Doesn’t the recruiting shortfall in this country indicate something about the mission? If every bumper sticker proclaiming ‘support’ for the troops equaled an enlistment, there wouldn’t be enough rifles to go around. Perhaps this is one of those unpleasant truths about this country. Our politics are loud and idealistic, but equal little more than carbon dioxide when it comes right down to it. While folks in the Middle East are strapping explosives to themselves to prove the conviction of their beliefs, we’re pretending to believe in a war for the sake of a team jersey our favorite politician happens to be wearing.
Listen to Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly or any of the other big-talkers beating the drum, and it would be hard to imagine that neither of them had ever come close to a foxhole. In fact, the majority of those deciding it’s time for our youth to die in some foreign land had plenty of opportunity to fight in Vietnam, but didn’t. Sometime between that war and today it became politically acceptable for leaders to go through their lives as warmongers and cowards at the same time without fear of being seen as hypocrites.
The children of a generation scarred by the tragedy and dishonesty of Vietnam have taken on this very facade. While voting for the party of preemptive war, they are counseling their children against joining that fight. Just as our leaders are able to have their cake and eat it too, so are the voters and their children. Only now the numbers aren’t adding up, and the supply of bodies is dwindling. Sure, there are a lot of bumper stickers, but most of them are applied by folks who merely want to pretend they’re something that they’re not.
With the poor deciding to take their chances in the economy now over the promise of celebrated slavery and medals, the fools who find themselves already in fatigues have their service time involuntarily extended. They’re sent into war multiple times over and should they survive, the cost of keeping themselves alive once it’s all said and done is rising by the year. That’s right. Those very same politicians who sat out the wars of their time, now feel it’s prudent to under-fund the medical benefits of veterans. The plan being, if they can’t pay for their medical care, they may die sooner. After all, who wants to be paying for a generation of crazies and cripples?
And so it goes this ridiculous cycle of American life. The veterans of this war who come out with all their limbs and marbles will be recruited in later years to help elect another politician who never went, and if need be, they’ll counter the claims of a brother or sister who says that the Iraq war was a mistake. The ‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’ will inspire a similar group to carry on the torch many years from now. A survivor of this war will be labeled a coward because of the political uniform they wear, and all for the sake of someone who was never there. They’ll get elected and try to start another war…and so on.
Chest pumping bumper stickers will be plentiful on the rocket cars of the future, and nary a day will pass without the horrible sound of that beating drum. Voices will echo as they do right now, and patriotism will remain a concept only in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps we’ll be less courageous then, and the very idea of pulling off such a thing as we’ve attempted in Iraq and Vietnam will be beyond comprehension. Maybe we’ll all remember what happened when the well ran dry and decide we’re better off minding our own business.
Hey Chris,
I’m a fellow poster on RightWingNews.com, and I’d just like to say that I like your views that you present on that blog an and I also enjoy your site.
I am a Democrat and I started posting in RWN about 2 years ago to try to learn how the exreme right thinks and fuctions and to try to learn a thing or two about how their arguments are formed.
Keep up the good work!
C U there,
CWSCHNEIDER
CWSHNEIDER – Thanks! Check out http://www.right-thinking.com
Things are getting heated there. I agree with you that it’s interesting to see…um, ‘these creatures in their natural habitat’. Heh.
Blah, blah blah blah, recruiting shortfalls PROVE we’re wrong… yawn. Say, if we meet recruiting goals next quarter, will you eat your words?
Stan said: “Say, if we meet recruiting goals next quarter, will you eat your words?”
I absolutely will. I feel that I have an intimate knowledge of the game in terms of the Army and recruitment, and this downward trend isn’t something that’s going to get better before it gets worse. I predict that the recruiting shortfalls will dictate our withdrawal from Iraq moreso than the security situation.
The measure to whether this theory of mine proves correct will be the ‘insurgent index’ in Iraq and whether the level of violence actually reduces prior to our scaling back troop strength. If the index remains at a constant level leading up to our first withdrawal, then it’ll be safe to say that an inability to restock the force played a pivotal role in the decisionmaking.
The words of our president have indicated that we’ll leave Iraq once the job is done, but whether that ends up being true or not will determine whether or not the shortfall ends up being a deciding factor.
I look at their medical treatment once they become veterans, the stop-loss policy, the never-ending rotations into warzones while recruiting is down, lack of equipment…and yes, they are made to be fools.
I don’t blame them, but instead blame our government for calling them heros then treating them like fools. Patriotism won’t pay the bills, nor will it amount to free medication or medical care. Patriotism only exists in our minds, while the veterans have to exist in reality.
Judging by the conditions, my opinion is that enlisting in the Army would be a foolish choice to make right now. The recruiting shortfalls highlight this truth. Having made that same choice myself…I feel like a fool for having enlisted in the first place.
The recruiting shortfall means little other than people are beinning to understand armyy duty may actually involve fighting in an army. Just because some islamofacist cleric is so brave that he can strap explosives to children and the mentally disabled to die for his cause in no way means their convictions are stronger than ours.
Where does all this hate come from? Did you nat have a good childhood? Why is it soo important to you that dictators are allowed to torture and exterminate their own people? Democrats used to be the champions for the underpriviledged and weak (for a brief time during the 60’s at least) but now it’s all just about indoctinating an ideology on everyone.
Try thinking about the suffering of others for a change instead of desperatly trying to prove a “deadissue” right.
Oh come on. No democrat wanted Saddam to be there. But Bush just rushed in trying to end it, instead of playing the diplomacy game which could’ve saved the lives of many people on both sides.
This hate comes from somewhere. I’m glad you can see that Right Thinker, but you have to think about where it comes from. Iraq is not because some cleric. It was about a leader. And someone who we’ve continued to piss off time and time again, so he’s mad at us. We say he shouldn’t be, we just don’t like him. Uh, where does the hate come from? Our own hubris.
“Think about the suffering of others?”
