Iraq polling goes south

[Jason McCullough]

http://billmon.org/archives/001935.html

Things are even worse, in fact, than I had thought. In a previous post, I misreported the results of the latest Gallup Poll when I wrote that only 39% of those surveyed by Gallup had answered yes to the question: "Do you think it was worth going to war in Iraq?" The question actually was much more straight forward (and forward looking): "Do you favor or oppose the war in Iraq?"

In other words, nearly 60% of the American people are now willing to say, flat out, that they oppose the war in Iraq. That's a remarkable statement. I'm not sure 60% ever opposed the war in Vietnam, even after it had been lost. You don't turn those kind of numbers around with PR spin -- the casualty lists now speak louder than the microphone, even one as powerful as the White House's.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Provoking%20War.htm

June 23, 2005--Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans say that President Bush is more responsible for starting the War with Iraq than Saddam Hussein. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 44% take the opposite view and believe Hussein shoulders most of the responsibility.

In late 2002, months before the fighting began, most Americans thought that Hussein was the one provoking the War. Just one-in-four thought the President was doing the provoking at that time.

Now, however, 78% of all Democrats say that Bush is more responsible for starting the War than Hussein. Just 18% take the opposite view.

Republicans, by a 76% to 17% margin, say that Hussein is responsible.

Among those not affiliated with either major party, 52% name Bush and 34% Hussein.

The public's gone traitor, I guess.

[Midnight Son]

Sixty % of us should be shot!

[Andrew Mayer]

Yeah, don't worry. The administration is preparing another "words speak louder than actions" offensive against its own people.

[AttAdude]

Amazing with numbers and opinions floating around like that the repubs wont address it, and the dems wont do anything about it. Screw the Quagmire in iraq, we have one here in our own government. I think i have lost all faith...

[TomChick]

The question actually was much more straight forward (and forward looking): "Do you favor or oppose the war in Iraq?"

In other words, nearly 60% of the American people are now willing to say, flat out, that they oppose the war in Iraq.

Which again begs the question, 'What the hell are the other 40% thinking?'

-Tom

[Desslock]

Which again begs the question, 'What the hell are the other 40% thinking?'

Here's a good summary from lifelong democrat and historian Victor Hanson of the thinking, and the problems the Bush Administration faces in this war:

The Politics of American Wars
Islamists have proved adept at winning liberal exemption from criticism.

For all the talk of imperial America, and our frequent "police actions," we are hardly militarists. Protected by two oceans, and founded on the principles of non-interference in Europe's bloody internecine wars, the United States has always been rightly circumspect about going to war abroad. The American people are highly individualistic, skeptical of war's utility, and traditionally distrustful of government — and wary of the need of their sacrifice for supposed global agendas.


So we go to war reluctantly. And being human, our support for war hinges on its being short and economical, and waged for professed idealistic principles. Wars that drag on past three years — from the Civil War to Vietnam — can often lead to demonstrations and popular disdain.

By the same token, some politics are more compatible with the American perception of the need to fight.

It was not only Lincoln's gifted rhetoric that got the Union through Cold Harbor and the Wilderness, but after the war's initial months of hard fighting, his reinvention of the North's very aims, from a utilitarian struggle to restore the United States to a moral crusade to end slavery and the power of the plantationists for good. In that effort, he was willing to suspend habeas corpus, sidestep the Congress, and govern large chunks of the border states through martial law.

Woodrow Wilson intervened liberally in Central America. He led us to war against right-wing Prussian militarism. His "too proud to fight" slogan in was no time scrapped for the Fourteen Points, a utopian blueprint for the nations of the world, handed down by a former professor from his high and moralistic Olympus.

Few worried that Franklin Delano Roosevelt not only waged a savage global struggle against Italian, German, and Japanese fascism, but in the process did some pretty unsavory and markedly illiberal things at home. It was no right-wing nut who locked up Japanese Americans without regard for habeas corpus or ordered German agents to be shot as terrorists.

To end the dictatorial and genocidal plans of Slobodan Milosevic, liberal Bill Clinton was willing to bomb downtown Belgrade, commit American forces to a major campaign without U.S. Senate approval, and bypass the United Nations altogether. Few accused him of fighting an illegal war, contravening U.N. protocols, or cowardly dropping bombs on civilians. In all these cases, public opposition was pretty much muted, despite the horrendous casualties involved in some of the conflicts.

Some general principles, then, can guide us in determining American reactions to war, and they transcend even the notion of comparative sacrifice and cost. Progressives such as Wilson and Clinton, who, we are assured, hate war, can intervene far more easily, and are more likely to receive a pass from a hypercritical elite media.

In the end, they always seem forced to fight by circumstances, since their very liberal natures are supposed to abhor optional conflicts. FDR's wartime criminal-justice apparatus trumped anything that John Ashcroft could imagine, but it has remained relatively unexamined even to this day: Liberals must have had very good reasons to put non-white people in camps, so contrary to their innate notions of social justice.

Second, the United States seems to be more united against right-wing fascism than left-wing totalitarianism, perhaps because our elites in academia, journalism, and politics feel authoritarian dictators from the right lack the veneer of egalitarian empathy for the poor. In any case, we are more prone even today to assume the 6-8 million Hitler slaughtered puts him in a category far worse than Stalin or Mao, despite the fact that the two combined did away with ten times Hitler's tally.

During World War II, here at home we experienced nothing like the Rosenbergs or Alger Hiss working for the Axis, even though Soviet-inspired global Communism would end up liquidating 80 million in Russia and China alone. Fighting North Korea or North Vietnam — or even waging the Cold War — was a far more difficult enterprise than opposing the Kaiser, Hitler, Mussolini, or Tojo. Our successes were often due to the efforts of strong anti-Communist democrats such as Harry Truman, who could assure our influential universities, media, politicians, writers, actors, and foundations of the real danger, and the fact that the president had little choice but to go to war.

In this context, many had some apprehensions about the present so-called war on terror. Ostensibly, the Islamists who had pulled off September 11 largely fit past definitions of fascism and so should have galvanized universal traditional American furor.

The tribal followers of bin Laden advocated a return to a mythical age of ideological purity uncorrupted by modernism, democracy, or pluralism. Islamism certainly held no tolerance for other religions, much less any who were not extreme Muslims. Sexism and racism — remember bin Laden's taunts about Africans, ongoing slavery in the Sudan, and the genocide in Darfur — were an integral part of radical Islamist doctrine. Al-Qaeda was not so much chauvinistic as misogynistic. Substitute bin Laden's evocation of "believer" for the old "Volk," and the crackpot rants about world domination, purity, and the anti-Semitic slurs of "apes and pigs" fall into the old fascist slots.

It is no accident that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf are still popular sellers among zealots in some capitals of the Arab world. Was our war on terror, then, going to be morally clear to even the most progressive utopian, since our enemies lacked liberal pretensions and the charisma of a Stalin, Ho, Che, or Fidel that so often duped the gullible?

Hardly.

Two factors explain the current growing hysteria over Iraq, and they transcend the complex nature of the war and even the depressing media reports from the battlefield. First is the strange doctrine of multiculturalism that has become one of our most dominant boutique ideologies of the last few decades, as the United States experienced unleveled prosperity, leisure — and guilt.

All cultures are of equal merit; failure and poverty abroad are never due to indigenous pathology but rather Western colonialism, racism, Christianity, and gender bias. The Other is never to be judged by our own "biased" standards of jurisprudence and "constructed" bourgeois notions of humanity; those poorer, darker, non-Christian, and non-English-speaking are to be collectively grouped as victims, deserving condescension, moral latitude, and some sort of reparations or downright cash grants. Senator Patti Murray gave us the soccer-mom version of this pathology when she once talked of the need to rival bin Laden's supposed humanitarian projects in Afghanistan, while Senator Durbin assures us from a private e-mail that poor suspects in Cuba (no longer terrorists who plot to butcher more thousands) suffer the similar fate of Hitler's victims.

As September 11 faded in our collective memory, Muslim extremists were insidiously but systematically reinvented in our elite presentations as near underprivileged victims, and themselves often adept critics of purported rapacious Western consumerism, oil profiteering, heavy-handed militarism, and spiritual desolation.

Extremists who would otherwise be properly seen in the fascistic mold were instead given a weird pass for their quite public and abhorrent hatred of non-believers and homosexuals, and their Neanderthal views of women. Beheadings, the murder of Christians, suicide bombings carried out by children, systematic torture — all this and more paled in comparison to hot and cold temperatures in American jails on Cuba. Suddenly despite our enemies' long record of murder and carnage, we were in a war not with fascism of the old stamp, but with those who were historical victims of the United States. Thus problems arose of marshalling American public opinion against the supposedly weaker that posited legitimate grievances against Western hegemons. It was no surprise that Sen. Durbin's infantile rantings would be showcased on al-Jazeera.

