They used to just move the goalposts. Now, they reverse them.
Let’s see. We still have troops in Kuwait, so we must have lost the Gulf War.
But we pulled our troops out of Mogadishu so we beat Somalia.
No American troops in Vietnam. Yeah, we won.
But we still have troops in Korea. Darn it, we lost the Korean War.
Troops still in Japan? We lost World War II.
Troops still in Germany? We lost World War I.
Troops still in the Philippines? We lost the Spanish-American War.
Troops still in the South? We lost the Civil War.
Related – mapping of Al Qaeda in Iraq, before and after.
Isn’t Chris Mathews on the DNC payroll? He should be, with stuff like this. What a maroon.
And in 2002 Al Qeda in Iraq didn’t exsist at all.
Because George W Bush created Al Qaeda. We know that Jose. Just like he brought down the twin towers.
Jose, you’re right, no AQ in Iraq in ’02, except for their training camp, that is. Don’t let the facts get in the way of an inane, and inaccurate, point. In any event, they sure got in there fast after ’03 invasion; oh, yeah, that was Bush’s fault too.
Krykie you’d think Mathews would take a hint…. when you are corrected in your dogmatic lefty talking points by a moderate realist you know you’ve been swimming in moon bat guano too long.
Jose, you say there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq under Saddam, you might want to read the book “Saddam, King of Terror” by the distinguished British author and journalist Con Coughlin. Saddam had his tentacles in, or relations with, damn near every terrorist outfit in the Middle East.
Some quick and easy Googling of Saddam and terrorism will also bring some educational reading.
In the Middle East, where “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, these terrorist relationships were one of the ways Saddam advanced the interests of the Ba’athist regime.
Al Qaeda looks like a petri dish of bacteria being gobbled up by penicillin.
American intelligence is and has been infallible in the past which is why I am 100% confident in their ability to discern where Al Qaeda is and where they are not.
Kate posted:
“Because George W Bush created Al Qaeda. We know that Jose. Just like he brought down the twin towers.”
I don’t think Jose was suggesting that at all, just merely pointing out that its a little odd to scream “success!” at your perceived cleanup of a huge mess, created by the US invasion itself. You do realize that the new government is an Islamic theocracy, right Kate? Yes, the US removed a secular government and replaced it with a (quite notably corrupt) Islamic Theocracy in a part of its drive to bring democracy and peace to the middle east, cause god knows the Palestinians, the Lebanese, etc. are just thriving with the vote. **cough** election of Hamas in Palestine *cough***
steve, you’re so right! The Iraqi people were so much better off under the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
Sales of industrial shredders and other torture devices were a huge growth industry, creating employment. All the land being used for mass gravesites was helping pump up the Iraqi real estate market.
Yeah, the Iraqis were far better off under Saddam.
Okay, but did you notice around that lake in the upper right-hand corner? It’s INCREASED in al qaeda presence. That must mean that the whole country is going to hell in a hand-basket.
/sarcasm
I was admiring the maps, thinking what an ingenious way it is to increase democratic/leftist support for the Iraq war. After all, American maps showing Rep (red) and Dem (blue) regions are produced following each US election. If the red zones are decreasing, Dem’s must be subconsciously seeing this as a good thing.
“And in 2002 Al Qeda in Iraq didn’t exsist at all.”
Uhhh only because Bubba didn’t want to cause a fuss when the FBI identified the first failed attempt to bomb the WTC was an AQ operation and the culpret a known AQ operative.
Also Slick covered up the fact an Iraqi presidential guard colonel was invilved in the Oklahoma city bombing…so AQ has been a pain in Dem and GOP administrative butts
Hey Steve,
Yes, the US intellegence agencies are 100% effective. This is proven by it’s perfect conspiracy to mislead the public about WMD and operatives like Valerie Plame were able to keep their mouths shut and not let anyone know about it.
Either leftards need to say that the CIA et al are useless and admit that being incorrect is not the same as a lie or they have to admit that the CIA is infallable and able to carry out perfect campaigns to lie to the public while not leaking it to the media. You can’t believe both at the same time and be anything but a delusional leftard – sort of like every member of the Democratic party who hasn’t been kicked out yet.
