Too Little Too Late Times Two
Before we're washed away in a tsunami of reporting and spin over the elections in Iraq, I thought I'd squeeze in one more post.
It seems everyone on both sides of the war --pro and con -- are now in confessional mode. First, there was the President's big bang fourth in a series of Four Big Speeches on Iraq admitting what, I think, everybody already knew: "It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong..."
And then, following that up with another gem that, I think, we already knew: "As president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq." For added dramatic effect, Dubya even pulled a Clinton by visibly biting his lower lip (Insert laugh track here).
So, this is supposed to mean what exactly? Three years too late, the President of the United States tells us a basic truth about a war that has cost us 2100 American lives and a couple of hundred billion dollars -- up till now, that is. All this new frankness by the Prez, I predict, isn't going to get him very far in the polls.
Americans aren't much interested nowadays in either the Republican or Democratic versions of how we got into Iraq; they want to know how we're going to get out.
Now about those confessions from the anti-war side. Back during the Red Scare of the late 40's and early 50's, some unfortunate Americans were branded security risks as "premature anti-fascists." These preemies were, for the most part, Communists, socialists and leftists who -- a decade or so before-- had volunteered to fight the fascists in Spain. In other words, it was OK to fight fascists -- so long as your timing wasn't off. Otherwise, you were commie scum.
I drawn no grandiose parallel...but... we now place this entry in our I Told You So file. A few years back, my colleague David Corn and I beat up pretty hard on the loonies who populate A.N.S.W.E.R.-- the Stalinoid sect that weasled itself logistical control of the big anti-war demonstrations. We both argued that the peace movement was stupidly setting itself back by tolerating this cult-like group in its leadership. Man, were we ever reamed and steam-cleaned. We were, according to our critics, red--baiters, Bush's Light Infantry, "cruise-missile leftists," and so on ad infinitum.
Of course, we were also dead right. Well, guesss what? Only this past week did the supposed more "mainstream" coalition of anti-war groups, United For Peace Justice, finally come around to the same conclusion i.e. that there is no longer any point in collaborating with A.N.S.W.E.R. By a 2/3 majority the steering committee of UFPJ has voted to never work with A.N.S.W.E.R. again.
Bully. Like George W. Bush, these folks are just a tad late in coming clean. Like three years late. And with no excuse. Three years ago A.N.S.W.E.R. was the same shill for totalitarians and loonies that it is today. Meanwhile, the anti-war movement is about three years behind where it might be.
David Corn has the whole sordid story in exquisite detail. If you're a peacenik-- it's worth reading. Unfortunately.
December 15th, 2005 at 12:23 am
I would agree with what you have to say, Marc, except that you have neglected to mention something else that is obvious, besides the fact that Bush’s admission is three years too late – that George W. Bush has not taken responsibility for much more serious crimes than taking the U.S. into war based on “wrong intelligence.” Taking a country into war is one thing. It is another thing to base troop deployment numbers on your standings in the polls, thus putting our troops already over there underfortified and sitting ducks. Even worse, perpetrating torture on a mass scale against human beings in Guantanimo and Abu Ghraib in violation of the Geneva Convention (and frankly, in violation of the integrity of this nation) is much worse. As much as George W. Bush has lied to the American people, it is sad that he cannot even apologize with honesty.
December 15th, 2005 at 3:50 am
“Meanwhile, the anti-war movement is about three years behind where it might be.”