When Western liberals today talk of a mythical period in the days after 9/11 of "unity" and "European solidarity" what they really remember is a Golden Age of Victimhood, or about four weeks before the strikes against the Taliban commenced. Then for a precious moment at last the United States was a real victim, apparently weak and vulnerable, and suffering cosmic justice from a suddenly empowered other. Oh, to return to the days before Iraq and Afghanistan, when we were hurt, introspective, and pitied, and had not yet "lashed out."

If one examines the infomercials of a bin Laden or Zawahiri, or the terrorist communiqués sent to the Westernized media, they are almost all rehashes of the Michael Moore Left, from "Bush lied" to "Halliburton" to "genocide" and "Gulag." This now famous "Unholy Alliance" of radical anti-Americans and reactionary jihadists is really a two-way street: Islamists mimic the old leftist critique of the United States, and the Western Left hopes that they in turn can at least tone down their rhetoric about knocking walls over gays or sending all women into burka seclusion — at least long enough to pose as something like disposed Palestinians minus the Hamas bombs laced with feces, rat poison, and nails.

The second problem was that not only were we no longer clearly fighting a right-wing extremist ideology, but Texan, twangy, and conservative President Bush was hard to repackage into the reluctant liberal warrior in the image of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, or Bill Clinton.

So there was never much room for error in this war. We are not talking in this postmodern era in terms of a past Democratic president invading Latin America, interring citizens in high-plains camps, hanging terrorist suspects, nuking cities, or bombing pharmaceutical factories in Africa, but, at least from the weird present hysteria, something apparently far worse — like supposedly flushing a Koran at Guantanamo.

In a leisured and liberal society, it is very difficult in general for a conservative to wage war, because the natural suspicion arises — as a result of the conservative's tragic view of human nature and his belief in the occasional utility of force — that he enjoys the enterprise far more than a lip-biting progressive, who may in fact order more destruction. George H. W. Bush barely pulled off freeing Kuwait, but only because he fought on the ground for only four days, used the aegis of the U.N., pulled back on televised images of the so-called "Highway of Death," and was able to avoid going to Baghdad and dealing with a murdering despot still in power.

In contrast, once the metamorphosis of the Islamists from fascists to victimized critics of the West was underway, and once a suspect conservative like George Bush eschewed the old League of Nations utopianism, the fireside chat, and the "I feel your pain" persona of traditional Democratic war leaders, I feared we would have real trouble finishing this war.

Contrary to all recent popular wisdom, the war in Iraq is not a disaster, but nearing success. It has been costly and at times tragic, but a democracy is in place, accords are being hammered out with Sunni rejectionists, and the democratic reformist mindset is pulsating into Lebanon, Egypt, and the Gulf. This has only been possible because of the courage and efficacy of a much maligned military that, for the lapses of a small minority at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, has been compared to Stalin and Hitler.

If President Bush were a liberal Democrat; if he were bombing a white Christian, politically clumsy fascist in the heart of Europe; if al Qaeda and its Islamist adherents were properly seen as eighth-century tormenters of humanists, women, homosexuals, non-Arabs, and non-Wahhabi believers; and if Iraq had become completely somnolent with the toppling of Saddam's statue, then the American people would have remained behind the effort to dismantle Islamic fundamentalism and create the foundations to ensure its permanent demise.

But once the suicide murdering and bombing from Iraq began to dominate the news, then this administration, for historical reasons largely beyond its own control, had a very small reservoir of good will. The Islamists proved to be more adept in the public relations of winning liberal exemption from criticism than did the administration itself, as one nude Iraqi on film or a crumpled Koran was always deemed far worse than daily beheadings and executions. Indeed, the terrorists were able to morph into downtrodden victims of a bullying, imperialistic America faster than George W. Bush was able to appear a reluctant progressive at war with the Dark Age values of our enemies.

And once that transformation was established, we were into a dangerous cycle of a conservative, tough-talking president intervening abroad to thwart the poorer of the third world — something that has never been an easy thing in recent American history, but now in our own age has become a propagandist's dream come true.

[Funkdrunk]

I have a question. If you firmly believe that your country is doing the wrong thing, and you have access to an audience, should you remain silent?

Funk.

[chumpface]

Desslock, for the last time:

Bin Laden is not Saddaam Hussein.

I don't think anybody here opposed going to Afghanistan. Iraq was the problem. Why is it that that being anti-Iraq war means being pro-Bin Laden? I don't know a single person who opposed taking action against Islamic extremists and the Taliban.

So, again: Iraq does not equal Afghanistan. Hussein does not equal Bin Laden.

I'm not a hugs and kisses guy, but I know a bad deal when I see it, and 400 billion plus 20-30k US casualities is an outrageous price to pay for Sadaam removal. The alternative to Iraq isn't and wasn't sitting on our hands, it was:

-Focusing on Bin Laden and real dangers like AQ Khan, North Korea's Kim, and the zillion or so loose nukes in the former Soviet Union. I fail to see how any rational actor can get excited about Iraq while ignoring those clearly more substantial (and at least in the case of the loose nukes) infinitely more soluble problems.

So, please, stop equating being against Iraq as being soft on Islamic extremists. Outside of the Chomsky's of this world, I don't think there are any serious voices who hold that position (and certainly none that I know of on this board)

[Tim Partlett]

Here's a good summary from lifelong democrat and historian Victor Hanson of the thinking, and the problems the Bush Administration faces in this war:

A lifelong Democrat? If he was once a democrat he isn't now, as he writes regular articles for the National Review, like this one.

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

[Desslock]

So, please, stop equating being against Iraq as being soft on Islamic extremists.

I'm not - there are definitely legitimate reasons for being against the Iraq War -- that any threat didn't merit the costs, that it wasn't a necessary or even smart step forward to reforming the Middle East, that we should focus solely on terrorists rather than broader reform. I don't fault anyone for those positions and although I don't agree with them, I can't say with any certainty that they are wrong.

But I think you're fooling yourself if you think that most people who oppose the war in Iraq have such sensible reasons - as a bit of a joke, a good friend of mine who is very anti-Iraq War started asking random people we met when we were out boozing what they though of the Iraq War (he did so to bug me, knowing that most Canadians are against the war) -- most people, not surprisingly, were against it, but almost everyone cited implausible reasons like "it's all a plot by Halliburtan", "industrial-military complex!!", plenty of "all about the oil", which just verified that few people take the time, or have the intelligence or perspective, to even rationally assess events as complicated as the War in Iraq.

I'd also be surprised if many of the people who are most prolific left-wing posters here weren't also against the Afghanistan War (go back and check those threads)

A lifelong Democrat? If he was once a democrat he isn't now,

He isn't -- like myself, he found himself unable to support the Democrat party after 9/11. He's an intelligent historian with perspective.

[Tim Partlett]

So why did you describe him as a life-long democrat, when he is clearly on the far-right fringe?

[Jakub]

That quote doesn't make him seem far-right at all.

[Andrew Mayer]

But I think you're fooling yourself if you think that most people who oppose the war in Iraq have such sensible reasons

Not the right place, not the right person, not the right war is the reason that MOST PEOPLE oppose the war, outside of the jingoism soaked wasteland of your political belief system.

But let's stand your argument on it's head and watch it totally collapse. Where are the good, sound reasons the US had for going to war? The propaganda and lies have been torn apart by the Downing Street memos, and the reality on the ground, so the cowards and their sycophants on the right-wing have once again resorted to name calling as policy.

The reason that people are coming up with conspiracy theories is because once you know that Bush knew that Iraq had no WMDs and nothing to do with 9/11 rational people want to find a motive beyond "they were really greedy, and really stupid."

[Tim Partlett]

The National Review is far-right in my book (based on Fox News being right-wing). I would regard anyone writing for them to be similarly biased.

[Ben Sones]

Where are the good, sound reasons the US had for going to war? The propaganda and lies have been torn apart by the Downing Street memos, and the reality on the ground,

Mostly that last one. I mean, the Bush administration argued that they had incontrovertible evidence that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction, and whatever else you want to say about memos or whatever, that much was clearly a lie, because we now know that Saddam had no such thing. I mean, I'm sure the Bush administration really believed that he did, and that we'd find them once we got there, and never expected to get caught in a lie. But they did lie about having evidence, because it's not possible to have incontrovertible evidence of the existence of something that doesn't exist. And Bush ought to face impeachment and removal from office for lying about it.

that any threat didn't merit the costs

The threat didn't merit the cost of a cup of mochachino, because there was no threat at all. I mean, it's not like we screwed up some sort of cost/risk analysis. The risk was a bald-faced lie. But even putting that aside, holy hell, did we ever screw up the cost bit, too. As far as I'm concerned--as someone who supported this war before the truth came out--it's turned out to be an abysmal disaster in every conceivable way.

