question that oil played a BIG role in Iraq, given that it has the SECOND LARGEST proven reserves and it’s right next door to CHINA.
But I wouldn’t overlook the importance of the Weenie Factor in the media elites’ support for it. Remember that these guys were always the unpopular nerds in school, and they’ve never got over the need to prove their masculinity. Talking as a Serious Person about war makes their gonads swell.
And has been observed elsewhere, other people — and other people’s kids — do the dying. They, like almost all Americans, have emotionally “outsourced” the war. “They volunteered,” you see.
Davis X. Machina
@Svensker: This is not that rare.
I share a workplace with a graduate of the state university’s flagship campus who is convinced that if we hadn‘t gone into Iraq, ‘…we would all have to wear burqas and it would be illegal to be a Christian.’ Because ‘otherwise after 9/11 the terrorists would have won.’
Left Coast Tom
Huh? If they can’t get Lee Greenwood to do it for them they’ll pour more embalming fluid into Pat Boone and send him out.
Tonal Crow
You are being far (far!) too charitable. Republicans supported the Iraq war because it mightily helped them create the false perception that Democrats are “weak on defense”, and many Democrats supported it in the (vain) hope of avoiding that perception. Also too, remember when the war vote took place? No? Well, the House passed it on 10/10/2002 [1], and the Senate the following day (yeah, they really let the passionate hot tea cool in their big saucer then). Also too, what event happened 3 weeks later?
As usual, the question of the day is “Is our Democrats learning yet?”
[1] 215 GOPers for, 6 against; 81 ballsless Democrats for, 126 against.
[2] All GOPers but Chafee for; 28 Democrats for and 22 against.
Tonal Crow
@Davis X. Machina:
Are you sure he really believes that crazyhouse shit, and is not just pushing propaganda? ‘Course there’s so much crazy going around these days it’s difficult to tell who’s mostly drinking Koolaide and who’s mostly pushing it.
Tonal Crow
@cat48:
And he would handle the deficit increase that would cause by? Oh yeah, by cutting taxes on the rich, right?
aisce
@AAA Bonds:
you’re a douchebag and your reflexive reactionary sneering makes a mockery of thoughtful antiwar sentiment.
but you don’t care about any of that, you just want to slander our president and call him an out of control warmongerer for an international effort we’re barely even involved in.
douchebag.
jwb
@Tonal Crow: Isn’t that Rombo’s jobs program?
Svensker
@Tonal Crow:
Maybe Davis X’s co-workers are lying, but my rellies aren’t. They believe that stuff down to their bones and are convinced the Mooslins are gonna get them if the US and Israel don’t get the Hajis first. They also believe Obama is a Marxist, one of them is a Birther (still), and they all really truly think Obama is stupid and only got where he is today because of White Liberal Guilt and Muslim Sockalist sneakiness. All three of them bring up the teleprompter thing still, also too. !!! They all love Cain and Palin.
Tonal Crow
@bleh:
Yep. Nothin’ like a big ‘ol Big Gover’ment stimulus program to goose the economy, iffn it’s a war. Help’in lib’ruls keep ther houses, not so much.
OzoneR
Meet more people, because especially in light of the Egypt aftermath, they’re out there.
burnspbesq
@gene108:
You’re assuming the War Powers Act is Constitutional. An awful lot of scholarly type folks, including some on the left, are far from sure about that.
You’re also assuming that our involvement in Libya wasn’t approved by Congress in 1945, when it ratified the UN treaty. I can name that tune in five notes.
Davis X. Machina
@Tonal Crow: It’s a she, and I left out the part about jihadis truck-bombing the food court at the Maine Mall while her precious snowflakes are hitting Forever XXI, because two of the 9/11 hijackers spent the night at the chain motel across the street. Or something.
Still, Iraq — a Very Good Thing.
Left Coast Tom
@Davis X. Machina: Assuming we’re talking about an average shopping mall ‘food’ court, could the jihadis truck-bomb the ‘food’ court at night? That’d help with the broccoli mandate and avoid hurting anyone, a two-fer.
Corner Stone
@aisce: Thoughtful antiwar sentiment? Is that permitted anymore?
OzoneR
@burnspbesq:
As much as I think the UN is a force for good in the world, I’m still not necessarily sure the UN Charter Treaty is Constitutional.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: So is the reason it’s never been challenged is lack of standing to sue? I could see that as a possible huge stumbling block.
Southern Beale
Oh wow, I do! You must not live in the South, hon. I know people who think we have a RIGHT, nay, an imperative to force our way of life on the rest of the world. I know people who think Saddam was involved in planning 9/11. I know people who remain convinced to this day that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was going to use them on America. I know people who believe “Islamofascism” is a real thing, and a real threat, and we needed to go to war to stamp it out. I know people who think war would pull us out of the economic doldrums we were in post-dot-com bust.
But all of this is academic. We all know that we went to war in Iraq for the oil. We all know it was not about any of the things we were told, that it’s a resource war and that it was to make some corporate sucks insanely wealthy. D.C. corporate political elites wanted war to make a bunch of money, while DC media elites wanted war for the ratings.
It was all about the money. War usually is.
agrippa
Oscar Wilde was right:
“an idealist knows the value of everything and the price of nothing. a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
This thread reminded me of that line.
agrippa
@Southern Beale:
Southern belle:
So many people are really quite gullible and are fully prepared to believe anything.
People were very gullible to think that Iraq had WMD and had anything to do with 9/11. The world is full of fools.
I think that the GWB admin was very gullible as well. I think that GWB was, in fact, stupid enough to think that Iraq had WMB. Calling him a liar gives him more credit than he deserves.
Ghanima Atreides
jaysus you fucking retarded cudlip DougJ.
Conor doesnt have a POINT he has a fucking glibertarian reacharound.
Obama is trying to be on the right side of history for ONCE, because we have have been PAYING tyrants to sodomize muslim students and bust muslim heads as long as the afore mentioned tyrant made nice with Our Crazy Ex-GF Israel and/or gave us oil.
The neocons are already pressing for war with Iran, and just wait until Iraq plants a boot in America’s fat white judeochristian ass in December and starts being BFFs with Iran.
You will see the teabaggers AND the glibertarians pushing for war with Iran.
El Cid
Once a US administration begins gearing up to actually go to war, the tiny and uninformed and propagandistic ‘debate’ among the establishment press vanishes, and there is almost complete alignment with the US foreign policy structure.
It’s the way it is. There could be debate about the wisdom of invading Iraq — while of course all the big names accepting that of course Saddam Hussein must be removed.
Until the government actually begins mobilizing for war, in which case our vaunted free-thinking press run over each other in proving who is most for the cause of freedom and justice and fighting the oppressed.
If once started it takes a while and begins being too messy, the FREEDOMGASM is interrupted, and complaints can then appear.
There isn’t any central coordination of this, but it’s not needed either.
Rhoda
I think it’s pretty clear this is Sarkozy’s game and the USA is here because France and Britain stood by us in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact Obama is keeping this a NATO action and is determined that US troops won’t be on the ground shows how he is doing the bare minimum for our allies. We have commitments and responsibilities to our partners in Europe. Libya is their Iraq, this is a major source of oil supply and they didn’t want to wait and play out the situation. I don’t know how much longer this goes on, but I do know when Sarkozy and Cameron decided to go in to Libya the USA had to support them through NATO at minimum.
We live with our allies, now we get to see how they felt about Iraq. On the plus side, our responsibilities are limited.