Yeah, so, you’re a democrat I’m taking it. Or you were against the Iraq war, weren’t you? Since we did a lot of suffering and much(not all!) of it could be avoided. And please, listen to the SOU’s from Bush. We went there to protect ourselves, to defend against WMDs. We NEVER went there to free the Iraqi people. It’s a side effect of what happened. It’s great, but we went there for WMDs, found none, and fu–ed up. That’s all there is. But something good came of it. But that isn’t why we went. So yes, Yay for Bush, as soon as he can say “We F—ed Up” instead of scapegoating every single other person he can.
All this mis-direction, saying we went there to free the Iraqis and everyone who was against the war was against freedom for the Iraqis, it’s like watching a Michael Moore movie. Shame on your Right Thinker!
Bush rushed in???? I am stunned by that statement, Bush rushed in. Which Bush, are you talking about Bush senior??? Maybe Bush senior while he was VP for Ronald Reagan? This Saddam issue goes way back. Suppose the WMD he had stockpiled was all used up on his own people and the Iranians, I think it’s sad that democrats had to be tricked into doing the right thing. Where was Kennedy or Biden demanding that we rescue the children of Iraq from the dictator proped up by previous administrations? Where was Schummer and Reid when the women, gays and lesbians were given the same rights as animals? Why didn’t we go in to free the people? Democrats didn’t want to.
Republicans tried every story they could think of to get democrats to care about people outside their voting districts.
And I goota tell you that pissing off some guy in country A because Country B asked us to help country C defend itself from Country D doesn’t make me lose too much sleep. Hubris you say? How about I say I don’t like the relationship between China and India. China is the great communist evil and I am going to go to Bombay and show those SOB’s what happens to people whose policies help our enemies the Chinese. It’s none of the business of any Jordanian, Iranian, Turk or Canadian what our relationship with Israel works. They hate Israel for the same reason Hitler would and I couldn’t give a rats ass. So yes, not only shouldn’t be upset, they should have the hubris to even question us about it. Does some mullah decide what countries America can have diplomatic relations with else we deserve to die?
Everyone who was against the war cared more for their political, religious or personal beliefs than for those who were actually suffering. That is the point. Indonesia gets a tidal wave and we ship tons of releif, people starving in Africa and we ship tons of releif, Sudan gets peace keepers. Democrats to this day would prefer Saddam still there and the US still in negotiations, that’s the difference.
“Everyone who was against the war cared more for their political, religious or personal beliefs than for those who were actually suffering.”
And everyone for the war was afraid of WMDs, and really didn’t care about the people of Iraq. If you really think it’s different then Bush must be announcing plans to invade Africa(Except Liberia), which we all know is corrput, even their democracies are voted on by people with a gun to their head. Must be headed off to free Tibet too. There’s more suffering in Africa than all of Iraq. Iraq is just the one politicized and so everyone thinks it’s the big one.
If you really cared for suffering as you say, you’d be campaigning for going to war in those places, and would have been against going to Iraq. Now please, quit playing the holy patron saint of ending suffering and quit trying to misdirect. It’s great their free, but just look at Bush’s speeches, look at the SOU’s, you know why we went there. We were afraid of WMDs, plain and simple.
The rest of your post is just too silly to respond to. Sorry.
You thought the part about Bush not really rushing in was silly? You do agree that Bush didn’t rush in, right? Because he didn’t.
You are actually helping me make some of my points. We went in to Iraq for many reasons, National Security, Humanitarian, Regime Change and Regional Stability are a few. I agree that most of the Bush speeches focus on a singular issue but here is where you don’t fully grasp the situation. Democrats couldn’t care less about any of the reasons, they didn’t care about Saddam invading Kuwait, they didn’t care about the civillian Kurds gettting nerve gassed, they didn’t care about the Iran/Iraq war and they didn’t care about our security. Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, Mike Farrell, Janine Garafallo and Barbara Streisand don’t like war under any circumstances, that was the democratic party line.
No war under any circumstances.
Please just follow my path here before you reject it wholesale, Bush had to focus on the issues that would prod democratic constituents to pressure their own congressmen/congresswomen to do the right thing. What democrats can’t get past is that they had to be forced/tricked into doing the right thing.
Oil, WMDs, stability, humanity or what ever reason anyone wants to focus on we did it for all of them and in the end it was the right thing to do. I know democrats are pissed they had to be lied to or exaggerated to or what ever but like I said where were the democrats who are champions of human rights, womens rights and minority rights?
Where were the democrats who screamed about Aids in Africa and rape in Bosnia and child porn and slavery in Indo-China? Where were the liberals who were angry that female penguins were introduced to male penguins who were trying to mate each other in Germany? I know that was a recent event but gay penguins more important than nerve gassed children? Come on.
Democrats would have been much better off ignoring the extreme left and shaping the war with their ideals instead of being sidelined through it all. Democrats could have helped us with Europe and other countries that were both liberal and making a profit off of Saddam’s regime. Democrats could have come up with exit strategies and post-war reconstruction plans and the like but they blew it. They continue to blow it everyday.
Perhaps we’ll be less courageous then, and the very idea of pulling off such a thing as we’ve attempted in Iraq and Vietnam will be beyond comprehension. Maybe we’ll all remember what happened when the well ran dry and decide we’re better off minding our own business.
Since you bring up Vietnam in addition to Iraq with the idea that we should have minded our own business I notice you left out the Korean War and World Wars 1 and 2. At what point does it become our business, when the enemy is parachuting into West Virginia?
What gets me about statements like the one italiacized above is that liberals actually think that the Iraq War and other wars in our history were fought for the fun of it. To show off for some cute girl in algebra class or to compensate for a small unit. Anything screwy….like we went there to prove to the world that we can blow up stuff anywhere we want to. Like it’s some macho thing. WRONG!!!!
Totally and completely wrong.
Oh please. Bush pushed for the inspectors to get into Iraq, they were there, before they could finish Bush pushed for and got war. He rushed into it, you can’t say there were all those years before when nothing happened that count, because Bush wasn’t the president then.
And I hardly think “Lying to the American Public” is justified by the end result. And to say the Democractic party as a whole is against war is just stupid, I notice you consistently forget about Afghanistan. Yeah, the war BEFORE Iraq.
“Oil, WMDs, stability, humanity or what ever reason anyone wants to focus on we did it for all of them and in the end it was the right thing to do.”