[Jason McCullough]

I'd also be surprised if many of the people who are most prolific left-wing posters here weren't also against the Afghanistan War (go back and check those threads)

Wrong. I think only one of the lot of us was against it. And since we can barely keep the country under control now and haven't done shit for rebuilding, I guess they were ahead of the game.

He's an intelligent historian with perspective.

He's a racist classics crank. His views of mexican immigrants are appalling.

Shorter Victor Hanson:

If it wasn't for the damned liberals stabbing us in the back all the time, we could recreate the wonderful butchery of the Roman Empire.

[Jason McCullough]

Anyway: seriously, Desslock, wtf happened to you? I disagreed with you a lot before 9/11, but you were a mostly reasonable guy. Now you're Richard Perle.

[Desslock]

Anyway: seriously, Desslock, wtf happened to you? I disagreed with you a lot before 9/11, but you were a mostly reasonable guy. Now you're Richard Perle.

I don't remember disagreeing with you at all prior to 9/11, largely because I don't even remember debating anything with you. The first post of yours that I can actually remember was your post when you were reading Ken Pollack's book, and then decided that you could no longer support the Iraq War even though you thought it was probably the right thing to do, because you thought this administration woiuld screw it up.

That wasn't that far from my opinion at all - now you're a cross between Noam Chomsky on economics and Michael Moore on everything else, heh.

Where are the good, sound reasons the US had for going to war?

The same ones I've posted literally dozens of times since 2001, which were the same ones cited by the Bush Administration, which are essentially never accurately reprinted by anyone arguing against the Bush Administration or the Iraq War -- "post 9/11 world..can't give benefit of doubt to a regime with unaccounted stocks of WMD, with a history of developing and using WMD, launching reckless attacks against 3 of its neighbours, openly supporting terrorism prior to the 80s and still rewarding it now as an acceptable method of protest, etc. etc."

[Desslock]

Shorter Victor Hanson:

If it wasn't for the damned liberals stabbing us in the back all the time, we could recreate the wonderful butchery of the Roman Empire.

C'mon, don't be ridiculous. He's as level-headed, well-reasoned and articulate as it gets -- I can't even imagine him saying anything in a raised voice, let alone throwing around insults. He's a democrat like Lieberman (and Bill Clinton) who realized that it should be the policy of the United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

It's ironic that you'd throw around ridiculous hyperbole like that though in describing him, since his most recent column is on that tendency and the lack of perspective of the American left these days and its dangers. http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050624-090439-4065r.htm

Asymmetry in the slurs
By Victor Davis Hanson
June 25, 2005


Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat, was not alone in recently comparing American behavior at Guantanamo Bay to that of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

Tarring Bush and Co. with Hitlerian imagery has become a debased parlor game. Politicians and other public figures toss about these charged references, expecting to create a buzz and assuming their audience is as uninformed as they are.

Rep. Charles Rangel, New York Democrat, cited the Holocaust to blast American policy in Iraq: "This is just as bad as the 6 million Jews being killed." In his upside-down world, the mass murderer is the moral equivalent of those who stop him. Before Mr. Rangel, Sen. Robert Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, evoked Nazi Germany to warn about the Bush administration.

An official of the Red Cross lectured that American guards at Guantanamo were "no better than and no different than the Nazi concentration camp guards." Left unsaid was the logical sick corollary: If the perpetrators of the Holocaust were really no worse than American guards at Guantanamo, then, as is the case at Guantanamo where not one death has been reported, did no one really perish at Belsen or Treblinka, either?

And these people aren't the only ones to stoop to play this game. There's also been NAACP Chairman Julian Bond ("The American flag and the Confederate swastika"), former Ohio Sen. John Glenn ("It's the old Hitler business"), Garrison Keillor ("Brownshirts in pinstripes"), Linda Ronstadt ("A new bunch of Hitlers") and Al Gore ("Digital Brownshirts").

Why suddenly does Adolf Hitler pop up everywhere when the Nazis have absolutely no relation with a democratic United States or a humane military?

Time Magazine recently reported that when Mohammed al-Qahtani, suspected 20th hijacker of September 11, 2001, was in distress, he was given a CAT scan and put on a heart monitor. A radiologist was flown to Cuba for consultation.

In contrast, is Mr. Durbin aware the Nazis laid railroad tracks to the very gates of Auschwitz to facilitate its engine of mass death, an industry that would take more than 6 million people? Or can he grasp the idea of 25 million perishing in the gulag -- the population of Durbin's Illinois being exterminated twice?

Note the escalating frustration behind these outbursts. Although an occasional conservative like Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, has stooped to Hitlerian slander, most offenders, such as Michael Moore (comparing the Patriot Act to "Mein Kampf") or George Soros (saying Mr. Bush reminded him of "the Germans"), are on the left, furious over their inability to affect events.

Since September 11, we have had midterm and national elections, both referenda on the so-called war against terror. Those on the left have lost the majority of state legislatures, governorships, the House, the Senate, the presidency and perhaps the Supreme Court. If normal debate somehow didn't rile up the somnolent American people, why not try conjuring up the ghosts of Hitler or Josef Stalin?

There is also an asymmetry in these slurs. Few mention there really are monsters and mass killers living among us -- the North Koreans who have starved 1 million of their own, Saddam's reign of terror that may have killed as many, and, of course, the Islamicist murderers who behead, blow up and torture. "Mein Kampf" still sells well in some Arab capitals, not in Washington or New York.

So cowards such as officials of the Red Cross and Amnesty International, and, yes, American politicians, prefer to showboat the purported misdemeanors of people who are civilized and will listen to them, rather than to condemn the horrendous felonies of those who are barbaric and will pay them no heed.

As a result, the bar is lowering. In today's climate, Alfred Knopf has already published a novel about killing the president. Charlie Brooker writing in the Guardian in London prayed for another Lee Harvey Oswald to take out George W. Bush. Comedians, New York plays and art exhibits also bandy about assassination.

Each time a public official evokes Hitler to demonize the president, the American effort in Iraq or its conservative supporters, cheap rhetorical fantasy becomes only that much closer to a nightmarish reality where the unstable, here and abroad, act on the belief America really is Hitler's Germany.

We will all soon reap what the ignorant are now sowing

The Democrat badly need a move towards Bill Clinton sensibilities (does anyone doubt that such a perspective would have won the 2004 election?), instead of the Michael Moore rut they're in:

[William Harms]

The same ones I've posted literally dozens of times since 2001, which were the same ones cited by the Bush Administration, which are essentially never accurately reprinted by anyone arguing against the Bush Administration or the Iraq War -- "post 9/11 world..can't give benefit of doubt to a regime with unaccounted stocks of WMD, with a history of developing and using WMD, launching reckless attacks against 3 of its neighbours, openly supporting terrorism prior to the 80s and still rewarding it now as an acceptable method of protest, etc. etc."

But we know that all of those arguments were nothing more than bullshit. Sure Saddam attacked three of his neighbors (don't forget that we supported his efforts against Iran), but it turns out that the UN reports regarding Saddam's "stockpiles" were indeed accurate (didn't exist), and supporting terrorism is par for the course of any Middle Eastern country. If that's the criteria, throw a dart at the map and attack the country it lands on because it's good chance that they either match what you outlined above, or have aspirations to do so.

I think the real reason that people have turned against the war is because the Bush administration got every single thing wrong. They said Iraq would be able to pay for its reconstruction. Wrong. The Iraqi people would welcome us with flowers and candy. Wrong. "Mission Accomplished". Wrong. We won't need to be there indefinitely. Wrong. Once Saddam is captured the violence will end. Wrong. Once they have elections the violence will end. Wrong.

More importantly, the war has completely distracted us from the hunt for Osama. You know, THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY ATTACKED THE U.S. The day I see U.S. special forces dragging Osama's bloodied corpse through the streets before stringing him up from a tree so folks can beat on him with baseball bats will be one of the best days of my life.

And that's from a liberal.

[Desslock]

The same ones I've posted literally dozens of times since 2001, which were the same ones cited by the Bush Administration, which are essentially never accurately reprinted by anyone arguing against the Bush Administration or the Iraq War -- "post 9/11 world..can't give benefit of doubt to a regime with unaccounted stocks of WMD, with a history of developing and using WMD, launching reckless attacks against 3 of its neighbours, openly supporting terrorism prior to the 80s and still rewarding it now as an acceptable method of protest, etc. etc."

But we know that all of those arguments were nothing more than bullshit. Sure Saddam attacked three of his neighbors (don't forget that we supported his efforts against Iran), but it turns out that the UN reports regarding Saddam's "stockpiles" were indeed accurate (didn't exist) ."