This might be something akin to wishful thinking…while ANSWER was a disservice, to say the least, ANY questions about the war were treated like support for Saddam Hussein at the time by the goon squad that was pushing this thing. One of the reasons I’m so often rude or dismissive to the pro-warrior faction is because of the consistency and persistence with which their side made intellectually evasive “liberal fifth column” or “friendly to fascism” arguments at the time, including such “nuanced”, high-minded folk as Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens. Most of those pro-warriors who aren’t insane have backed off a bit – because, you know, those of us who expressed caution or “worse” have turned out to be right about every aspect of this project that was debatable – but the moonbats controlled the skies back in those days. There was a near-total unwillingness by the would-be triumphalists to acknowledge the basis of serious analysis that shot holes in the pro-war premises and “evidence”, so “anti-war” was typically conflated into something naively or over-reachingly leftist. Frankly, the UPJC crowd are perfectly capable of providing the necessary raw materials for the neo-cons’ apologists to build wacky-left straw men without an assist from ANSWER. To make the too long a bit shorter, I’d take the Harold Myerson angle on this as most convincing, i.e. that the relative LACK of militant anti-war demonstrations (certainly compared to the intensification of street activism that had grown three years into the Vietnam ground war) with a heavily “far” left-wing cast has actually been a boon to the snowballing and legitimation of middle-American disaffection from this mess. There’s a counter argument regarding the lack of credible and tangible anti-war political leadership and the perfidy of so many mainstream Democrats, but simply seperating Brian Becker from the militantly anti-war pack would not have provided a solution to that persistent problem.
December 15th, 2005 at 4:10 am
Marc writes: “Back during the Red Scare of the late 40’s and early 50’s, some unfortunate Americans were branded security risks as “premature anti-fascists.” These preemies were, for the most part, Communists, socialists and leftists who — a decade or so before– had volunteered to fight the fascists in Spain. In other words, it was OK to fight fascists — so long as your timing wasn’t off. Otherwise, you were commie scum.”
While I’m sure that serving in the Lincolns was a red flag during the 50s red scare, it turns out there’s no evidence that the U.S. government ever used “premature anti-fascist” as a term of classification.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/sept02/spain.htm
It’s possible that it was used tongue in cheek in interviews by some charged with vetting ideological credentials , and the Lincolns themselves “reclaimed” the epithet. The term was, however, invented by “commies” and used against other leftists by “commies”, as if to suggest that they weren’t true communists because they hadn’t toed the party line. (That line being that if Joe said don’t touch it, don’t touch it. Even if “it” was a Spain slipping into the hands of Franco. [Recommended reading to those of you confused by all this: George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, possibly the best book he ever wrote.)
It’s a minor point, I know. Anyway, congratulations to you and David. You can now proudly “reclaim” (or anyway, claim) the term “premature anti-ANSWERist” or whatever. Even if that’s unlikely ever to be a checkmark box on a dossier review screen on some FBI agent’s computer, somewhere next to the checkmark box for “read Marc’s blog this week” and accompanying radio buttons for “funny”, “sorta funny”, “treasonous but still sorta funny” and “something funny about this one, can’t quite put my finger on it.”
December 15th, 2005 at 6:34 am
I don’t know exactly who pays attention to ANSWER. I sure don’t even while watching them on C-Span. Is their position on the war farther off than Bush’s? I think not. Their presentation is kooky as well, us in the ’60s only with brains in our case, so sure, they’re mockable.
I’m slogging through “For Whom the Bell Tolls” so it’s nice to see that conflict resurrected.
December 15th, 2005 at 8:19 am
“All this new frankness by the Prez, I predict, isn’t going to get him very far in the polls.”
I don’t know, Marc…I actually think that these speeches, along with all the purple fingers we will see in the next couple days, are likely to help him. Nationalism trumps a whole lot of other judgements, good or bad. (For example, how many Argentinians are likely to admit that the 1982 war to liberate ‘Malvinas’ was a boneheaded thing to do?)
A majority of Americans prefer to “win”, and are willing to “spend” a few thousand more human lives and human limbs if they think it’ll lead to victory.
December 15th, 2005 at 8:32 am
Good piece, Marc. The interesting thing I thought about Corn’s writing about ANSWER was how little awareness there even was of it among my lefty friends in academia, etc. And these are people who mostly subscribed to The Nation (in one case even a staffer for The Progressive!) I’d say “But ANSWER are Stalinists, how’s that gonna win over middle America” and they’d yell “McCarthyism, where’s your proof” and I’d say “in the issue of The Nation in your bathroom” and… nada. No awareness. And now ANSWER’s buddy Ramzi al-Clark is defending Saddam in Bagdad. No wonder the antiwar movement’s mainstream success has been like the salary progress of the hapless killer in The Front Page– “He started as a bookkeeper at twenty dollars a week and after ten years worked himself up to $17.50.”