Again, trying to defend. Go back, check the speeches, you’ve been lost to the after war speeches, it was WMDs, the whole time. It evolved during the war.
Where are the republicans? Screaming because children are being gassed to death, executed right now, having a sprear put thru them and letting them to die? I don’t see you screaming. You’re just trying to defend by going on the offense, and it’s just funny.
“Where were the liberals who were angry that female penguins were introduced to male penguins who were trying to mate each other in Germany?”
Please, a few blogs does NOT count as the liberals. I think you’ve confused internet with reality. You’re just spitting out blog ideals and blog sayings, nothing said by the democratic party or the republican party.
Go to the source, you’ll see in the beginning Iraq was about WMDs and that’s what people were against. Go over the logic, you’ll see if Bush had waited, got some more countries on his side the war would be a lot less bloody. Quit spewing regurgitated blog stuff and start thinking logically. Quit assuming some liberal blog is representative of all of Democracts or Liberals. Quit assuming because some republican blog tells you we went there on a humanitarian effort that’s why we went. Go to the source, go to Bush. You’ll find it was WMDs, plain and simple. It evolved, as more and more WMDs just weren’t found.
Go look at the Democracts, any of them complaining that the Iraqis are free? Nope. Any complaining that the war was rushed, that we have no exit strategy, and that Bush lied? Oh yeah. As they should be. If lying is what it takes for Bush to be in office, well then, an idiot is he. In his speeches leading up to the war he never went into anything about the Iraqi people, except that they were until a terrible regime.
Care about people being executed for voting the wrong way? Africa. Care about people being thrown in jail because they don’t like you? Africa. Care about people dying(More than Iraq!), Africa.
Where’s your humanitarianism now? Is it gone because we’re done with Iraq, or did it not exist? Please, quit spewing and go by your name, and start Thinking. You’ll still be a republican, but you’ll see how bad you sound now.
Right Thinker – Since you bring up Vietnam in addition to Iraq with the idea that we should have minded our own business I notice you left out the Korean War and World Wars 1 and 2. At what point does it become our business, when the enemy is parachuting into West Virginia?
Our involvement in WW2 is obvious in regards to this discussion. In that instance it wasn’t paratroopers in West Virgina, but attacks in Alaska and Pearl Harbor. FDR couldn’t garner the public’s support for supporting the imperialist French and British nations in their portion of the conflict – and the attack on Pearl Harbor was a catalyst for what happened next. A connection between Japan and Germany was transparant, and easily identified by all Americans without it having to be ‘massaged’ or ‘coaxed’ into their skulls along with the requirement of FAITH.
German subs attacked us to prompt our involvement in WW1. The matter was debated for almost two years before we actually declared war. The political atmosphere was flooded with propoganda…but luckily, no 24 hour news networks to spread such propoganda intraveniously as we have today.
In both of these instances we were attacked by the nation we subsequently went to war with. While it’s easy to throw them into the mix with a proclaimation of ‘well, were WW1 and WW2 the wrong wars at the wrong time???’ – but unlike Iraq…in both instances, our enemy threw the first punch. There was no question of who had done us wrong…not like this war here. In the case of this war we’re engaged in now, it requires FAITH to connect Saddam and the attacks of 9/11.
In Vietnam it required FAITH that the public was willing to provide, but such a thing lasts only as long as it’s justified. When the truth is, we were duped into defending the French and their imperial interests in South Vietnam…Truman…then we got involved and the idea of our technology and greatness making a difference in such a situation got to seem sexy in a way…JFK…and then, despite what you insist is not the case, machoism…LBJ & Nixon…unwarranted death. The bombing of Laos…a third of their population wiped off the planet, and for what?
There are reasons for all the wars we fight, but the notion that the celebrated ones justify the current war – whether it’s this one or the next one we end up fighting – is just as weak as claiming that every war we ever choose to fight is warranted based merely on the fact that we are who we are. Patriotism being what it is, this is a subject that tends to rely on our emotions for any sense to be made of it…and FAITH makes up the rest.
Well, I have none of this FAITH…but I do have a library down the street. And most of the trite garbage we’re forcefed in this day and age is meant to confuse the issue more than provide any of us the clarity we’re supposedly tuning in for in the first place. Just think of it…German submarines attacked us, the dern F’n US of A, and public debate raged for two years until the decision was finally made. Today a script is handed out and everyone plays their part.
The point where the government/media ends and reality begins is the bottom line…are there enough of us with the necessary faith to carry out the work deemed so necessary by the powers that be? Are there enough of us…out of the 250 million + who feel anything when it comes to this game of politics outside of the game jerseys being worn by the two sides?
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and they had to turn people away to fight in WW2…9/11 sent us into Iraq, and if there was ANY transparancy in the motives of our leadership, the military would be turning people away now like they were then.
In response to Joey-
The inspectors were already there and had been encountering resistance the whole time. They were in one day and out the next. The idea that even MORE time spent dueling with Saddam would have brought more Eurpoean countries on board and saved lives is ridiculous. Have you forgotten the Oil fo Food scam soo soon?
Europe, Russia, China and others were making a killing(literally an figuratively) off of the U.N. program and the Iraqi people. Saddam would still be there if it were up to liberals around the world. They didn’t care about Iraqi suffering, they cared about money.
You tell me to start thinking and I’ll tell you to start reading. Start with the actual history of the events, and not the New York Times’ “version” of history but what actually happened. I imagine you claim that Bush knew there were no WMDs at the time we “finally” took action, there will be no way to ever know-especially since Saddam had them and used them in the past, proving he had them at one time. What it does prove is he has the cajonnes to use them and the lack of conscious to exercise good jusgement in their use.
I’ll concede the Afganistan point although I will add that any public official who went against the Afgan campaign would have committed political suicide. So, while democrats were gung ho to show they could be gung ho, I seriously question their sincerity based on their other actions.
So again, Bush did not rush in, more time would have just been a waste of time, and people. Again, Democrats had to be goaded into doing the right thing and Bush had to focus on WMDs to get the Democrats to do the right thing. Do I wish he could have just put everything on the table and have everyone understand the seriousness of the situation? Absolutely. The sad part is politics has a bad side and we say it in the Democratic leadership.
