Not anti-war. On the other side;
Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. [House Majority Whip James] Clyburn said that would be “a real big problem for us.”
Discussion at NRO;
The New York Times ran a piece Monday by two non-“neoconservatives” Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack arguing that the war in Iraq can be won. Is this indicative of some kind of mood change afoot? Could we really win this war? Could the rhetoric in Washington really change? National Review Online asked a group of experts.
Bonus read: another dispatch from Michael Yon.
Hugh Hewitt interviewed perhaps the most experienced reporter on the Iraq File – the NYT’s John Burns (Pulitzer prize-winner BTW) yesterday.
(3W.townhall.com/MediaPlayer/AudioPlayer.aspx?ContentGuid=a01180d0-86c6-4085-8fb4-41d1a9b0bb8d)
Burns says that the military aspect of the war is indeed going much better. However, at the highest political levels the Iraqi government is sectarianly fractured as bad as it has ever been. Offsetting that are signs that those at lower levels are fatiguing of the squabbling and starting to cooperate.
A worthwhile listen of the informed opinion someone who is most assuredly NOT a fan of GWB and company.
“Time for a flashback to what the world would have looked like if it had been run by crazy liberals 62 years ago'”
Er… in the United States, FDR was a liberal. He’s the dude who brought in the new deal – something the GOP haaaaated. In fact, there was a conspiracy by the very wealthy in America to overthrow him, and bring in a fascist dictatorship, and great grandpa Bush was part of it. Of course… this story is by the leftwing nutbars at the BBC, so you probably won’t believe it either:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document.shtml
Wrong again John. FDR was a liberal but not a crazy liberal. FDR, Truman and JFK wouldn’t recognize, or agree with, today’s liberals.
But you’re right about the BBC. I likely wouldn’t believe anything put out by the BBC. BTW did they cover the fact Joe Kennedy was a Nazi sympathizer?
Terry,
The so called “crazy” liberals make up about .01% of those who think conservatives who support this war have gone completely retarded.
As has been pointed out time and time and time again… this war, the way it was waged, and all that followed was one of the most remarkable failures of any president in American history.
You don’t need to be a hippie to see this.
Re the BBC doc… no… they didn’t mention Joe Kennedy, because while he was a Nazi sympathizer, he wasn’t actually part of a plot to overthrow a democratically elected government.
The fact that you don’t believe the BBC or the CBC is interesting, because it proves the point that conservatives consider news biased when it doesn’t support their views.
Facts just aren’t the friend of conservatives I’m afraid.
Yes, FDR was a liberal who opened up and ran internment camps for various groups and ran intensive intelligence operations in the U.S. and abroad without the permission of judges. FDR also attacked Nazi Germany after being attacked by the Japanese.
Hahaha!
Let’s be honest, they can run…
But they really can’t hide:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4fb_1185840855
John,
I’ve read all of your posts and the counter arguments to them … and I’m shaking my head.
What is your point? Any monkey can wiki his/her/it’s way around and find references to support just about any point of view imaginable … then toss them out as “proof”. That’s all that you are doing. It’s the most cowardly of intellectual approaches because you are simply attempting to lay out roadblocks, then stagger backwards and toss out more when they get knocked down. Or worse yet , you seem to confuse your own “opinion” with fact.
So, I suggest the following: That you state a narrow hypothesis, and stick to it, and argue it using sources that include CONTEXT.
I believe you’ve got some good points to make … but you aren’t making them. Your intellectual exercise so far has been that of a pitbull biting at a crowd … a crowd of neo-cons as you see it.
I don’t usually engage with your type … because it’s clear you are out to disrupt, not make points then anchor them in fact or solid arguement. And, you are obviously a child of the internet, who thinks that a “stat” void of context is worth something … but fluff is just fluff after all!
The BBC and CBC are hopelessly biased. You can look it up. The BBC, at lease, audited themselves and can to the same conclusion. As for Fox News, I find many liberal voices on it. If you actually watched it you would recognize that. Cripes, Bill O’Reilly was slamming Free Republic tonight. Anyway, Fox has many more liberals on it than CBC has conservatives. So, who is the more diverse?