WL, do you think that the documents that Sandy Berger stole from the National Archives were the “smoking gun” that would have proved that, and sunk Clinton AND the Democratic Party?
That was one helluva risk that Berger took and it had to have been to get and destroy some incredibly important, incriminating documents.
Warwick, I typically avoid replying to people who assume their arguments are stronger when they add words like “leftard”, “KKKlinton”, “Hellary”, “Bushitler” etc. There are those on the left and right who dole out this type of rhetoric. In the end it is usually intertwined with a poor argument. Yours in no exception. Some people, a lot of people, don’t consider themselves to be amongst any camp exclusively. Personally, I don’t really care whether Bush intended to lie or not. In the end he is still responsible for the shortcomings of his government and its departments. That is something that comes with the job.
As for those who repeatedly point that Iraq was no heaven on earth before Saddam was removed, I whole heartedly agree with you, but we should understand that when the US went to war, Saddam was effectively marginalized to the mayor of Baghdad. There were a variety of other options that didn’t even necessarily have to involve diplomacy that could have ousted Saddam in a much cleaner manner.
Here are some of my favourite quotes prior to the invasion:
“George Herbert Walker Bush from his memoir, “A World Transformed” (1998)
Trying to eliminate Saddam…would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible…. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq…. there was no viable “exit strategy” we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”
and, of course, Dick Cheney in this beautiful youtube video:
“http://youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I”
please watch it, its really too good.
oh..and I know, “the world changed on 9/11” and we realized that a country with no significant connections to Al Qaeda, at best, needed to be invaded to err..find the WMD’s, err I mean..seed democracy in the middle east, err I mean…liberate the Iraqi people and install moderate government, err I mean..what’s the reason of the week now?
steve, Iraq was an easy target, real easy, the war with them lasted how many days both times? Get past the WMD issue, although most of world that counts – British intelligence, the Dems here, the UN(Google it) – thought Saddam had bad stuff he was hiding there. I mean he did gas the Kurds(a WMD on that one) and refused inspectors on site.
No one is mass marching to have a Saddam back in Iraq. Noticed that over the years?
The no-WMD-stuck-on brain is so boring as we are how many years past that. Please, update your worldview. Iraq stands or falls on the common man there, an event they never could experience before. America gave them a level playing field they can build on. They seem to be doing just that. Oh, and Steve, a news bulletin, the surge is working. Sunni snitches are routing AQ. Bad for AQ, bad for you.
Everyone knows Ronald Reagan created Al Qaeda.
Penny, I don’t think improvements in Iraq are bad for me or anyone. Quite the contrary. I think its great if things are improving. You see, I’m not a partisan hack. Nor is my world “us against them”. I like ideas and the ability to assort them into a collage. In that sense I am not left nor am I right. Actually that whole spectrum is rather dated. Modern political theory has some more advanced ways of classifying beliefs which I wish were used more often.
Anyway, as I was getting at, I object to glossing over the fact that any improvements in Iraq will and have came at the cost of nearly a million civilian lives not to mention the other casualties. Now I know many dispute that number because it came from the dreaded “Lancet”; a world respected medical journal. Yes, “respected”, if you’re not as uneducated and fresh off the farm as 75% of Brad Wall’s new cabinet, but that’s another story. The point is that its not acceptable to nation build, especially if it comes at such a high cost in human life. The situation in Iraq is extremely complex, and like Afghanistan I’m not convinced that pulling out all the troops tomorrow would help anyone like some on both “the left” and “the right” espouse, but if we forget about what a f**kup this whole operation was for the last 4 years, then chances are it will happen again soon (eg. Iran) and I don’t support that for a minute.
steve
“Warwick, I typically avoid replying to people who assume their arguments are stronger when they add words like “leftard”, “KKKlinton”, “Hellary”, “Bushitler” etc. There are those on the left and right who dole out this type of rhetoric. In the end it is usually intertwined with a poor argument.”
I agree with you.
Politeness shows respect
Respect enhances communication
Communication leads to understanding.
Something that I was taught in junior high.
I try to remember – not always sucessful.