Response to Chris-
You have a lot of good stuff in there but how you make the connections doesn’t add up for me. WWII for example, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but we declared war on Germany. In your assessment it wouold take faith to go after Germany because they are allies with the Japanese. German U-boats sunk war supply ships that were heading to London, there by defending themselves. Maybe taking issue with this part of the post was too much to tackle, but I’ll try.
We put ourselves in harms way to help the English and the French and got drawn into the war. The Japanese and Germans did bad things to innocent people before and during the war. Stopping Germany and Japan was a good thing for the rest of the world.
Ok, now we put ourselves in harms way to help the Kuwaities, Isrealis and the Saudis and got drawn into the war. Saddam did bad things to innocent people before and during the war. Stopping Saddam was a good thing for the rest of the world.
So people all around, not just Democrats, may have exaggerated, lied, misled, ignored the suffering, sought personal political and financial gain, libeled and slandered eachother and harmed personal and national reputations. In the end, the right thing to do was to remove Saddam (should have been sooner but now it’s done) give the Iraqi’s their country back and stop the fraud at the U.N. Unfortunately, Europe has a terrorist open door policy and now they are flush with fanatical militants. But that is their problem now and a discussion for another time.
I would like to ask where your tolerance for agressor nations taking over their neighbors comes from. In Vietnam, communists with a huge amount of support from China and Russia attacked the legitimate and soverign South Vietnam, an ally of the U.S. Why was Vietnam different in your mind that Korea? Or WWI or WWII for that matter. Why is it ok for China to help North Korea invade South Korea and not ok for us to help South Korea? Why do we have to stand back while our allies get pounded, ganged up on and decimated?
Oh please. Bush pushed for the inspectors to get into Iraq, they were there, before they could finish Bush pushed for and got war. He rushed into it, you can’t say there were all those years before when nothing happened that count, because Bush wasn’t the president then.
I gotta correct this one statement. I’ll understand if you want to retract this or rephrase it because it doesn’t make any sense as is. Every time we get a new president our foreign policy has to start over? At least 4, count ’em four preseidential terms went by with this Saddam issue never getting resolved.
This is like saying Harry Truman rushed into Germany and Japan after FDR died because everything happened before Truman’s Term and, thus, doesn’t count.
And I strongly disagree that nothing happened during Clinton, that is when the situation declined the most. Attempted assination of Bush Senior, Oil for Food, horrific abuses of his civilian population and financial and material support of terrorists. Sure, there isn’t a memo from Saddam to Osama with a time stamp,a money order and a map to Saddam’s vacation hideout in the North of Iraq. But plenty of evidence has been found showing Saddam’s assistance to terrorists that came to light in documents after the fall of Saddam. No faith needed here.
Some have opted for the blindfold so as not to see the whole picture. Politically, democrats can’t support anything Bush related and that includes the liberation of Iraq, the liberation of Kuwait, Libya’s change of heart towards terrorism, Syria’s retreat from occupied Lebanon and greater security for Israel. Even Iran, while not changing politically very much it’s people are healing form the Iran/Iraq war. Where is the down side?
You have a lot of good stuff in there but how you make the connections doesn’t add up for me. WWII for example, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but we declared war on Germany. In your assessment it wouold take faith to go after Germany because they are allies with the Japanese. German U-boats sunk war supply ships that were heading to London, there by defending themselves. Maybe taking issue with this part of the post was too much to tackle, but I’ll try.
We put ourselves in harms way to help the English and the French and got drawn into the war. The Japanese and Germans did bad things to innocent people before and during the war. Stopping Germany and Japan was a good thing for the rest of the world.
I wanted to present the case in a way that showed the transparancy of why we fought Germany. I think you’re behind my argument as to that fact, but where we disconnect is with the transparancy of this war we’re now fighting in Iraq, and this lack of transparancy is what I’m attesting is a contributing factor in our recruitment shortfalls.
Ok, now we put ourselves in harms way to help the Kuwaities, Isrealis and the Saudis and got drawn into the war. Saddam did bad things to innocent people before and during the war. Stopping Saddam was a good thing for the rest of the world.
So people all around, not just Democrats, may have exaggerated, lied, misled, ignored the suffering, sought personal political and financial gain, libeled and slandered eachother and harmed personal and national reputations. In the end, the right thing to do was to remove Saddam (should have been sooner but now it’s done) give the Iraqi’s their country back and stop the fraud at the U.N. Unfortunately, Europe has a terrorist open door policy and now they are flush with fanatical militants. But that is their problem now and a discussion for another time.
I would like to ask where your tolerance for agressor nations taking over their neighbors comes from. In Vietnam, communists with a huge amount of support from China and Russia attacked the legitimate and soverign South Vietnam, an ally of the U.S. Why was Vietnam different in your mind that Korea? Or WWI or WWII for that matter. Why is it ok for China to help North Korea invade South Korea and not ok for us to help South Korea? Why do we have to stand back while our allies get pounded, ganged up on and decimated?
South Vietnam was an emperical possession of the French, and when we first became involved, it was the French playing the Communism card to entice us towards involvement. Not wanting to deal with their own mess, and with the trouble the UK had in India…they wanted to fold their hand without having to lose face.
Nixon and Kissinger discussed this very same scheme themselves at one point, playing China against the Viet Cong politically. Ironically that’s how the French got us in there in the first place.
The UN being a terrorist factory remains to be seen. They’re a racist organization, but that’s the community. The UN is a sum of it’s parts, and simply going the Buchanon route and isolating ourselves is not a smart thing to do in a booming global economy. Our physical security is one thing, but our financial security is another. It’s essential for us to work with our fellow nations and make things better through diplomacy, because as much as we’re addicted to our patriotism here – the world is a lot bigger than just us.
Iraq – I wasn’t convinced that Saddam had the capability to hurt us at all, and it’s been proven as such since. This is worth something. Holding on to a flawed logic regarding why we had to invade at this juncture is more politics than historical reality. Twenty years from now we’ll have people holding up this argument, just like we have people arguing that if it wasn’t for the protestors, we’d have ‘won’ the Vietnam War. A hundred years from now that won’t be true.