Interesting piece in the WSJ by Peggy Noonan (okay, I know a lot of people stopped reading and started composing a venomous response right there). Anyway, what’s interesting is not that dolphins are telling her God’s will (or Reagan’s– like there’s a diff) but that she too is in the new administration less-defiance-more-apology mode, and even takes the administration to task for being in perpetual spin mode (though she missed the biting the lower lip detail, very telling that). Anyway, though, along the way she says this:
One of the things I think the president communicated most effectively, if mostly between the lines, was the sense that some decisions a president faces don’t promise good outcomes no matter which way he comes down… Do nothing about Saddam, or nothing that hasn’t been done before, and you keep in place a personally unstable dictator who has declared himself an avowed enemy of America, who will help and assist its foes at a crucial time, and who has developed and used in recent memory and against his own citizens weapons of mass destruction. Do nothing and you face the continuance of a Mideast status quo encrusted by cynicism and marked by malignancy.
But remove Saddam and you face the cost in blood and treasure of invasion, occupation and the erection of democracy. It’s all a great gamble. It could end with the yielding up of a new ruling claque as bad as or worse than the one just replaced. You could wind up thinking you’d bitten off more than you could chew and were trying to swallow more than you could digest.
This is what I think the left/liberal side refuses to deal with. Both backwards and forwards. Well, maybe backwards doesn’t matter much any more, though I think some acknowledgement that either the sanctions regime or Iraq as a country was going to fall apart eventually and require some level of US intervention would be a realistic point, in contrast to the idea that the middle east is just fine and never bothers us if we don’t bother it.
But forwards does matter. Withdrawing outright WILL lead to certain things. Withdrawing on a timetable will lead to certain things too. There will be a price to pay, though it may well be less than the price of staying and carry other benefits over time. But we need to talk about that, make that case, convince ourselves– which we’re obviously not doing when saying “retreat” and “secret plan for winning” at the same time, like John Kerry does. Completely evading a debate about those things is not realism, it’s isolationism.
December 15th, 2005 at 9:24 am
“All this new frankness by the Prez, I predict, isn’t going to get him very far in the polls.â€
http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
shows a slight bounce for Bush (a few points) on the Iraq issues for the first week of December. His Naval Academy speech was Nov 30th. The Naval Academy speech wasn’t very forthcoming about errors and problems, maybe it was a test to see if a little honesty would help. And maybe it did. We’ll have to see if the greater honesty (if not full truth) of the World Affairs Council speech gives him any more points. Who knows, maybe by the third speech he’ll be trying stuff like, “Hey, we lied, OK? And we’re sorry. But we’re doing the right thing here, aren’t we? And we’ll keep doing until total victory, whatever it takes ….” Well, maybe not that far ….
December 15th, 2005 at 9:31 am
“in contrast to the idea that the middle east is just fine and never bothers us if we don’t bother it.”
Proof you don’t have a clue of which you write…is this the latest version of false attribution that the apologists are using to evade reality ? If this is seriously the level on which you are engaged in weighing this issue, well, thank god you’ve got Peggy Noonan to help you out. As for the rest of it, it’s muddle and mush…what Noonan and you don’t get (I’m amused that anyone would invoke her for anything other than an appreciation of Reagan’s hair color, but what the hell) is that Bush has created an even worse set of “no good outcomes” with his speculative pre-emption. The Hitchensesque argument that the reason we needed to invade was because Saddam was so weak the regime was crumbling rather than it was so strong he was building nukes and about to hand them off to al Qaeda is nonsensical. If the whole enterprise was to avoid a civil war in Iraq, thank you very much… As for the future of Iraq’s external alliances, two words – Iran and Iran. It’s called history and culture. The rosy cheeked Americans who think they can send the world to Sunday School and start wars based on pure speculation without the liklihood of doing more harm than good really would do us all a favor if they embraced isolationism rather than crackpot “internationalism” (the other version being Hitchen’s faux-revolutiontary version with the U.S. leaping into the void left by a failure to rouse Red Armies in his salad days). Leave the realism to people who are…well…realistic. At this point arguing for the sense of this war – “Knowing what I know now, I’d do it again” – is just fucking pathetic. But some people know no embarrassment and are so infatuated with themselves that ego trumps reason and they can drum up moral imperatives as an act of will. I, for one, was hoping to be proven wrong. No such luck…
December 15th, 2005 at 9:33 am
Along with Noonan’s piece there’s one claiming no public land in Oregon. I suppose that means no rancher or timber company owns all of it yet, they only rent it. Yet the public pays their tab. Damn the government!