I think it’s the nature of the medium
I think it’s fair to say it wouldn’t be tolerated face to face.
steve @ 1:46 PM — “secular government”
“Mother of All Battles Mosque”, Baghdad, built 1993. Minarets shaped like AK-47 barrels and SCUD warheads for domes?
Stand a member of the Fedayeen Saddam next to a member of Hamas. Anything different about the white uniform, white hood, “shahada” inscription on the green/black headband, AK-47 and “shaheed”/martyrdom belt?
Who rewrote his family tree to become a descendant of the Prophet? Who commissioned a Qu’ran written in his own blood?
The only female member of the Revolutionnary Council starts wearing hijab AFTER 1991?
The only government-sponsored “celebration” of 9/11 in the Middle East?
“Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West”, Clip from Iraqi State TV, February 2003 —
State-Approved imam screaming at the top of his lungs, rousing the Sunni faithful to bloodthirsty froth: “Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar! Jihad For The Sake of Allah, Jihad For The Sake of Allah!”?
Oh, and that huge mosque being completed by the Shia near Baghdad (Saddam) International. Guess who hired a French architect to design it? Complete with his handprint-shaped lakes in the courtyard.
Steve:
“…fact that any improvements in Iraq will and have came at the cost of nearly a million civilian lives not to mention the other casualties…”
You have to cite the source – you are inferring a loss of life on par with Cambodia under
Pol Pot
“not to mention the other casualties”
How many members of the Iranian Revolutionnary Guards’ “Jerusalem (Qods) Force” included?
Steve:
Re last post: I missed that cite the thoroughly discredited Lancet report.
This site (http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx)
which has tracked the data since the beginning lists total Iraqi deaths since Jan 2005 at just a little under 50000. Add in the Coalition forces at 4200 including non-combat deaths and you get lees than 55,000. Are You saying that the deaths are almost 20 times higher than that? And if so how can pretend to be “not a partisan hack”.
Think about it man… in the last 36 months you are asserting that something like 3000 people died in Iraq every single month – a hundred a day. That is an utterly ridiculous assertion – hardly non-partisan.
icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx –> truly independent
vs.
The Lancet –> British doctors dependent on the government largesse of the NHS.
Gee, I don’t know who to trust! (:>p
You can’t believe both at the same time and be anything but a delusional leftard
Yet it is a favourite slurr of the left in some circles to accuse the “infidels” (non-lefties) of suffering from cognitive dissonance.
But then, we already know that the left often exhibits tendencies of projection.
I’m no fan of Freud (nor a doctor), but I think he might have gotten this one right, especially when it comes to group tactics used for political manipulation.
Gord Tulk wrote:
“Think about it man… in the last 36 months you are asserting that something like 3000 people died in Iraq every single month – a hundred a day. That is an utterly ridiculous assertion – hardly non-partisan.”
I don’t think that’s a crazy number at all. At the height of the chaos, I don’t think 100 deaths per day was beyond the realm of possibility in any way. Hell you could read any newspaper and find articles comprising at least 50 a day in various IED and car bomb deaths. I’ll give you that 655,000 as the Lancet suggested could be high, but overflowing morgues during the more violent times were well documented. Hell, even as Kate pointed out earlier, industries dealing with dead bodies were flourishing.
And before someone says it, a lot of people died under Saddam too, partially due to UN sanctions, for which they deserve criticism, but as they say “2 wrongs…”
And the argument of the Lancet lacking impartiality because it receives government funding is highly flawed. In case we’re forgetting, the Brits have troops in Iraq. Of what benefit is to the Lancet to embarrass its funder over poor policy choices?
“Of what benefit is to the Lancet to embarrass its funder over poor policy choices?”
Answer: “Speakin’ truth to power, man.”
I don’t believe there are any American troops left in the Philippines; I’ve been to Subic Bay, and it’s now an amusement park (swim with dolphins, etc.), and Clark Air Field is now a discount shopping centre, and a hub for FedEx.
KevinB: Look at the southernmost island (Mindanao). There you will find the “Moro Islamic Liberation Front” and their ally Jemaah Islamiyah (linked to al-Qaida) fighting the Phillipine Army & Navy with their ally Uncle Sam -> providing support with at least 2,000 GIs & helicopter gunships.
The Americans are stationed at either General Santos City or Zamboanga City.