The Oil for Food scandal has tremendous traction here in the US, but a Texas Oil company benefited, and with that comes the reality that it was a lack of oversight and corruption within the UN that allowed it to happen, but the honey got spread out far and wide. I think Kofi Annan is a figurehead…a black man in charge to give the impression that the organization cares about the entire world, when in fact, they only care about white skin. The scandal is an indication of what needs to change internally. Their weapons inspectors were sufficient, and that’s the disconnect. We have a scandal, but how does that invalidate what this group did?
Terrorists are looking at Abu Gharib and attempting to classify all Americans as what they saw in the pictures. It’s not true…no more than the scandal represents the entirety of the UN.
We’d make points heading into Sudan and challenging Europe to end their racist ways. If we’re leading the way in that fight, it’ll do a lot more to fixing the UN than leaving it will.
Right Thinker – I love having a heady conservative involved in discussion in the site. If you ever perceive some disrespect from me or another contributor, please let me know. I want conservatives to feel comfortable posting here, and to know that their point of view is valued. Thanks for your contributions so far…this thread is great.
Please expand on this transparancy issue. What are you applying the transparancy test to and wha is or isn’t transparent now versus in all the other wars.
Their weapons inspectors were sufficient, and that’s the disconnect. We have a scandal, but how does that invalidate what this group did?
Excellent question. In my mind it’s not a questions of the value of the endeavor rather the effectiveness of it. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and we know now that no matter who benefited from Oil for Food Saddam was propped up by it. The fact that soo many big players, security council members even, ensured that the mission would be a failure. Whether Saddam sold his weapons to Syria or he had run out of what he had on the shelf the issue is that Saddam had no intention of changing his aggressive ways no did he plan to return to the diplomatic community. He had a life line of cash that he could stock pile until things died down.
Nixon and Kissinger discussed this very same scheme themselves at one point, playing China against the Viet Cong politically. Ironically that’s how the French got us in there in the first place.
And that is what needs to stop. We could have played Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia against Iraq, we could have done what we did in South America. That is what we as a Nation need o stop doing, proping up dictators until they get out of control, trick 3rd world nations into fighting each other for our gain. Iraq was the first time in recent history where we went in for the right reasons to do the right thing. Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the others took note that the rules had changed and postponing the inevitable isn’t working anymore.
Leaving the U.N. isn’t an option and I don’t know about the racial issues and why Kofi Anan is in there.
Iraq – I wasn’t convinced that Saddam had the capability to hurt us at all, and it’s been proven as such since.
Here is another area where we have a disconnect and that is the definition of us. I think conservatives include our allies in the word us. When Saddam went into Kuwait that, in my mind, was an attack on us. We have political, economic, military and civilian relationships with Kuwait and an invasion of kwait affects us. Canada is part of us, Mexico, South Korea and England are us. Australia and the Phillipienes are us. Attacks on any of these countries affects us in a deep way.
I have two Korean sisters who my parents adopted after their Father died in Seoul. My brother’s wife is 2nd generation American/Chinese and my brother-in-law is from India. My other sister’s steady boyfriend is African American. So when I think of an attack on us I have quite a wide view of the word us.
Terrorists are looking at Abu Gharib and attempting to classify all Americans as what they saw in the pictures. It’s not true…no more than the scandal represents the entirety of the UN.
Terrorists, and half of Islam for that matter, has already classified Americans in a negative way. That is the nature of Islam, it was happening before there was an America, Islam does not tolerate competition. There are no equals to Islam, the Koran is very specific that Christians, Jews and Hindus can be included in society but only as second class citizens. Sharia is supreme over all, over all religions, over all governments and over all cultures. There are liberal elements of Islam and we all probably know someone who is muslim and says they don’t feel this way but it’s the core moderates and hardline clerics who control the religion. Don’t listen to the nice ones, listen to the ones in control and you will see what I mean.
Chris-Thanks for the kind words, too many ideas are squelched by the rancor of “club membership” also known as partisanship. Some people seem to treat politics like a football game in the Superbowl.
Please expand on this transparancy issue. What are you applying the transparancy test to and wha is or isn’t transparent now versus in all the other wars.
I’d have to point towards the case presented to the UN for invasion and the discrepancies that now exist in what we put forth. In WW1 and WW2 there was a clear connection between us and our enemy. Culpability was transparent, whereas a percentage of Americans believe to this day that Saddam played a hand in 9/11 when nothing has been proven to validate such a claim. The water is muddy and our reasons for war less transparent to me and I’m sure many other people within our society. While there were people against the war in Afghanistan, I wasn’t. It made complete sense to me, whereas the Iraq invasion hasn’t…and on a lot of different levels…not only in ‘why’, but how we went about justifying it to our peers around the world.
Their weapons inspectors were sufficient, and that’s the disconnect. We have a scandal, but how does that invalidate what this group did?
Excellent question. In my mind it’s not a questions of the value of the endeavor rather the effectiveness of it. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and we know now that no matter who benefited from Oil for Food Saddam was propped up by it. The fact that soo many big players, security council members even, ensured that the mission would be a failure. Whether Saddam sold his weapons to Syria or he had run out of what he had on the shelf the issue is that Saddam had no intention of changing his aggressive ways no did he plan to return to the diplomatic community. He had a life line of cash that he could stock pile until things died down.
It’s something to learn from and prevent in the future (Oil for Food), but the hard-line anti-UN rhetoric has so much traction in the US now, that from a political standpoint we’re lacking. I watched the NRA annual meeting on CSPAN and they’re frothing at the mouth when it comes to the UN. John Bolton as a legitimate nomination for ambassador indicates to me that our President subscribes to the extremist position that exists on the far right and is being broadcast daily over talk radio. The discourse I’ve engaged in on this topic on right-leaning blogs firmly proves this fact, and I consider it short-sighted and dangerous. The implication of security council members must be investigated, and if the organization is unwilling to do so, that must be politicized…that specifically, and not the talking points.
I don’t feel that the heat was off of Saddam. UN inspectors still had authority to do their jobs. Like the Oil for Food scandal, we needed to be sure about things and not have taken the hard line rhetoric to fruition. The result of us having been so obtuse is now hurting our legitimacy abroad. The details that have been proven false, combined with the 180 degree turn the rhetoric from Powell, Cheney and Rice…we were wrong about quite a bit, and regardless of what we perceived prior to the war, if we’re wrong about these things in the end, it’s not going to do anything towards making the UN any better next year than it was this year.