I sincerely believe history will be very kind to President Bush for having the audacity to democratize Iraq. To this day I still don’t understand how anyone can possibly not support that goal.
The “war for oil” argument is pure nonsense. Why would anyone pay $100,000,000,000 to buy oil when all the Americans had to do was lift the sanctions? The only people who believe that nonsense are those who believe carbon trading on the global markets will reduce global warmening.
Terry Gain
You make the assumption that any leader is going to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Wrong. GWB used WMD’s as leverage in a hype war to get the world to agree to getting the battle off US territory. He felt quite safe in using WMD’s as a rallying point because everyone knew that Saddam had them since in times past he had used them. Just ask the Kurds. GWB couldn’t find the remaining WMD’s because Saddam was able to ship them to Syria and/or bury them in the desert. Bad George he didn’t succeed in his “stated” goal, however the battle is now back in the ME and the anti-war crowd can now hector in safety.
john – what I find fascinating about your posts is that you insist that your opinion, and it’s only your opinion, is the only truth. You berate anyone who disagrees, you insult anyone who disagrees with your opinions.
But, john, these are only your opinions. The fact that you dislike the USA and Bush – that’s your opinion. Feel free to have that opinion.
That doesn’t mean that I must or ought to agree with you. I don’t. I happen to hold a different opinion – that this war was the right thing to do, and is the catalyst for opening up the ME to democracy – which is the only tactic to confront and defeat islamic fascism.
By the way, I note that you don’t say a word about how to deal with Islamic fascism. Not one word. Why not?
You don’t say a word about how to deal with military dictatorships in the ME. Why not?
You don’t say a word about how to deal with the lack of a middle class in the ME. Why not?
In other words – you show absolutely no interest in the basic causes of Islamic fascism, no interest in enabling the world to defeat Islamic fascism and enable a strong and democratic ME. Why not? What’s your problem?
I’m aware that you wish all the Iraqi people either dead or oppressed – therefore, is it your claim that the US freeing them from Hussein is preventing such a situation?
You are obviously not interested in freeing the Iraqi people from Hussein’s murderous regime and oppression. And you aren’t interested in stopping Islamic fascism. Why not?
Your only interest seems to be to rant and rave about how ‘bad’ Bush and the USA are. Why?
Good point Paul. In fact I’ll take it a step further. How do we even know there is such a place as “Iraq”? I’ve never been there, and I bet nobody else here has either.
I mean, sure… I can cite sources like BBC and CNN, and Channel 4 and CBC but for all we know… they don’t exist either.
Seriously though… my points have been quite focused, though I will give you the pit bull dig.
Just to recap…
These so-called experts have been proven to be wrong every time they speak about this war, therefore it is insane to take their latest editorial seriously.
The NRO in supporting them, and all of the other failed policies is just as foolish. Even the magazine’s founder, old what’s-his-face, Buckley has distanced himself from their current stance.
And finally I have made a number of points re the horrific mismanagement of this war. And then I pointed out how you don’t read about that in the “rightwing blog circle jerks”, or Fox News.
Believe you me… I don’t care for your “type” either. I find the stupidity and ignorance here to be stunning. I do come here to disrupt, this is true, but only to get you to pull your heads out of each other’s assholes if only for a second to see that there is something horribly wrong, and that it’s not the fault of a few thousand hippies in New York and San Francisco.
ET: I have to disagree with you on one point only, and that is the stated aim of attacking Iraq.
As I’ve come to understand it, from all sources concerned, there was a whole list of stated reasons for taking out the Iraq regime. Most of the reasons were articulated by the Clinton administration, and “democracy” was rarely one.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1520819/posts
The reason that “democracy” was not given as a stated reason, (as I understand it), is because stating so would’ve sparked a furor in the ME and the UN. I think it was an unstated goal (part of the pre-Bush neocon doctrine), but not the original or primary one. I tend to agree with the neocon doctrine by the way.