December 15th, 2005 at 9:53 am
Third election in a year or so, Reg.
Happening today. You might look into it.
That’s that positive, forward-looking point of view I was saying was lacking, yeah. I think the $17.50 went down to $17.00 right there.
December 15th, 2005 at 9:59 am
FtheP: and I’d say “in the issue of The Nation in your bathroom”
Not to argue with your general ANSWER point, but in fairness, who the hell reads The Nation cover to cover ? And even without ANSWER, as I said before, the street demo anti-war movement would have had about the same level of impact, which wasn’t much.
As for “frankness” helping Bush in the polls, I think it might work a bit if he sticks with it and take him up into the mid-forties at least. People who aren’t hard partisans tend to look at him as a schmuck who maybe over-reached his way into the Presidency and if he threw Rummie overboard and started relegating Cheney to supermarket openings, he’d get cut a lot of slack. I’m not sure how that would help him in a realistic strategy fo Iraq – but in my view that’s going to be driven increasingly by the realities arising among Iraqis themselves and ground commanders who can honestly assess military capabilities or our lack of them – so Beltway fantasists are going to have increasingly fewer and fewer options or angles to play.
December 15th, 2005 at 10:06 am
So far Bush’s “frankness” consists entirely of telling us things we already know. That ain’t worth much. This new honesty tactic is fairly transparent and exactly the type of ploy Americans are really good at catching. They can tell that offering us some truth has no principle behind and in no way ensures that we will hear the truth next time.
Prediction: Unless the elections are wildly succesful, Bush only gets a very small boost
December 15th, 2005 at 10:11 am
Mission not accomplished, Freddy. Civil war. Huge fucking ethnic militias running rampant. Training an army we’re afraid to give the advanced weapons to because we don’t trust them. And frankly, over the short OR long term, we shouldn’t. Iranian influence inevitable among the dominant Shia with a strong regional alliance favoring Iran certainly a better than even bet . Largest “bin Ladenist” terrorist training ground since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Big fucking mess that none of you clowns believed could happen. Talk to me in ten years, because your predictive powers to date seem to have erred on the side of the “We didn’t know what the fuck we were talking about” crowd. The “Elections” mantra in the middle of it all makes you sound like you’re reading from tattered notes inaugurating The Carter Center.
I don’t get the $17.50…as far as I’m concerned I’m still waiting for 2 cents from you guys. I remember when characters like you were popping their buttons over Bush’s flight suit stunt and telling me the weapons were about to be found. Now I’m supposed to take your word that the 3rd election’s gonna be the charm. What a crock…
December 15th, 2005 at 10:22 am
“Unless the elections are wildly succesful”
I, for one, believe the elections can be wildly successful as an exercise in popular electoral will and still not solve what appears intractible and or non-negotiable at the political and ground level. Our own election of 1860 was wildly successful, in my opinion. Didn’t stem the bloodshed or make matters any easier…arguably, it was so wildly successful it made them more difficult. I’m all for the Iraqis taking control of their own destiny. Everybody oughta…but when you unpack the historical, cultural and political meaning of “Iraqi” you end up with a set of complexities and a chaotic reality in a very hard place that wishful thinking can’t erase.