Nixon and Kissinger discussed this very same scheme themselves at one point, playing China against the Viet Cong politically. Ironically that’s how the French got us in there in the first place.
And that is what needs to stop. We could have played Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia against Iraq, we could have done what we did in South America. That is what we as a Nation need o stop doing, proping up dictators until they get out of control, trick 3rd world nations into fighting each other for our gain. Iraq was the first time in recent history where we went in for the right reasons to do the right thing. Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the others took note that the rules had changed and postponing the inevitable isn’t working anymore.
The ‘inevitable’ is what I’m not buying. Our intelligence information was massaged and vetted for the purpose of us invading Iraq. This has been proven in the past few years. Say we waited until the Oil for Food scandal broke…we’d have had an enormous amount of leverage. Instead we presented a false case and when it wasn’t believed, we went in anyway. We asked the UN to trust us, and they didn’t. Now that the information we presented has been proven false, how can we hold it against them for not buying it?
I agree completely with discarding the process from before in regards to foreign policy and installing dictators. The hang-up for me is the politics behind what we did in Iraq. We had a moral high-ground, but spent that capital unwisely. You have to give the leader enough rope to hang themselves with, and you have to play it right politically so that in the end, more people are behind you than against you. The game requires us to play smarter than we have. And the goal has to be bringing people together…and I don’t think that’s our goal right now.
Leaving the U.N. isn’t an option and I don’t know about the racial issues and why Kofi Anan is in there.
I have a good amount of background on this score. The first post to this site over a year ago was on Kofi Annan (Shades of Kofi). If you hit the archives…first month, you’ll find that piece. It’s a short one, and details my beliefs regarding the racism in the UN.
My unit in Germany was put on alert to deploy to Kosovo in a warfighting capacity in February ’99…the bombing campaign was chosen instead, and may have saved my life. I feel guilty about this…but that’s a separate issue altogether. My position is that the color of skin of those being slaughtered weighs heaviest when UN nations are considering a joint action.
Iraq – I wasn’t convinced that Saddam had the capability to hurt us at all, and it’s been proven as such since.
Here is another area where we have a disconnect and that is the definition of us. I think conservatives include our allies in the word us. When Saddam went into Kuwait that, in my mind, was an attack on us. We have political, economic, military and civilian relationships with Kuwait and an invasion of kwait affects us. Canada is part of us, Mexico, South Korea and England are us. Australia and the Phillipienes are us. Attacks on any of these countries affects us in a deep way.
I have two Korean sisters who my parents adopted after their Father died in Seoul. My brother’s wife is 2nd generation American/Chinese and my brother-in-law is from India. My other sister’s steady boyfriend is African American. So when I think of an attack on us I have quite a wide view of the word us.
I completely respect this point of view, but will fall back to my argument that Saddam was contained at the time. I consider an action against our Allies as an attack on us. I think many people who are against the war would say so as well, but the issue is whether or not there was an ‘imminent threat’.
Terrorists are looking at Abu Gharib and attempting to classify all Americans as what they saw in the pictures. It’s not true…no more than the scandal represents the entirety of the UN.
Terrorists, and half of Islam for that matter, has already classified Americans in a negative way. That is the nature of Islam, it was happening before there was an America, Islam does not tolerate competition. There are no equals to Islam, the Koran is very specific that Christians, Jews and Hindus can be included in society but only as second class citizens. Sharia is supreme over all, over all religions, over all governments and over all cultures. There are liberal elements of Islam and we all probably know someone who is muslim and says they don’t feel this way but it’s the core moderates and hardline clerics who control the religion. Don’t listen to the nice ones, listen to the ones in control and you will see what I mean.
The religion has a fatwah on Osama…and the vast majority exist in peaceful cultures much like our own in terms of what those people seek in their everyday lives. Much of the Muslim world rejects the extremist stance, and this fact is lost on us. This is a topic I’ve been writing about for a while, but haven’t really met a level of satisfaction in what I’m trying to put forth…not yet at least. I’ll be posting something on this topic soon. I may need to read more from both sides…
Chris-Thanks for the kind words, too many ideas are squelched by the rancor of “club membership” also known as partisanship. Some people seem to treat politics like a football game in the Superbowl.
I know! It’s the thing that turns me off on certain blogs after a while. I end up getting into the flaming business myself after a while and have to just go away. I really wanted to ensure that a different dynamic existed on my site. I don’t want 1000 hits if the result is a cheapening of the dialogue. Again, if you find hostility towards your point of view and feel like you’ve been insulted, let me know.
Slowly, over time, we can establish something greater than that here. Thanks for sharing the personal information. I’m always fascinated by the origins of our passions and beliefs.
I agree completely with discarding the process from before in regards to foreign policy and installing dictators. The hang-up for me is the politics behind what we did in Iraq.
We are actually pretty close in our assessments. The politics of anything is always dirty because politics is about maneuvering and posturing and not about the issue at hand. That is why I was saying that Bush had to lie (politics is one big lie, isn’t it) to get the Democrats into action. Bush won the political contest and the democrats were forced to follow the political flow.
We have to separate politics from the event to make our judgement on the propriety of the action. Ignoring all of who said what we have the Iran/Iraq war, invasion of Kiwait, genocide by chemical weapons, crimes against humanity, attempt on a U.S. President’s life, Oil for Food, missing WMDs and a haven for terrorism. Terrorists are fighting soo hard for Iraq now because it is the terrorism highway between Iran and Syria.
I understand you when you talk about transparancy and the reality is guerilla warfare has no tranparancy. People with no nation who strike anywhere from hidden locations are impossible to attack with conventional military. These people don’t care about processes, the Geneva Convention or life itself. You gotta go after it like a criminal prosecution and I think that is what we did with Iraq.
Saddam had plenty of time to make nice with everyone but instead he had to keep looking for that angle that would get him back in the action of criminal activity. Saddam chose his own path and it’s too bad for the Iraqi people that it took so long to get him out of there, Milosivic was out in, what, 3 years.