But that's not what the UN reports said -- as I indicated, the 1998 UN report is the very reason that there were "unaccounted" WMD, and Blix's January 2003 report again indicated that Hussein hadn't accounted for them apporpriately yet. So none of those arguments were bullshit -- like I said, you may not find them persuasive, but they're certainly reasonable and cogent, which is why they're almost never accurately repeated by people arguing against the war or the Bush Administration's conduct of it.

and supporting terrorism is par for the course of any Middle Eastern country.

...and that's one of the main reasons that a broader approach to reforming the Middle East was needed than just removing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

They said Iraq would be able to pay for its reconstruction. Wrong.

That's true, but that quickly became politically (internationally and domestically) impossible, because if the Americans took Iraqi oil to fund the U.S. forces protecting the interim Iraqi govenment, they'd give credence to the "its all about the oil" fools.

The Iraqi people would welcome us with flowers and candy. Wrong.

I think it was Chalabi who said that. Cheney said they'd welcome us as liberators, and it's certainly true that a large majority of the Iraqi population was happy to have removed Hussein.

"Mission Accomplished". We won't need to be there indefinitely. Wrong.

The Bush Administration always talked about how large and complicated a job this would be - Cheney referred to it in 2002 as the great task of our generation. We won't be there indefinitely - look at how long we've spent in places like Bosnia, so any expectations of immediate departure were unrealistic -- let alone the amount of time we've spent in Germany, Japan, etc.

Is it more violent in the Sunni triangle fo Iraq than expected 2 years after the war -- most probably, but worst case scenarios have been avoided as well, and it had to be difficult to anticipate that it would evolve into an attempt by insurgents to kill as many Iraqi civilians as possible. In the long run, that certainly dooms them, since it'll never evolve into something more popular no matter how much people wish the Americans were gone.

Once Saddam is captured the violence will end. Wrong.

Nobody in the Bush Administration said that, AFAIK.

Once they have elections the violence will end. Wrong.

Nobody in the Bush Administration said that. Quite the contrary - they said that the violence WOULD continue.

More importantly, the war has completely distracted us from the hunt for Osama. You know, THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY ATTACKED THE U.S. The day I see U.S. special forces dragging Osama's bloodied corpse through the streets before stringing him up from a tree so folks can beat on him with baseball bats will be one of the best days of my life.

Heh, I agree with the latter, but I haven't seen anything other than off-the-cuff media opinion pieces suggesting that there was something that we didn't do, which we would have done, if we weren't involved in Iraq. Send 100,000 troops into Tora Bora? Was never going to happen.

[quatoria]

He isn't -- like myself, he found himself unable to support the Democrat party after 9/11. He's an intelligent historian with perspective.

Wait, you're a CONVERT? Holy shit. Why in the hell didn't you say so earlier, Desslock? I've spent ages trying to figure out how someone I've respected for years as intelligent and articulate could happily regurgitate the most insipid of talking points as if they were his own original thoughts, and, when called upon to defend them, respond with nothing but insults and the occasional links to blogs. But you're a CONVERT? Christ, now it all makes sense. Of course that's how you react when your new beliefs are threatened. Oh, man. Thanks so much for finally posting that, Desslock. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how much it's been bugging me to try and fit your current behavior with the Desslock I'd seen/interacted with for years on Usenet and the like. Wow.

[Andrew Mayer]

That's true, but that quickly became politically (internationally and domestically) impossible, because if the Americans took Iraqi oil to fund the U.S. forces protecting the interim Iraqi govenment, they'd give credence to the "its all about the oil" fools.


So wait, now you're saying the Bush doctrine is to bend to the political will of others so that they can avoid fueling conspiracy theories?

If that was true what did Bush run on in '04?

There's no logic or sense to your arguments Desslock, it's just react, react, react, no matter what kind of pretzel it ties you into.

[Desslock]

He isn't -- like myself, he found himself unable to support the Democrat party after 9/11. He's an intelligent historian with perspective.

Wait, you're a CONVERT? Holy shit. Why in the hell didn't you say so earlier, Desslock? I've spent ages trying to figure out how someone I've respected for years as intelligent and articulate could happily regurgitate the most insipid of talking points as if they were his own original thoughts...Desslock. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how much it's been bugging me to try and fit your current behavior with the Desslock I'd seen/interacted with for years on Usenet and the like. Wow.

Lol, well, I'm not American, so I've never really been a Democrat or Republican. I liked Bill Clinton though, and it was hard not to support him when the witch-hunt stuff was going on regarding his sexuality, although I think he didn't do enough internationally to confront the growing threat of nuclear proliferatoin and terrorism, and some of his policies (North Korea) were disastrous.

I've always been right-wing on economics (and Clinton's policies were just fine, in that regard). Obviously feel very strongly about the war on terror and really think the left's reaction to it has consistently been dangerously wrong, which is where we fundamentally disagree.

My views are definitely my own, however, which may sadden you to hear, heh. Bah, all my friends are pretty evenly spit on Bush/Iraq, and that doesn't make us "not friends" or affect our respect for each other on other matters and contexts (and there's obviously many guys here who I probably almost never agree with, politically -- commie bastages like Euri, Tom Chick and Andrew Mayer, etc. -- whom I really enjoy talking with about games, TV, movies, etc.) -- hopefully that's the same with you, dude.

[quatoria]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't think you're an idiot, or a bad person, or not respect you in general. If I had to stop assosciating with / speaking civilly to / respecting anyone who wasn't politically affiliated with me, I'd be... well, I'd probably be in the Bush Administration.

[Desslock]

That's true, but that quickly became politically (internationally and domestically) impossible, because if the Americans took Iraqi oil to fund the U.S. forces protecting the interim Iraqi govenment, they'd give credence to the "its all about the oil" fools.


So wait, now you're saying the Bush doctrine is to bend to the political will of others so that they can avoid fueling conspiracy theories?.

No, I don't know why they changed their plans or intentions -- but I was talking about more than conspiracy theories -- I was talking about the legitimate concern that the Americans would be taking Iraqi oil as occupiers and using it to fund that occupation and reconstruction, which would affect perceptions of motivations. Even if that was the original intention, continuing with those plans would affect the likelihood of overall success. Should they have realized that in advance - yeah, probably.

There's no logic or sense to your arguments Desslock, it's just react, react, react, no matter what kind of pretzel it ties you into.

Hey, I just said something nice about you in another post, lol. I only react and move to where you crazy characters move the conversation, and obviously think my answers are more logical and sensible than your contrary views, but I guess that's the reason we're debating at all.

[Desslock]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't think you're an idiot, or a bad person, or not respect you in general. If I had to stop assosciating with / speaking civilly to / respecting anyone who wasn't politically affiliated with me, I'd be... well, I'd probably be in the Bush Administration.

...more like Dean's Democrats, heh, but once again we "respectfully" disagree. In all seriousness on the main substance of your post - fair enough and ditto.

[chumpface]

In general, I find out which side the religious extremists and social conservatives are on, and go to the opposite side of the room. A problem with the US is there really is no place for the socially liberal/(moderately) financially conservative.

Remember, Bush Sr. is the man who said that a non-believer can neither be a leader in America, nor a patriot.

[Andrew Mayer]

No, I don't know why they changed their plans or intentions -- but I was talking about more than conspiracy theories -- I was talking about the legitimate concern that the Americans would be taking Iraqi oil as occupiers and using it to fund that occupation and reconstruction, which would affect perceptions of motivations. Even if that was the original intention, continuing with those plans would affect the likelihood of overall success. Should they have realized that in advance - yeah, probably.

The pipelines were being attacked since day 1, so I don't think they really had a choice.

But in terms of perceptions, you don't have a conspiracy nut to see that the administration has basically created the structure for a money laundering operation on a massive scale. $9 Billion just vanished, and the CPA was paying contractors by stuffing cash into duffle bags (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/2/13/214024.shtml). Do you really have to be a naive moonbat to distrust the motivations of wealthy people and mercenaries when that happens?

There's no logic or sense to your arguments Desslock, it's just react, react, react, no matter what kind of pretzel it ties you into.

Hey, I just said something nice about you in another post, lol. I only react and move to where you crazy characters move the conversation, and obviously think my answers are more logical and sensible than your contrary views, but I guess that's the reason we're debating at all.

Thing is, I think you're smart, so it frustrates me when instead of deriving your own opinion you just parrot back talking points and glue them together with more talking points. It's not just your politics that gets me frustrated, it's that you're not really challenging my position, you're just confirming it by trotting out the same old horse we've already totally debunked over and over again dressed up in a different costume.

It's just "here we go again".