December 15th, 2005 at 11:06 am
For those who watched (gasp) Fox network last night, there was a lot more detail from a Bush interview. It was pointed out that Congress voted for the Iraq war on a specific list of a number of items (7 or 8), only one of which was related to WMDs. In other words, the whole WMD controversy is a distraction from the much wider context of the war.
Also, Bush said he would have gone into Iraq even with knowledge that they didn’t have WMDs, because of these many reasons.
Hence much of the commentary here is off the mark, as the WMD argument from the left has been since the start. I do wish Bush had put more of the non-WMD reasoning into his speech.
…………
Regarding the attacks on “premature anti-fascists” (a term I have never heard before)… I am not aware that participation in the Lincoln brigade was a significan tissue.
Much more important was participation in the CPUSA, which required its members to take an oath puting that membership above their citizens’ oblications to the USA. In other words, they pledged their loyalty to an organization which we now know (and which many of them knew) was a Soviet controlled anti-American fifth column – one which engaged in significant espionage activities, and sought (rather successfully) to use Hollywood and academia to push Soviet propaganda.
The Venona transcripts (see nsa.gov), and witnesses who had been members, provided the information for the attacks on this organization, which was in fact subversive and anti-American, even if not all members were aware of that.
They were the “Useful Idiots” – fools caught up in the ideology, but doing the bidding of imperialist Russia in the guise of class warfare. In other words, for those people, the CPUSA ran a false flag operation.Many others, knew damn well that they were taking their orders from Stalin, and they favored Stalin over the US.
One of the most telling incidents was the rapid flip of CPUSA’s position on Nazi Germany at the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and then the flop at the start of Operation Barbarossa. If anything showed the subservience (to the point of absurdity) of the CPUSA to Russian aims, this was it.
That mislabelling of innocents happened is very likely, because in something involving this many people, that is bound to happen. Furthermore, there were of course demogogues such as McCarthy who used this real fact of a significant, Russian directed 5th column as a springboard for his own ambitions.
One of the more amusing activities of the 1990s (or sad, depending on how you look at it) was the refutation, through Venona and other sources, of the long held claims of innocence for many of the “victims” of these actions, such as Alger Hiss http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger_Hiss or one or both of the Rosenbergs, and the bizarre reactions of the left to these facts.
I must admit to having engaged in some schadefreude over a bunch of this, since Venona and the KGB (archives and individuals) confirmed what those of us on the right suspected all along: the CPUSA was indeed totally a creature of the KGB; most of those accused of being communists or Soviet Agents were, well, communists and Soviet Agents. Robert Conquest was prescient in his writings.
Finally, congrats to Marc for his courage (demonstrated many times) in taking on the more looney on the left.
December 15th, 2005 at 11:51 am
After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy publicly admitted to the problems with it and took responsibility–and the American people rallied behind him. Yeah, I know. John Kennedy was a friend of yours and W is no John Kennedy. Well, at least Saddam Hussein is gone and Castro is still in power.
December 15th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Some points from Bush’s apology I took away:
(1) It wasn’t an apology at all, for one thing.
(2) Bush, by implication, isn’t confessing; he’s laying the blame at the feet of the intelligence agencies. “Bad information”…it almost seems he wants us to think he was misled into the war, not the American public.
(3) He seems to be taking a note from the Clinton playbook. When Clinton was down in the polls, he said “I’m sorry” a lot, and his numbers went back up. The problem with Bush doing this is that the Republicans and the right-wing talk show hosts spent years during the Clinton administration banging it into our heads that just saying “I’m sorry” isn’t good enough. It may turn out that now with their man doing it, they were too successful in getting out this message.
(4) And what the heck is up with Bush comparing himself to Truman, anyway? Would this be the Truman that said “The buck stops here”? The Truman who was a war veteran? How about the Truman who dropped atomic bombs? Wait, I know–the Truman who was an utter failure at business!
December 15th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
I agree with Reg (and Myerson) that it may have been a blessing that no large anti-war movement got off the ground with the start of the war. It makes the groundswell of the last year or so that much more convincing — these are clearly not the voices of those predisposed to protest.