You are right about the politics of the whole thing. The nations like France, Russia and China who are on the security council and who had a responsibility to the global community instead chose to make money off the suffering of the Iraqi people and to help Saddam stay in power longer.
The only thing about Saddam that was contained was his ability to wage war on his neighbors. He was stockpiling large amounts of cash from the oil for food program and he was aiding terrorists. While he didn’t necessarily share their islamic views the enemy of my enemy is my friend. More material support for terrorists.
You are right about the political capital spent in ways that may cause other nations to not trust us as much anymore. Even though the nations we were trying to convince were secretly on the take the other nations not on the take might have problems with us in the future. Do we care? I don’t know. I hope we don’t get to a point again where the bulk of the world would rather feast off the suffering of others instead of doing the right thing.
The fatwa on osama is from Spain and there are a hundred other fatwas declariing war on anything not Islam. I’d like to think that a majority of Muslims don’t follow the sharia of the Koran but their lack of effort in slowing terrorism is disheartening. Even the peaceful ones follow the Koran and it is a scary book. Remember, Islam is about muslims living with peace with other muslims. Christianity, Judaism et al is an abomination to Allah so even the peaceful muslims have a bigoted view of anything non-islam.
So politics bad, stable middle east good.
As for feeling insulted, I haven’t and being conservative, I’m used to it ;- )
Soooooo…..Am I to conclude there is no more opposition to the statements that Bush didn’t rush in, the Iraq war was the right thing to do, more time spent negotiating with Saddam would have been a waste of time and that the politics behind the war were dirty?
Soooooo…..Am I to conclude there is no more opposition to the statements that Bush didn’t rush in, the Iraq war was the right thing to do, more time spent negotiating with Saddam would have been a waste of time and that the politics behind the war were dirty?
Comment by Right Thinker — 4/27/2005 @ 11:32 am
Sorry about the lack of a response to your last post. I’ve been battling some writer-sickness these past few days. I can rip off anything on a blog, but when it comes to putting a lot of thoughts together to post a new topic on the site, I’m having trouble. This sometimes leads me away from the site, as it becomes a constant reminder of the fact that…I don’t know, that I’m full of shit…or broken in some way…blah blah blah.
I think we see eye to eye on a significant amount of factors here. The activity of Saddam over the past decade…your accertion is that we basically gave him enough rope to hang himself with. This could be exactally true, but whenever this strategy (one that I think is perfect in most situations) is used, the steps taken have to be appropriate. All the ‘i’s dotted, all the ‘t’s crossed.
If I was going to use the ‘give him enough rope to hang themself with’ strategy in the business world, I’ve got to first of all be right. Secondly, the documentation and events leading to the gallows have to be easily connectable. Someone would have to be able to sit down at my desk, go through the pages and be able to stand up with the opinion that I’m right, without having a series of unanswered questions…without needing a sales pitch from me to smooth out whatever they’re unsure over.
I think we agree that in terms of the details, the administration loused it up badly. Here is where I take a stand on the side of professionalism. This is the highest office an American can hold. There are hundreds of millions of us in this country, and the president can hire just about anyone they want to help. The results can’t be this inept. Not only can the results not be this inept, but the folks who make the most errors can’t be promoted or awarded the Medal of Freedom…or whatever Tenet received for the lousy job he did.
Based on the mistakes, was Bush deserving of a second term? Has his leadership abilities been honed and improved upon since the mistakes made during his first term? He doesn’t strike me as a guy whose been told he’s wrong very often in his life. Pre-election I went hog-wild with criticism of him, and most of my angst stems from having lived a life where the mistakes I’ve made have haunted me all the way down the line, whereas this man and many of the people in politics, have had their mistakes covered up for them. My emotions are at play when I criticize anyone on this level, but in a job as important as President, the ability to criticize oneself is extremely important.
Outside of accepting that he’s a ‘sinner’, where is the reflection and growth? I don’t think he’s capable of that, and it scares me. The ‘sandbagging’ method of leadership has been his way for a long time, and I detest it. It’s the leadership I resent…the suits thinking they know everything, making things tough for the little people and only the little people having to suffer for it in the end.
Did Saddam have to suffer in the end for his misdeeds? I suppose so, but the run he had prior to our invasion probably evened it out when he sits back in his cell and reflects. I struggle with the concept of whether it was more about Saddam than the people. We say it was about the people now, but the warplan seemed to be about getting Saddam first, securing the oilfields second and nothing was third on that list.
Hi there and Hello.
I just came across this site and read your comments about the reasons for war etc…and came to think of an article about the 1990 Iraq war and what might have occured just before.
Its quite a long article but Very interesting.
From The Book:US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II.
Scroll to “52” IRAQ 1990-1991 Desert holocaust.
By William Blum: http://www.killinghope.org/
Robert Johnsson
Robert – Thank you for posting that link. I’m now reading the Afghanistan chapter. I sure wish all the chapters had a link! Books for free is what this country is all about if you ask me. I’m glad to have a library right down the street.
It’s the accounts of historians coupled with references that I’m really in love with when it comes to my attempts at political commentary of any kind. Without fail, I’ll suddenly become interested in a period of history, begin to read up on it and realize that I’d thought something 100% different for the longest time. The knowledge that these books replace comes from osmosis over time. In our culture it’s either heard on TV or radio, said by someone trusted…and for me it was getting into such discussions with someone older growing up and taking their word for it.
The manner in which someone like Bill O’Reiley will smack down anyone bringing a point of history that’s unflattering to the perceived history of America will be to label the account as ‘far left’. It’s done in this way in a lot of other venues as well…it’s like a radio show personality getting a call they don’t want who sounds escentric and comparing the caller with Art Bell. I hate it.
I had a piece written, one of my first upon starting the website last year called Biological Backlash…
http://deadissue.com/archives/2004/07/08/biological-backlash/
Within this piece I make the assumption that we sold Saddam his chemical weapons. I wonder if you have any knowledge of an author or historian who has written anything on the topic? I’ve digested a good amount of material on the Iran-Iraq war, but it was a while ago. I think it’s time to pick this up again. Since this piece I’ve stayed away from such leaps of faith…at the time I had dreams of landing on an editorial page, and some of those writers just make shit up all the time, or seem to. Rall and Coulter come to mind.