I don't think I've ever debated anyone who's swallowed so much right-wing dogma and didn't have some kind of monetary stake in wishing it were true. And with none of it working out as advertised I'm just wondering how long it's going to go on.

[William Harms]

...and that's one of the main reasons that a broader approach to reforming the Middle East was needed than just removing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And it's a been a stirring success thus far.

That's true, but that quickly became politically (internationally and domestically) impossible, because if the Americans took Iraqi oil to fund the U.S. forces protecting the interim Iraqi govenment, they'd give credence to the "its all about the oil" fools.

Reconstruction is a completely separate matter from paying for our troops. Reconstruction involves repairing bridges, fixing electric grids, opening schools, in short rebuilding the institutions that were destroyed by Saddam and/or us. The U.S. is footing the bill for all of those things.

I think it was Chalabi who said that. Cheney said they'd welcome us as liberators, and it's certainly true that a large majority of the Iraqi population was happy to have removed Hussein.

Chalabi also provided the majorty of the pre-war intel, which has been proven to be utterly wrong. And having a population glad to be rid of a dictator has nothing to do with them viewing us a liberators.

The Bush Administration always talked about how large and complicated a job this would be - Cheney referred to it in 2002 as the great task of our generation. We won't be there indefinitely - look at how long we've spent in places like Bosnia, so any expectations of immediate departure were unrealistic -- let alone the amount of time we've spent in Germany, Japan, etc.

That's great logic. "Today I announce the end of major combat operations" has morphed into "It's going to be a long, hard slog. Batten down the hatches."

Heh, I agree with the latter, but I haven't seen anything other than off-the-cuff media opinion pieces suggesting that there was something that we didn't do, which we would have done, if we weren't involved in Iraq. Send 100,000 troops into Tora Bora? Was never going to happen.

Yeah, you're right. Much better to turn the entire operation over to our "allies" who placed known sympathizers along key escape routes. One such route funneled Taliban fighters directly into Iran.

I think this entire debate exposes the biggest problem with current political thinking--people accept the bullshit that politicians and other leaders sell based solely on the fact that they agree with their ideology. It never ceases to amaze me how anyone can support such abject failure and spin it as a success story.

If Al Gore or John Kerry were president from 9/11 to the present, and everything in the world was the same, would you be supporting them? Would anyone on the right be supporting them? Of course not. The right would've tried to impeach them for allowing 9/11 to happen in the first place, and everyone from Rush to Hannity would be crowing about the fact that Osama was still on the loose, plotting and scheming to kill Americans.

[quatoria]

Thing is, I think you're smart, so it frustrates me when instead of deriving your own opinion you just parrot back talking points and glue them together with more talking points. It's not just your politics that gets me frustrated, it's that you're not really challenging my position, you're just confirming it by trotting out the same old horse we've already totally debunked over and over again dressed up in a different costume.

YES. Desslock, this is exactly what bothers me, as well. It's not your positions - I disagree with me, but it doesn't disturb me to see someone take them. It's the way you articulate them, identically to the pundits, and how you so frequently only respond with insults or links to more pundits when challenged. It's really frustrating to see an intelligent person swallowing and regurgitating, instead of parsing the information availible and using it to construct their own well-reasoned world view, one that they could fully articulate and defend, because it came from their own consideration, rather than being a cut-and-paste of someone elses thoughts.

[Brian Koontz]

Anyway: seriously, Desslock, wtf happened to you? I disagreed with you a lot before 9/11, but you were a mostly reasonable guy. Now you're Richard Perle.

Howl II.

If you recall, prior to 9/11 national politics in America was incredibly boring, at least for anyone not in the inner dramatic loop. The Gore/Bush election was a yawner (it only became interesting in retrospect), political opponents weren't very interested in fighting and the fighting they were doing was mostly old rehashed arguments... old rehashed democrat vs. republican arguments.

The previously politically dormant placed *all kinds* of importance on the 9/11 event. This was definitely not all the Neocons doing... the people wanted some ACTION and they decided 9/11 was the action.

Like in an action movie when an explosion is a cliched signal of Something Important, 9/11 was the explosion and the American People were the audience. Being WOWED by the explosion, they decided something had to be done. Their reactionary zeal needed an outlet.

So, what do you do once you decide the world is changed, once you decide your illusions are shattered? Perhaps you, once again, begin with a Revolutionary Howl. One side becomes the self-loathing, the regret called "How could I have been under the illusion?". The punches of punishment and the elation called "Now I am free of the illusion!" The other side, this new enemy, shares this new world, this new reality.

These are not the people of the shattered illusion. The world had not, and has not, substantially changed since Dial 911 day. The "shattered illusion" is a willful myth, a DESIRED myth of a people who *want* a "New World Order".

We have a pretty good idea what the Neocons want. What few in America seem to be willing to admit is that they have plenty of Allies among the people. Allies that don't share THEIR vision of the future, but who share the desire for massive change. These Allies in many cases have hitched their horses to the Neocon machine since they truly PREFER the Neocon methodology to the traditional one, since at least it creates large-scale change.

Look deep into the heart of the conspiracy culture, of the "New World Order" culture. You find a technocrat culture that worships the future, that is mistrustful or hateful of the past, that is zealous, even (and perhaps especially) militantly zealous.

9/11 did not simply benefit the Neocons. It benefitted those of the New World Order, a culture of past despair, a culture that REQUIRES large scale change.

Say what you will about the Neocons, one thing they're not is stupid. They to some extent understand this side of Western Culture, a side that Traditionalists (what I call the New Conservatives) ignore out of fear and ignorance.

Who is Desslock? Well, I doubt he's much of a true Neocon. Perhaps like Daniel Morris, he beds down with Neocon ideology out of political convenience and because it offers him a justification for his own behavior. I think Desslock is hitching his horses to the Neocon wagon, and thinks he's going to enjoy where it leads, and especially thinks he's going to enjoy the process of change.

Desslock doesn't know what the New World Order will be, but he is drawn to it. He hopes its not a matter of a moth to a flame.

[Brian Rucker]

Koontz: Do you ever read back what you've written to yourself? Try it out loud. Look for the tell-tale crazy pontificating. Better yet, as someone who in a (very, very, very) broad sense shares some of your point of view I wouldn't mind you practicing in the middle of a highway somewhere at rush hour. Folks like Desslock piss me off sometimes, well hate the sin but not the sinner, but in this thread and in others I feel much better about life where it's someone with his point of view coming off as detached from reality rather than someone on my side of the argument.

I remember you jumping on my ass about my arrogance towards people not sharing my view. Was that just projection? Can you read the above post and not see it just riddled with smug, self-congratulatory, and insulting prose? And in the other thread you killed you followed up a post of mine, that traces this historical tendancies that have lead us to this point, with a wild-eyed ramble that accuses (I know, metaphorically, but it still sounds just foamingly mad) neocons and Al Qaida of conspiring to the same ends.

Can't you see how much you undermine your own positions when you go about things like this? Worse, you undermine mine and I have to worry about the crazy convert behind me, ammo-belts rattling on his chest, waving the .50 around as much as the enemy in front of me.

Go away or stop sounding crazy. Is that too much to ask?

[Jason McCullough]

The same ones I've posted literally dozens of times since 2001, which were the same ones cited by the Bush Administration, which are essentially never accurately reprinted by anyone arguing against the Bush Administration or the Iraq War -- "post 9/11 world..can't give benefit of doubt to a regime with unaccounted stocks of WMD, with a history of developing and using WMD, launching reckless attacks against 3 of its neighbours, openly supporting terrorism prior to the 80s and still rewarding it now as an acceptable method of protest, etc. etc."

So I guess your problem here, just like the neocons and their bizarre conversion experience, is that you are completely inable to recognize that objective reality exists outside of your head; therefore you you might be wrong from time to time. God knows I can't come up with any other explanation for the amount of rationalization required to say "Bill Clinton would have invaded Iraq too" with a straight face.

Here's an example:
The Bush Administration always talked about how large and complicated a job this would be

This is total, unmitigated bullshit. I honestly cannot comprehend how someone who ever looked at a television or read a newspaper in 2003 would say this. "I'm going to ignore those dozens of statements and unified media front on how easy it'd be by every single administration official, and pull out this quote from Cheney talking about *the general war on terror*, which is not the same thing, so I don't have to consider the fact that they were wrong about how hard it would be." It's flat-out Orwellian. It's 1+1 = 3.

That wasn't that far from my opinion at all - now you're a cross between Noam Chomsky on economics and Michael Moore on everything else, heh.

Do you really believe this? I agree with Chomsky on virtually nothing. I agree with Moore on only a little bit of stuff. In fact, I'm willing to bet you've never even read a single goddamn article by Chomsky, much less a book; you're just regurgitating Jonah Goldberg columns by reflex.