I’m pretty tuned in politically but had no idea who ANSWER was before reading this blog site. I can’t imagine that there were thousands who would have joined the anti-war movement if only they hadn’t been turned off by ANSWER’S antics. I’m sure there were some, but unless you happened to show up at early anti-war events (or were intimately familiar with all that goes on in the progressive politisphere), how would you even know about the people from ANSWER. The media coverage of the events themselves was minimal to non-existent.
December 15th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Michael Turner, thanks very much for the link to the New Criterion piece. Instructive.
Marc, it remains to be seen whether the UfPJ break with ANSWER comes too late for the antiwar movement as a whole, rather than just too late for you and David Corn.
It would be easier to take seriously your concerns for the state of the antiwar movement if you were clearly to state your position in favor of ending the war. You’ve argued against withdrawal. I haven’t even seen you support the renunciation of permanent bases, something that could be done immediately, before a single soldier comes home.
Do you support Murtha’s proposal? Feingold’s? What should we do to get out?
December 15th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
John Moore is actually crazy enough to argue that because there were seven points in a Senate resolution the WMD argument wasn’t the key to drumming up support. John, are you so lost in your personal Lalaland that you think the resolution could have passed on the strength of those other six items, sans the phony WMD hysteria. Try using some common sense for a change that a thirteen-year-old couldn’t knock down with a feather. You guys amaze me. What a bunch of airheads…I declare you legally blonde.
December 15th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
The important point of insisting on a timetable for withdrawal is that to get someone to admit that we are leaving eventually. That is what the Bush administration is denying.
Up until now its been invasion, everybody’s fired, mind if we reconstitute your economy as a crony captitalist wet dream?, reconstruction using foreign firms and foreign labor, your banks are now our banks, and you know that black stuff which is the only thing of any value? how about if that belongs to us too? and to protect you, we’ll construct 14 military bases and the biggest f’ing embassy the world has seen!
And we’ll stand down as soon as the Iraquis stand up.
I have some beautiful swamp land for sale, if you’re interested.
December 15th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
No Truman indeed, or Kennedy. Hussein is still there, and people are still killing for him. It hasn’t stopped a bit. Klick on my name for an example of the sort of quote mining people like Moore use. It’s your classic propaganda and nothing more.
December 15th, 2005 at 11:36 pm
I think what’s interesting about Freddy the Aptly-Named referencing Peggy Noonan is that it highlights one of the major hypocrisies of the Marty Peretz Left, the Decent Left, or whatever one chooses to call them.
Not long ago our porcine friend expressed some shock and outrage over the fact that both reg and I subscribe to The American Conservative and have a favourable opinion of the magazine. What was implied was that there was some sort of sinister “triangulation” at work with segments of the left that was leading them into an alliance with the (horror of horrors!) “isolationist” right. You know the kind of campfire ghost stories that Michael Totten and the like usually recite.
But as Freddy the Aptly-Named and Totten himself demonstrate quite well, it’s not the right that these beacons of “true” liberalism have a problem with, but a right. Their right — National Review, FrontPageMag, the War Street Journal, etc. — is perfectly kosher. But that right — The American Conservative, Chronicles, Sobran’s, etc. — is simply beyond the pale.
V.D. Hanson? “Yaay. Hurrah. What a heroic and manly anti-fascist fighter he is.”
William S. Lind? “Boo. Hiss. Death to the fascist scum.”
It’s all so laughably obvious. The only response is a sardonic grin and a shake of the head.
December 16th, 2005 at 3:38 am
For Freddy…from Fred
http://www.slate.com/id/2132506/nav/tap2/
December 16th, 2005 at 10:19 am
More…
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w051212&s=ackerman121405
I don’t really know a fucking thing about Iraq, when you boil it down…what I read in the papers, like the rest of you guys…but given their track records to date, I’d bet that Kaplan and Spencer Ackerman are closer to facing the problems of the near-term future than the triumphalist crowd who had hard-ons when they saw a guy in a Halloween costume giving the thumbs up in front of a painted, plastic banner that announced “Mission Accomplished!”