But, the main ideological goal, as I see it, was Pre-emption, and that is why the UN and EU and utopian left opposed the war so viciously … there is no concept more anti-UN than unilateral pre-emption. That is where WDM came in, and that is why of all the written reasons for war, WMD kept coming up again and again. WMD were the anchor for pre-emption, and rightly so. The “democracy” ideal was there, but it was more or less silent and became a reality later.
Historically, there is hardly a war ever fought that doesn’t go through an evolution in goals. This is so because the realities on the ground shift and because there is also an opponent who influences those realities. Nobody goes into war to lose as a goal, yet there is usually a loser.
My personal opinion is that the Iraq War ended with the arrival of USA troops in Tikrit. After that it became a bloody and botched occupation; and that’s where “democracy” comes in. The occupation has a goal, and that goal is stablizing Iraq into a some sort of a democracy. The War has long been over because it’s goal was the destruction of the Baathist regime.
Re opinion… true, but most Canadians and now the majority of Americans basically agree that this war was a horrible idea.
This discussion wasn’t about Islamic Fascism, or democracy in the Middle East, which is why I didn’t mention it, but in a nutshell, here’s my answer…
The US had good reason, and should have gone into Afghanistan, BUT focused on nation-building there.
The US certainly should have used small military operations to pursue Al Quada, but should also have joined the International Criminal Court, and pursued Bin Laden & Co through international partnerships. This has helped to stomp out other kinds of terrorism in the past, but this isn’t how the GOP rolls. They have an irrational hatred of the UN, even though they are just as big an asshole as anyone else in that organization.
The US did more to alienate moderate Muslims with missteps again and again. This was – as they say – a battle for the hearts and minds, and through such rank and obvious hypocrisy, they blew it.
The US should addresss it’s policy of supporting dictators who help them against their enemies. This is ultimately the source of many of their problems. They helped overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran, and replace it with the Shaw… who in turn was overthrown by radical Islamists. Brilliant fucking move that was.
And Afghanistan… they actually funded and trained Bin Laden to fight the Soviets. Yet another brilliant fucking move.
And Saddam was a partner before he was an enemy.
But yet… here they are again… about to sell 20 billion dollars to the Saudis.
So there you go… I’m not suggesting that this should be written into policy, but the bottom line is, use your fucking head, and try and think of what the possible consequences could be from your actions.
You may now proceed to rip this apart, but you know… I don’t really care, because you guys are hopeless, and really… like it or not… the shit wind is blowing in your direction.
Final thought… if America was a character in a movie, it would be Walter from The Big Lewbowski.
And withdrawing prematurely from Iraq would be an invitation to genocide and removal of any prospect of Middle Eastern democracy for a hundred years. Is anyone here on this board actually considering siding with the defeatists? God, we live in interesting times.
Despite the past record of NRO (which is actually pretty good), how can anyone say that the conditions in Iraq would improve with an American withdrawal? Impossible.
John writes about how the GOP has “an irrational hatred of the UN, even though they are just as big an asshole as anyone else in that organization.”
That is quite a profound statement. I believe it was the U.N. which allowed the Oil for Food program to flourish. It is the U.N. which does nothing about Darfur. It is the U.N. which has been hijacked and is virulently anti-Israel. I would say that the GOP’s hatred of the U.N. is quite rational.
Johnny:
“These so-called experts have been proven to be wrong every time they speak about this war, therefore it is insane to take their latest editorial seriously.”
This is not a fact, it’s an opinion.
“The NRO in supporting them, and all of the other failed policies is (are) just as foolish. Even the magazine’s founder, old what’s-his-face, Buckley has distanced himself from their current stance.”
A half-fact, so what? No point to this.
“And finally I have made a number of points re the horrific mismanagement of this war. And then I pointed out how you don’t read about that in the “rightwing blog circle jerks”, or Fox News.”