I finally figured out who your new style reminds me of, though: David Horowitz.

[Desslock]

If Al Gore or John Kerry were president from 9/11 to the present, and everything in the world was the same, would you be supporting them? .

Absolutely -- I support what's been done because it's right, and important, not because of some desire to support some politician I can't even vote for.

everyone from Rush to Hannity would be crowing about the fact that Osama was still on the loose, plotting and scheming to kill Americans

Partisan hacks certainly would, just like most of the left currently, with some notable exceptions. But I wouldn't. I supported Clinton in Bosnia, and did not support Reagan in Grenada, to give you some instances of where I was on the "opposite" side.

[Desslock]

Thing is, I think you're smart, so it frustrates me when instead of deriving your own opinion you just parrot back talking points ...trotting out the same old horse we've already totally debunked over and over again dressed up in a different costume.

YES. Desslock, this is exactly what bothers me, as well. It's not your positions - I disagree with me, but it doesn't disturb me to see someone take them. It's the way you articulate them, identically to the pundits,...It's really frustrating to see an intelligent person swallowing and regurgitating, instead of parsing the information availible and using it to construct their own well-reasoned world view.

I'm doing nothing of the kind, of course -- I'm explaining my "well-reasoned" world view, and to the extent you think it's similar to what you've heard others say before, maybe it's because...it's correct? Or at the very least, that people have reached the same conclusion, or have found the same reasons persuasive.

Do you really think you guys don't sound redundant and predictable? You say the exact same things in response to any issue. Everyone (or virtually everyone) on the left has the exact same positions on every issue - the war in Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, patriot act, reforming the middle east, social programs, etc. -- it's almost a cult, chanting the same mantra, over and over again -- there is no room for contrary views on ANY issue (guys like Lieberman are essentially ostracized).

At least the right/Republicans have a "far bigger tent" with supporters with more diverse views -- sure, there's the neocon and social conservatives (and even they don't entirely overlap), but there's also libertarians, fiscal conservative and social liberals, Schwarzeneggars, Gullianis, McCains, etc.

[Desslock]

koontz, you really are a crazy cat.

[Desslock]

That wasn't that far from my opinion at all - now you're a cross between Noam Chomsky on economics and Michael Moore on everything else, heh.

Do you really believe this? I agree with Chomsky on virtually nothing. I agree with Moore on only a little bit of stuff. ...I finally figured out who your new style reminds me of, though: David Horowitz.

Don't even know who that is. I've read Chomsky, unfortunately. I think you and I actually disagree far more on economic stuff than international politics (with the Iraq War being the obvious exception that proves the rule).

If you're trying to find someone with similar views to my own, it's the people I actually cited myself -- Victor Davis Hanson and Mark Steyn (and in Canada, Andrew Coyne). Not a big fan of Jonah Goldberg, by the way, although I probably agree with the substance of what he's saying (if not his presentation) more often than not. How about you - who are commentators whom you generally agree with?

[Andrew Mayer]

I'm doing nothing of the kind, of course -- I'm explaining my "well-reasoned" world view, and to the extent you think it's similar to what you've heard others say before, maybe it's because...it's correct?

A mountain of BS stinks worse, not better. It's not a matter of similar, it's a matter of form over substance.

Or at the very least, that people have reached the same conclusion, or have found the same reasons persuasive.


In my time here I've seen few examples of you showing how you reached a conclusion, or found something persuasive. I'll get that from Linoleum and Lizard King, but never from you.

Do you really think you guys don't sound redundant and predictable? You say the exact same things in response to any issue. Everyone (or virtually everyone) on the left has the exact same positions on every issue - the war in Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, patriot act, reforming the middle east, social programs, etc. -- it's almost a cult, chanting the same mantra, over and over again -- there is no room for contrary views on ANY issue (guys like Lieberman are essentially ostracized).

And here's the Desslock BS in action. Accusing of us lockstep response, but unable to articulate any examples of what that response is. WHAT'S THE MANTRA WE'RE ALL CHANTING DESSLOCK? WHAT IS THE "EXACT SAME THING WE'RE ALL SAYING ON ANY ISSUE?

Your content free accusations are, as I mentioned before, annoying. Debate involves backing up your arguments with more than just words.

At least the right/Republicans have a "far bigger tent" with supporters with more diverse views -- sure, there's the neocon and social conservatives (and even they don't entirely overlap), but there's also libertarians, fiscal conservative and social liberals, Schwarzeneggars, Gullianis, McCains, etc.

Why are you putting those words in quotes? Did someone say that besides you?

Anyway, it's a big tent as long as you ignore the leaders with the megaphones telling anyone who's dissenting with the current talking points to shut the fuck up.

The big tent may have many people in it, but the exchange of ideas is non-existant. But as long as they're being paid in money and power the right is willing to swallow their pride and beliefs and go where the wind is blowing.

[Desslock]

I'm doing nothing of the kind, of course -- I'm explaining my "well-reasoned" world view, and to the extent you think it's similar to what you've heard others say before, maybe it's because...it's correct?

A mountain of BS stinks worse, not better. It's not a matter of similar, it's a matter of form over substance.

C'mon, how does this sort of thing add to the dialogue at all?

Do you really think you guys don't sound redundant and predictable? You say the exact same things in response to any issue. Everyone (or virtually everyone) on the left has the exact same positions on every issue - the war in Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, patriot act, reforming the middle east, social programs, etc. -- it's almost a cult, chanting the same mantra, over and over again -- there is no room for contrary views on ANY issue (guys like Lieberman are essentially ostracized).

And here's the Desslock BS in action. Accusing of us lockstep response, but unable to articulate any examples of what that response is. WHAT'S THE MANTRA WE'RE ALL CHANTING DESSLOCK? WHAT IS THE "EXACT SAME THING WE'RE ALL SAYING ON ANY ISSUE?

Exactly what I said above -- take any of the issues I identified above -- there's only one "correct" left-wing position. Anyone against gay marriage, or pro-Iraq War, or who wants abortion legislation, or who thinks the Patriot Act is o.k, or who wants private accounts, or who wants less government, or who wants to lower taxes, or who doesn't support stem cell research, or who doesn't support Kyoto --- is not a member of the club.

On the other hand, people who voted for Bush, or who supported the Iraq War, are all over the map on those issues -- it's just a bigger, more open tent.

Anyway, it's a big tent as long as you ignore the leaders with the megaphones telling anyone who's dissenting with the current talking points to shut the fuck up.

That clearly ain't happening, since there's people all over the map on those issues who supported Bush (including the leaders I mentioned).

The big tent may have many people in it, but the exchange of ideas is non-existant.

The exact opposite is true, as I indicated above - it's the left that has stagnant, almost religious adherence to positions.

[Andrew Mayer]

I'm doing nothing of the kind, of course -- I'm explaining my "well-reasoned" world view, and to the extent you think it's similar to what you've heard others say before, maybe it's because...it's correct?

A mountain of BS stinks worse, not better. It's not a matter of similar, it's a matter of form over substance.

C'mon, how does this sort of thing add to the dialogue at all?

Good question. How does saying that more people saying something make it more true? Are you using the "50M Elvis Fans Can't be Wrong" argument?

Exactly what I said above -- take any of the issues I identified above -- there's only one "correct" left-wing position. Anyone against gay marriage, or pro-Iraq War, or who wants abortion legislation, or who thinks the Patriot Act is o.k, or who wants private accounts, or who wants less government, or who wants to lower taxes, or who doesn't support stem cell research, or who doesn't support Kyoto --- is not a member of the club.

What color is the sky on your planet? It's pointless arguing with someone who really thinks that is true, since your vision of the left is made up of cardboard cut-outs who have nothing to do with the real living human beings. What's nice about that is that if you dehumanize them you can wish for their deaths and torture them that much more easily. See: Islam.


On the other hand, people who voted for Bush, or who supported the Iraq War, are all over the map on those issues -- it's just a bigger, more open tent.

Keep saying it over and over and maybe tink'll come back to life. I'm really enjoying the rights current "clap your hands and wish it true" stance on so many issues. Nice to see it action on a personal level here.

Can you use this same logic two more times before the end of your post?

Anyway, it's a big tent as long as you ignore the leaders with the megaphones telling anyone who's dissenting with the current talking points to shut the fuck up.

That clearly ain't happening, since there's people all over the map on those issues who supported Bush (including the leaders I mentioned).

That's once! How does this invalidate my argument that people on the right can disagree as long they don't act on that dissent? Also note that dissent on some issues is allowed, and on others it is not. Dissenters on those issues are "traitors" and are "hurting the troops". Read your daily blast faxes to find out more!