December 16th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
Marc — while your points about ANSWER and the like are correct; they are also beside the point.
The Peace Movement is non-responsive to real concerns Americans have about the world and achieving security. UFPJ is not ANSWER, but it has the same anti-American, anti-Israel, “the US is always evil, the third world always good” and Saddam-Lil Kim-Iran worshipping stupidity that represents the 1968 Generation’s response to the changing modern world. Forever frozen in the Cold War amber.
The Peace Movement had some utility during high-tension periods of the Cold War, but ironically Richard Nixon did more to stop nuclear Armageddon than the Peace Movement (Detente, SALT). Peace is not achieved by naive utopianism but by mutual security among rational actors with objectives that are not incompatible.
Joe Wilson was quoted as saying that “constructive engagement” is the solution to every crisis and conflict because it worked in South Africa to end Apartheid. Of course, it failed in Darfur, Bosnia, Iraq, and of course Iran. Reality never impinged on the Peace Movement that “believes” well in clap hard for peace (and fairies) ala Peter Pan.
Ahmadinejad threatens to “wipe Israel off the face of the map” (to no doubt considerable agreement with most of the Peace Movement, who hate Israel more even than the US, certainly his remarks found no reason for condemnation among ANSWER OR United for Peace and Justice) and the response is … > Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust occurred (official Iranian policy btw) and the response is >. Iran likely already has nukes, the missiles to deliver them into Israel, and complete what one Lebanese College student said was “Hitler’s job, burn the Jews” and the response of the Peace Movement is … >
With Lil Kim (Clinton’s constructive engagement … you cheat on your agreement and we will pretend not to notice) or Ahmadinejad (we’ll send you a sharply worded letter from Kofi Annan after you nuke 6 million Jews in Israel) or Al Qaeda (people will feel SORRY FOR US for five minutes after you slaughter thousands of us again) the Peace Movement has no answer.
Marc, Reality is that no amount of constructive engagement, chanting and singing, and the demand for “Peace” is going to mean anything. The Peace Movement is as useless now as it was during the run up to WWII and during. Yes Ghandhi argued the Jews should have simply peacefully gone to the ovens so that they would be morally right. That isn’t a solution to Americans.
ALL the Peace Movement has to offer is outright surrender to bin Laden. That’s not a solution for most Americans (though it is for self-hating and America-hating Peaceniks) and thus the larger failure. There is no one to negotiate with, ala Brezhnev or Andropovich. No mutually compatible objectives. Cold War is over, and we are dealing with the Dragon’s teeth. As Zarqawi says, you submit or we slaughter. Americans are not willing to submit, they will slaughter, and we will kill in response. Until one of us breaks. Simple and as ugly as that.
The killing will go on till we break them. Yes I understand the wish for peace. It’s human but frankly in the current situation, stupid. It only encourages bin Laden and the like.
December 16th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Rockford something tells me you don’t actually do any of the breaking in this tough love thesis of yours. It’s easy work from your cheap seat.
December 16th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
DEAD SOLDIERS SENT HOME IN THE LUGGAGE COMPARTMENT
The other day Bush admitted, that we invaded Iraq based on false information: “It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong,” “As president, I’m responsible for the decision to go into Iraq.” So what is he saying? Bush is stating that he was going to invade Iraq, NO MATTER WHAT! His decision was intractable, and it didn’t make a difference what the facts were, the invasion was inevitable. WE WERE GOING TO WAR REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES! An oil field is a terrible thing to waste and so is a soldier’s life. Two Thousand one hundred and fifty-two American soldiers have made the “ultimate sacrifice.†AND NOW THESE DEAD SOLDIERS ARE SENT HOME TO THEIR LOVED ONES IN LUGGAGE COMPARTMENTS AS FREIGHT. Is third class shipping the way our government honors the memory of dead soldiers? Treating the dead like bulk freight; as if soldiers are disposable objects to be used and discarded– is that what Bush means by the term ultimate sacrifice? Dead soldiers should not be hidden in cartons—what is the government afraid of? Mainstream media has been discouraged from showing flag draped coffins. Bush can’t talk like an arrogant bully, play Top Gun in a flight suit for a photo opportunity; and then be afraid to show the end result of his DECISCION—2,152 U.S. Military Deaths. DEAD SOLDIERS NEED TO BE HONORED; AND THAT MEANS THAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS FREIGHT AND DUMPED unceremoniously into COLD EMPTY CARGO HOLDS.