Back to the war though – I’d never been aware of the ‘turkey shoot’ on the road to Basra. The reality of Saddam’s forces and their willingness to fight back after a while should have factored into our aggression. This just seems like…Dresden, only Hannibal Lecter style! I’ve always had strong feelings towards the allegence of the Bush family, as the last shred of common sense or humility when it came to the honor of public office went out the window when Preston died. It’s a big country, but this father and son see the world as a much smaller place. The profits of friends really do matter to these guys, and the ‘in’ they provide is a right of passage. The mentality is something so foreign to anyone of us who hasn’t led such a charmed life.
Things I’ve read of Bush back during the Nixon era was of a lapdog…a guy who would lay down in traffic if told to do so. Anything to be accepted, anything to get a position – any position that didn’t require an election victory. He had quite a bit of trouble with that back in Texas. That’s the other thing about these guys…they’d kill their own dogs and eath the guts out of their stomach on national TV if they found out that the ‘mutilation vote’ was hanging in the ballance.
The condition which they left that country in and the idea that after an overthrow we’d be able to come in and save the day reminds me of a piece I read in Harpers…I’ll look for the link in a second, but the idea was to ‘spread the honey’ and US firms would swarm in and reap the bennefits. This is why following our current invasion, we allowed the state companies and factories to be looted. To make it so the infastructure was completely reliant on our charity, so that our companies could swoop in and lick it all up. Didn’t go that way of course. Insurance rates for a single worker per month became unmanageable. Now we’re at a point where that entire concept just isn’t possible anymore. No Dow Jones spike from the ‘Iraq cash flow’. Instead, the people who found themselves without jobs took up a newfound religious zeal and decided to spill some yankee blood. If food couldn’t be put on the table for the family…why not kill a few of the people who made it that way?
http://harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html
They were able to stave off reality long enough to win another election. If they can get their social security reform passed, it’ll be a clean sweep. A best posible outcome imaginable from an 8 year presidency. The news from Iraq is still full of death and mayhem, yet if you frequent a right-wing blog it’s all rosy…yet no troop draw down as of yet.
I look at the amount of bodies, whether it’s in the ground or ‘on the ground’ over there…just like the amount of civilians who enlist as the real statistics…the ‘meat and potato’ numbers that most of us disregard, or even if we do pay attention to them, never connect the dots towards any higher meaning. It’s always unconnected.
Thanks again for the link – and I hope you stick around and share some opinions and further insight in the future.
Hi Cris…
Yeah It would have been nice to read the whole book..(could order it though)
For now i have no way of visiting any library cos of severe backproblems…so i just have to stick to the Web.
As for any more info on the US selling weapons to Iraq..there is Thousands of pages written..(some with Tinfoil Hats) but that is to be expected don´t you think 🙂
Here´s a book on the subject:
Author Alan Friedman “spiders web” The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. 455 pages.
http://www.namebase.org/sources/UL.html
More on Alan Friedman incl Audio http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/spider.htm
Review of “Spiders Web” http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/spidersweb.htm
Some related links:
William Blum:What the New York Times left out http://www.shianews.com/hi/articles/politics/0000295.php
William Blum: With readers comment http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/03/119547_comment.php
US Companies Sold Iraq
Billions Of NBC Weapons Materials
By William Blum
The Progressive Magazine
http://www.progressive.org/0901/anth0498.html
April 1998 Issue
3-26-2
Rumsfeld Backed saddam after chemical attacks http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/031228Buncombe.shtml
Ronald Reagan and Saddam http://www.sundayherald.com/42648
How America armed Iraq http://www.sundayherald.com/42647
How he US armed Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2002/506/506p12.htm
Iran Court Orders U.S. to Pay $600 Million http://vitw.org/archives/411
OT : DISTURBING news of possible Iran War http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/JEN504A.html
Way to many links to post …here´s a site with what i think have TO MANY 🙂 Beware of conspiracyTheorists 🙂
http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book60l.htm
Hope you find it interesting and useful.
I´m sorrry ifor the copy&past links…but there is so many…and i wanted you to have a choice to pick and read yourself.
As for my opinions and insights….that will have to wait:)
I´ll be back in a couple of days…gotta go for some surgical Exams tomorrow:(
and my phone does not like BlogSites:) (hmm…im not aloud to use my phone at all in the Hospital…maybe the Laptop.)
Seeya.
Robert Johnsson
Ha ha …no chance to “EDIT” Post eh ?
Sorry for the Double post !
Oh no…I put that in as a reference. I could shorten that now that I think of it. I’m halffway through the Afghanistan portion of that book. This is the kind of stuff I devour. Have you read The Last Empire by Gore Vidal?
Rumsfeld’s backing of Saddam after he used the chemicals really bothered me when I first came across it. Even in war, even that it was used on Iran is really too much for me. The arms sales to both sides at the same time was more unregulated business and an oversight problem than it was wholly inhumane. Oliver North having his own TV show doesn’t make any sense to me at all, but on a scale of culpability the use of chemical weapons weighs a much larger amount.
To inflict that kind of horror and pain on so many people…on the Iranians, for really having managed the war well – as they were pushing the line back – is one of those biblical types of injustices that could be from that very book. Sodom and Gomorrah comes to mind. That is so unforgivable and anyone involved really deserves to be fingered and locked up. If Reagan had knowledge of our sales of chemical weapons to Saddam, we need to dig him up and rebury him upside down. No human deserves such a thing to happen to them, and in war there will be incidents that really should cause us to pause and question the overall state of humanity. How are we doing if something like that can take place? How can the conspiracy which armed him in the first place still remain hidden?
We cite his using of the chemical weapons to burn the flesh off of Kurdish and Sunni bodies in our defense of logic in favor of invasion, but how the hell did he get those weapons in the first place? Selling weapons to societies that hate each other is wrong…and goading them on diplomatically is really a mistake if you consider what goes around comes around.
I’ll be working to figure out how to get posts through the moderator automatically. Good luck with your medical appointment. Hope everything goes well.
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