The big tent may have many people in it, but the exchange of ideas is non-existant.

The exact opposite is true, as I indicated above - it's the left that has stagnant, almost religious adherence to positions.

Yeah, sure it is Peter Pan. The left is totally made up of lock-step zombies. How convenient that is for you that your ideological enemies are actually mindless cartoon characters.

When you wish upon a star, doesn't matter who you are! (As long as you aren't a lock-step liberal).

[Desslock]

[quote]Exactly what I said above -- take any of the issues I identified above -- there's only one "correct" left-wing position. Anyone against gay marriage, or pro-Iraq War, or who wants abortion legislation, or who thinks the Patriot Act is o.k, or who wants private accounts, or who wants less government, or who wants to lower taxes, or who doesn't support stem cell research, or who doesn't support Kyoto --- is not a member of the club.

What color is the sky on your planet? It's pointless arguing with someone who really thinks that is true, since your vision of the left is made up of cardboard cut-outs who have nothing to do with the real living human beings. What's nice about that is that if you dehumanize them you can wish for their deaths and torture them that much more easily. See: Islam..

Yadda yadda yadda - step back to reality now, and if you think what I said is inaccurate, provide some examples where the left-wing posters here have taken a different position on ANY of the issues I mentioned above.

[Brian Koontz]

Koontz: Do you ever read back what you've written to yourself? Try it out loud. Look for the tell-tale crazy pontificating. Better yet, as someone who in a (very, very, very) broad sense shares some of your point of view I wouldn't mind you practicing in the middle of a highway somewhere at rush hour. Folks like Desslock piss me off sometimes, well hate the sin but not the sinner, but in this thread and in others I feel much better about life where it's someone with his point of view coming off as detached from reality rather than someone on my side of the argument.

I remember you jumping on my ass about my arrogance towards people not sharing my view. Was that just projection? Can you read the above post and not see it just riddled with smug, self-congratulatory, and insulting prose? And in the other thread you killed you followed up a post of mine, that traces this historical tendancies that have lead us to this point, with a wild-eyed ramble that accuses (I know, metaphorically, but it still sounds just foamingly mad) neocons and Al Qaida of conspiring to the same ends.

Can't you see how much you undermine your own positions when you go about things like this? Worse, you undermine mine and I have to worry about the crazy convert behind me, ammo-belts rattling on his chest, waving the .50 around as much as the enemy in front of me.

Go away or stop sounding crazy. Is that too much to ask?

Translation: "I want to be the political voice for Qt3 and I see Brian Koontz as in my way. I now say something that encourages the fulfillment of my desire."

Qt3 needs all of the political voices it can get. That some of them conflict with others is no reason for any of them to be silenced.

Here's a hint, Mr. Rucker. Its not merely IGNORANCE that led to Bush being reelected, per I believe your general position on the matter as it so often is. Also, the rise of the Neocons didn't merely enable lots of Neocon people to stand up and assert their Neoconness. This is no black and white issue.

I interpreted 9/11 in a very benign way. Just another terrorist attack, in a particularly colorful and dramatic fashion and higher than normal death count. I began mocking the "dramatists" early, with "Dial 911 day" and a written piece on the issue. It became clear to me that more than just the Neocons were behind the "9/11 changed the world!" proposition. I'm sure many of you believed that very thing, few of whom would label yourselves Neocons.

I don't think its merely a matter of humans being *mistaken* about 9/11. I think its that they WANTED the world to be changed, and 9/11 offered them the justification for what they want to believe... for what they want to *achieve*.

Now, the less *extreme* members of the culturally influenced of the New World Order bowed out at some point, due to pressure applied by the New Conservatives. This "bowing out" merely means that in their cases, the New Conservatives won out over the Neocon/NWO Alliance.

Those like Desslock merely didn't bow out (yet, I suppose there's always that future possibility).

Ignore the existence of this cultural influence and you will become prey to it once again.

I only report what I see. I may see poorly or well at any given time, but arrogance is no issue. What you call arrogance I call supporting my position. Its part of a certain persuasive debate style that I favor.

I could care less if what I see supports any of my previous positions. I constantly re-think issues and my positions typically develop over time and with new information.

One of the big reasons Traditionalists appear bewildered by recent events surrounding the Neocons is that they are ignorant of the conspiracy/NWO culture. When they fit that puzzle piece into their worldview the situation becomes a lot more clear. The New Conservatives know very little other than that the Neocons are extremists and that they liked the United States a lot more before they took power. There's much more to the story, that's all.

That's my position. That's what I see. If you see otherwise then kindly tell us what you see and illustrate your position. Or you can keep calling me arrogant. You know, whichever you think is *more valuable*.

Desslock has no rational position. Any rationality he lays claim to BY NECESSITY is a Neocon rational position... that's why he seems to be a Neocon while the underlying truth is that he is using the Neocon position to achieve his irrational goal of generalized world change.

If you really want to debate Desslock you need to attack his DESIRE for change... his desire for a New World Order. Obviously if you deny that aspect of Desslock you will go about your pointless "rational debate" with him and wonder why it has no effect. You'll keep scratching your head and saying "I wonder what's up with Desslock???"

No problem. Keep doing that. And you can even call me arrogant again when I laugh at you for it.

Desslock has joined the chorus of Howls.

[Andrew Mayer]

You mean the ones you didn't actually name?

And less taxes are fine with me, as long as you can pay for them.

I'm pretty convinced that our best option right now would be giving more power to the states. Right now things are far too centralized.

The best part of all this for me Desslock, is that you're not even paying for this war, we are.

[TomChick]

"Please don't feed the Koontz."

-Tom

P.S. If I had any Photoshop skillz, I'd make a sign out of that.

[jeffd]

Koontz do you even know what a neocon is? The term has a very specific definition.

Koontz: Do you ever read back what you've written to yourself? Try it out loud. Look for the tell-tale crazy pontificating. Better yet, as someone who in a (very, very, very) broad sense shares some of your point of view I wouldn't mind you practicing in the middle of a highway somewhere at rush hour. Folks like Desslock piss me off sometimes, well hate the sin but not the sinner, but in this thread and in others I feel much better about life where it's someone with his point of view coming off as detached from reality rather than someone on my side of the argument.

I remember you jumping on my ass about my arrogance towards people not sharing my view. Was that just projection? Can you read the above post and not see it just riddled with smug, self-congratulatory, and insulting prose? And in the other thread you killed you followed up a post of mine, that traces this historical tendancies that have lead us to this point, with a wild-eyed ramble that accuses (I know, metaphorically, but it still sounds just foamingly mad) neocons and Al Qaida of conspiring to the same ends.

Can't you see how much you undermine your own positions when you go about things like this? Worse, you undermine mine and I have to worry about the crazy convert behind me, ammo-belts rattling on his chest, waving the .50 around as much as the enemy in front of me.

Go away or stop sounding crazy. Is that too much to ask?

Translation: "I want to be the political voice for Qt3 and I see Brian Koontz as in my way. I now say something that encourages the fulfillment of my desire."

Qt3 needs all of the political voices it can get. That some of them conflict with others is no reason for any of them to be silenced.

Here's a hint, Mr. Rucker. Its not merely IGNORANCE that led to Bush being reelected, per I believe your general position on the matter as it so often is. Also, the rise of the Neocons didn't merely enable lots of Neocon people to stand up and assert their Neoconness. This is no black and white issue.

I interpreted 9/11 in a very benign way. Just another terrorist attack, in a particularly colorful and dramatic fashion and higher than normal death count. I began mocking the "dramatists" early, with "Dial 911 day" and a written piece on the issue. It became clear to me that more than just the Neocons were behind the "9/11 changed the world!" proposition. I'm sure many of you believed that very thing, few of whom would label yourselves Neocons.

I don't think its merely a matter of humans being *mistaken* about 9/11. I think its that they WANTED the world to be changed, and 9/11 offered them the justification for what they want to believe... for what they want to *achieve*.

Now, the less *extreme* members of the culturally influenced of the New World Order bowed out at some point, due to pressure applied by the New Conservatives. This "bowing out" merely means that in their cases, the New Conservatives won out over the Neocon/NWO Alliance.

Those like Desslock merely didn't bow out (yet, I suppose there's always that future possibility).

Ignore the existence of this cultural influence and you will become prey to it once again.

I only report what I see. I may see poorly or well at any given time, but arrogance is no issue. What you call arrogance I call supporting my position. Its part of a certain persuasive debate style that I favor.

I could care less if what I see supports any of my previous positions. I constantly re-think issues and my positions typically develop over time and with new information.

One of the big reasons Traditionalists appear bewildered by recent events surrounding the Neocons is that they are ignorant of the conspiracy/NWO culture. When they fit that puzzle piece into their worldview the situation becomes a lot more clear. The New Conservatives know very little other than that the Neocons are extremists and that they liked the United States a lot more before they took power. There's much more to the story, that's all.