FAMILIES DESERVE RESPECT
CHICAGO –After Gay and Fred Eisenhauer learned their son had been killed while serving in Iraq in May, the couple traveled to the cargo area at Lambert Airport in St. Louis to get his body.
Army Pfc. Wyatt Eisenhauer’s flag-draped coffin was delivered to his parents in a crate-filled area of the airport where workers on break sat nearby smoking cigarettes.
For Gay Eisenhauer, it was an impersonal place to meet her 26-year-old son on his final trip home.
“When we bring them home and we call them heroes, let’s treat them like heroes all the way and not pull them into a cargo section and bring them home to the family that way,” said Eisenhauer, of Pinckneyville, on Wednesday.
John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew John Holley, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.
Matthew was a medic with the 101st airborne unit and died on Nov. 15.
“When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made,” said John Holley.
Parents should not have to beg the government to treat their children’s dead bodies with respect, after they gave their lives to fight Bush’s war in Iraq– a war that Bush admitted was based on false information. These war heroes, should be flying back home in military planes not in luggage holds. Their bodies should be in flagged draped coffins not in crates. RESPECT MUST BE SHOWN TOWARDS THE FAMILIES WHO LOST LOVED ONES FIGHTING IN IRAQ. If Bush really believes in the validity of this war then there should be NOT BE A NEED TO HIDE THE DEAD BODIES. What is Bush ashamed of? The ignominious treatment of dead soldier’s, reflects the overall total disregard of Bush’s administration towards the military, which is further demonstrated by their cavalier actions:
• Waging a bogus war based on misleading information
• Not supplying the military with sufficient equipment to prevent injury and death—A great deal of Guard equipment comprised of approximately 64,000 items valued at more than $1.2 billion, has either been destroyed or left in Iraq and the Army cannot account for over one half of it. One would think that the Department of Defense has knowledge however of what equipment has been deployed and that which needs replacement. But stunningly revealed in a Government Accountability Report in October 2005 at the request of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Army “does not have a complete accounting of these items or a plan to replace the equipment.â€
• Forcing soldiers in Iraq to do three or four tours of military duty
• Cutting military health benefits
• Not paying soldiers a living wage
• Using fraudulent recruitment tactics to entice possible enlistees
• Not ending the war in Iraq and redeploying the troops
WHY DO WE NEED AIR FORCE ONE–CAN’T BUSH AND HIS CRONIES TRAVEL 3rd CLASS IN UPS FREIGHT!
COME FLY WITH ME
Flying first class is never an issue for our congressmen—they get plenty of free plane trips from lobbyist who are only too eager to GREASE THEIR PALMS hoping for favors like lucrative military contracts. Defense contractor Brent Wilkes, is a case in point, he had ties to former Rep. Duke Cunningham, and also cultivated relationships with DeLay, Blunt and Hastert.
Hastert has have taken numerous undisclosed trips on Wilkes plane. DeLay flew frequently, and Majority Leader Roy Blunt ) reported flying on Wilkes’ plane as well.
And how about Tom Delays plane trips, how lucky can he get, his airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 when he was House Majority Whip, happened to be charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe. Delay’s expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland, were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham.
Isn’t it ironic that war heroes fly freight and crooks fly 1st class!
Are we are exporting this kind of democracy to Iraq?
As far as A.N.S.W.E.R. is concerned and all those other groups that appear at protests with a greater POLICTICAL agenda–WAR PROTESTS MAKE FOR STRANGE BEDFELLOWS.
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