Actually, FOX is critical of the handling, especially O’Reilly.
“Believe you me… I don’t care for your “type” either. I find the stupidity and ignorance here to be stunning. I do come here to disrupt, this is true, but only to get you to pull your heads out of each other’s assholes if only for a second to see that there is something horribly wrong, and that it’s not the fault of a few thousand hippies in New York and San Francisco.”
With that, I’ll go back to debating with adults.
Have a nice day!
Doesn’t anyone here think that GWB and his advisors asked the Israeli’s about dealing with Islamic terrorism? Israel has been living in the midst of this ‘hot’ zone since 1948 and what has their policy been? If the Islamist hits you – you hit back twice as hard. When you strike an Islamist they tend to fight amongst themselves because the strike creates a power vacuum. Islam being a political religion the dictator is strong only by the will of Allah. If the dictator is shown to be weak power hungry factions create strife amongst the Islamists trying to prove that the will of Allah is that they take power. My ideal would be the conversion of all Islamists to Christianity but secular states do not share my goal and I don’t believe in conversion by military conquest so the best control of Islamists the secular state can come up with to….
Roland Duchain: “As to oil . . . it was never about net profit. The tax payers payed for it, but somehow Haliburton’s stock doubled, oil companies are making record profits. You could argue that this would have happened even without the war, but come on.”
Roland, my friend, China and India are adding more new cars each year than exist in Canada. Let’s try some simple arithmetic, shall we?
30 million new cars per year. Let’s assume an absurdly low usage of 1 gallon per week. 30M x 1 x 52 = 156M gallons of gas incremental demand. Since it takes roughly 1 barrel of oil to produce 28 gallons of gasoline, that’s 60M additonal barrels of oil that are needed, each and every year, until Chinese/Indonesian/Malaysian/etc. new demand peters out. Meanwhile, North Sea and Russian oil are peaking, and sources such as Saudi Arabia and Venezeula are becoming more reluctant to send oil to North America.
Now, I have no links to the US government, Haliburton, or Lindsay Lohan (sob). But when oil was $15/barrel, I loaded up my RRSP, my wife’s, our kids’ RESP, and our kids’ trust accounts with oil funds. Depending on when I bought them, they have increased by a factor of three to five. I’m sorry that you seem to think this is the result of some conspiracy; to me, it’s just the natural reaction of a huge new source of demand in the market.
Please feel free to contact me directly if you would like further financial advice.
paul – agreed, but claiming that one wants to enable a situation where democracy can arise would never be accepted by the world chatterers as a valid reason to invade and depose even a vicious dictatorship. I still maintain that it was the primary reason.
I agree with you that the war itself is over; what has been released by the regime deposition is a battle between tribalism and modernization. That’s internal – but it’s also helped by the fact that neighbouring tribal states such as Iran etc, don’t want a modern state, ie, a democracy, in their area.
John – your view that most people agree with you doesn’t validate your opinion. It remains an opinion.
Surely you are joking with your suggestion of using the International Criminal Court to go after Bin Laden. That’s not their mandate and what competence do they, a UN set, have to do anything?
I don’t think that the GOP rejection of the UN is based on ‘irrational hatred’ but on cold hard facticity. The UN has shown the world that it is completely and totally incompetent and corrupt. It is unable to decide on a mission or undertake it with any proficiency and competence. That includes the Oil-For-Fraud, Somalia, Ethiopia, Darfur and Bosnia.
How did the US alienate moderate Muslims? I don’t see any evidence of that; it remains, as with all your conclusions – your opinion.
My view of your opinions is equivalent to your view of our opinions.
KevinB, time to take profits, if you haven’t done so already. A good investor always recognizes speculative gain and protects themselves by taking their profits. Good investors buy near the bottom and sell near the top. Dumbies do the opposite or get burned trying to time the market perfectly, which is impossible.
I made my money with solid dividend producing common stocks. Those I can hold through any period, because they are broad based and high quality. The same cannot be said for oil companies who are not great long-run businesses.