That's my position. That's what I see. If you see otherwise then kindly tell us what you see and illustrate your position. Or you can keep calling me arrogant. You know, whichever you think is *more valuable*.

Desslock has no rational position. Any rationality he lays claim to BY NECESSITY is a Neocon rational position... that's why he seems to be a Neocon while the underlying truth is that he is using the Neocon position to achieve his irrational goal of generalized world change.

If you really want to debate Desslock you need to attack his DESIRE for change... his desire for a New World Order. Obviously if you deny that aspect of Desslock you will go about your pointless "rational debate" with him and wonder why it has no effect. You'll keep scratching your head and saying "I wonder what's up with Desslock???"

No problem. Keep doing that. And you can even call me arrogant again when I laugh at you for it.

Desslock has joined the chorus of Howls.

[Desslock]

The best part of all this for me Desslock, is that you're not even paying for this war, we are.

It's true that my country isn't participating, and I'm ashamed of my country because of it. I'm going to become Australian/Polish.

[Midnight Son]

Geez, what a bunch of navel-gazing heavy-lidded pontificating!

[Graeme Dice]

It's true that my country isn't participating, and I'm ashamed of my country because of it.

Really? You're ashamed that Canada didn't send its soldiers to die in Iraq in a war fought for nothing more than control of oil? Please stop playing the part of the 50 year-old right-wing nut who likes war because they don't personally know any of the people who are going to die in it.

I'm going to become Australian/Polish.

Then go do it.

[Desslock]

You're ashamed that Canada didn't send its soldiers to die in Iraq in a war fought for nothing more than control of oil?.

Exhibit A.

[Andrew Mayer]

I don't agree with that opinion, so I guess your argument is totally screwed.

[William Harms]

Do you really think you guys don't sound redundant and predictable? You say the exact same things in response to any issue. Everyone (or virtually everyone) on the left has the exact same positions on every issue - the war in Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, patriot act, reforming the middle east, social programs, etc. -- it's almost a cult, chanting the same mantra, over and over again -- there is no room for contrary views on ANY issue (guys like Lieberman are essentially ostracized).

At least the right/Republicans have a "far bigger tent" with supporters with more diverse views -- sure, there's the neocon and social conservatives (and even they don't entirely overlap), but there's also libertarians, fiscal conservative and social liberals, Schwarzeneggars, Gullianis, McCains, etc.

The statements above show a shocking amount of ignorance about how the Republicans are running Washington, D.C. Leadership posts are no longer based on seniority, they're now based on the whims of the leadership of the House and Senate, in this case DeLay and Frist. If you want to ascend to a leadership position, or get appointed to a prestigious committee, it's mandatory that you tow the party line. Any dissent is met with immediate retaliation. (Which is the primary reason Jeffords left the GOP.)

DeLay has specified that any lobbyists seeking to do business with House hire and retain persons with strong ties to the GOP and that they give generously to both the party and various PACs.

(And the entire Schiavo affair shows the lengths the GOP will go to in order to appease the pro-life movement.)

When it's time for the national conventions, the GOP trots out the usual "pro-choice" folks and lets them say their piece. But none of them have a voice in what the party is doing.

And don't forget that Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, is strongly pro-life.

[chumpface]

Desslock,

Earlier, I tried to demonstrate that Sadaam does not equal Bin Laden.
Now do I need to demonstrate that everybody leaning to the left here is not identical?

a) I made it clear in a direct post to you that I'm a small government/low tax economic conservative probably much like yourself
b) andrew mayer and I have been friends since the 9th grade and argue as much as we agree on politics
c) in terms of big tent-ness, I would just look at the leaders in the Senate. Harry Reid is a pro-life Mormon from a red state. Bill Frist is a pro-life Evangelical from a red state (who is also fond of saying things like "well, the president wants it, so we must have it!") could you imagine a pro-choice republican speaker?! and i also feel i must remind you that most of our big tent (to my chagrin) got behind the iraq war vote back in 2002. Times like that I do wish our tent was a bit smaller.

did anybody manage to catch Rumsfeld on Meet the Press today? When asked about parlaying with the insurgency, he said, "well, we wouldn't deal with anybody who had blood on their hands!" i presume he was talking about the fairy and leprechaun insurgency who fights with shamrocks and sparkly dust.

the guys you have gotten behind pretend they live in a black and white world, and then have to make shit up to not appear inconsistent when they do sensible things like parlaying with the enemy. while it may seem like a small thing, it is this very black and white-ness which got us into Iraq in the first place.

[Dirt]

Bush isn't really do all that much more than talk (outside of Iraq) when it come to nuclear proliferation. At this point, it's obvious to me that he's leaving North Korea as a problem for the next President, the next Administration.

[Twosixteen]

"Please don't feed the Koontz."

-Tom

P.S. If I had any Photoshop skillz, I'd make a sign out of that.

http://img85.echo.cx/img85/6471/pleasedontfeedthekoontz7gv.gif

[Desslock]

When asked about parlaying with the insurgency, he said, "well, we wouldn't deal with anybody who had blood on their hands!" i presume he was talking about the fairy and leprechaun insurgency who fights with shamrocks and sparkly dust..

No, he was stating that they have no plans to negotiate with Zarqawi's crew -- they've already met with the local/sunni insurgents on several occasions, which I believe he also mentioned. There's also reports that local insurgents have been fighting the jihadist insurgents in western Iraq.

For a comprehensive summary of recent "good news" in Iraq, which most media completely ignores: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006875

[Tim Partlett]

You know why that "good news" didn't make the front pages, like the constant bombings in Baghdad? It's not because of a liberal media bias, or that the American press is bent on seeing Bush fail. It's not on the front pages of the press because it is boring. That is one long list of terribly earnest news reports, the kind of thing that appears in regional government newspapers, because they feel they have a duty to report every last scrap of local information no matter how uninteresting.

I didn't get through all the stories because they were so painfully mundane, but I saw several pages of reports about bureaucrat signing papers establishing the status quo, minor tribal leaders speaking out against the violence, worthy community ventures and dreary machinations of the new Iraqi government. It's all as dull as dishwater and doesn't rate next to mass murders from terrorist attacks. I know it is a little cynical and people have complained about the media's obsession with bad news for generations, but it isn't a sign of liberal media bias, or a concerted effort to ruin the Bush's chances of a successful invasion of Iraq.

I mean look at this:

"A radio station focusing on women's issues has hit the airwaves in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Blah blah blah."

That is just so incredibly dull.

You know when the media was in a frenzy over Clinton having his cock gobbled by Lewinski, did the press make an effort to publish all the good news stories from the US relating to Clinton's policies? Answer that and you will answer the question as to whether there is a liberal bias in the media.

[chumpface]

When asked about parlaying with the insurgency, he said, "well, we wouldn't deal with anybody who had blood on their hands!" i presume he was talking about the fairy and leprechaun insurgency who fights with shamrocks and sparkly dust..

No, he was stating that they have no plans to negotiate with Zarqawi's crew -- they've already met with the local/sunni insurgents on several occasions, which I believe he also mentioned. There's also reports that local insurgents have been fighting the jihadist insurgents in western Iraq.

For a comprehensive summary of recent "good news" in Iraq, which most media completely ignores: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006875

Russert specifically asked him if he meant Zarqawi's crew or any insurgents, and Rummy specifically said (twice) they wouldn't talk to anybody with "blood on their hands."

[BrewersDroop]

For a comprehensive summary of recent "good news" in Iraq, which most media completely ignores: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006875

That article includes pieces from the Washington Post, Newsday, USA Today, MSNBC, the NY Times, Forbes Magazine, US News and World Report, the LA Times, the Guardian, the Associated Press, ABC News, Bloomberg, the Washington Times and Reuters. I'm not sure that constitutes being ignored by most media.

[Desslock]

For a comprehensive summary of recent "good news" in Iraq, which most media completely ignores: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006875

That article includes pieces from the Washington Post, Newsday, USA Today, MSNBC, the NY Times, Forbes Magazine, US News and World Report, the LA Times, the Guardian, the Associated Press, ABC News, Bloomberg, the Washington Times and Reuters. I'm not sure that constitutes being ignored by most media.

Fair enough.

[mtkafka]

To TRULY win Iraq... we need COMPLETE dominion over the Iraqis. We need to examine and or arrest EVERY Iraqi citizen to see if they are with us or against us. Exterminate those against us, man woman or child. Can America do this in front of the whole world?

etc

[Desslock]

Are you dating Cindy, etc.?

[Andrew Mayer]

Bush, 4/99 - "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

Bush, 6/99 - "I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."