Unglued, Unstuck, Debunked
The next time you hear someone invoke the hackneyed "fighting them over there, so we won't have to fight them here"---or one of its equally exhausted variations---simply email them the link to this piece.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Thursday, August 25, 2005
36 Comments:
Absolutely true
AND
the next time someone says we staved off the assault on Social Security; direct them to this piece "Thursday :: Aug 25, 2005;
Democrats Need To Prepare Now For Another Social Security Push By The GOP" http://www.theleftcoaster.com AND/OR http://www.tpmcafe.com
Thanks! This saves me bundles of research time! No kidding! I've been very disturbed by the flypaper repetition. It's nice to know that not even the war supporters buy it anymore.
Both of your posts (TBD and TCR) were excellent.
the probklemn with Greg's posts is his undying belief that the US can win Iraq... win in his defintion is the creation of a stable, unitary and democratic state... a patently absurd position
plus this "We went in because Saddam was an uniquely dangerous individual whom was commonly believed to be in possession of WMD. "
Simply isn't true. No one in Europe believed he had WMD. Remember Jorckhard Fischer making a fool of Rumsfeld in public telling him so?
It was a war of choice and despite what Dijeran and little band of warmongers believe the US is going to lose.
I have recently spoken with a retired professor with an expertise in Middle East Studies. His take is that the state of Iraq is dead. It is no longer a viable state.
I cannot really rebuttal that and the so-called constitution is a joke at best. So now we have a broken state with all the implying instability that that brings and an idiot at the helm of state that says full speed ahead even though there is a large reef just under the waterline.
Both will come to grief and how many more gi's with have to die, be wounded and come home with deep emotional scars just so Bush can play at being a wartime (now that is a sick joke) president.
Lest we forget there has been scores of dead and wounded woman and children and this will go on for a long time to come, all thanks to our government.
The world has a great understanding for whom to thank for this and they will not forget even though the american public will in about '15 seconds'.
Hi Cunning Realist,
Just wanted to say thank you for your blog again. I know I have emailed you before, but I wanted to say it again.
It is so refreshing, inspiring, and comforting to see a Conservative say and write so many things that I, a die-hard Liberal, feel. I guess rational thought, ethics and just plain humanity aren't measured by a political spectrum.
Regarding the war, I just wanted to share an article with you and the readers of your blog.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050819/NEWS08/508190404/1025/NEWS
It is about the 467th Engineering Battallion whose job it is to find and destroy roadside bombs.
"The only reason we got this nasty job chasing roadside bombs is because we are expendable," said Staff Sgt. Jeff Rayner from Nashville. "They need bodies, and we provide them. We clear the roads, but we're still treated like dirt here."
It is also the unit my sister, a staff sergeant, is stationed with. I'm sorry, but my sister is not expendable!
thanks TCR, good stuff on both sites.
Iraq is on life support. There are still many Sunni/Shiite marriages, but I read this week that such interactions are becoming strained. One thing that concerns me is that if America targets the Sunni insurgency (ignoring the Shiite ones) the division could grow. America has to be an honest broker in the sectarian conflict that now has developed. And Sadr is against Federalism, my oh my, what a tangled web we've woven keeping the world safe for democracy.
Sorry, Jeremy, but the intelligence departments in Britain, France, germany, and Russia (among others) DID believe that Saddam had WMDs. They were all wrong, but that's what they believed at the time.
What their governments (except the British, perhaps) did not believe was that invading Iraq was the right way to deal with the problem. Or, in some cases, that his having them was a problem . . . at least for them.
I call bullshit on trotting out the old canard "Everyone believed Saddam had WMDs." IF everyone believed it, it was only because Bush & Cheney stood up and lied repeatedly to the American public, to Congress and to the UN about their "evidence.". That's why they had to "fix the intelligence" around the policy. Because it was horseshit, and they knew it.
The Russians, the French, the Germans and apparently even the some of the British themselves were not convinced by this "intelligence." That's why we had the UN on the ground in Iraq doing inspections --inspections that never turned up an ounce of hard evidence that Saddam was close to making WMDs, by the way. Because there was doubt about these claims. Remember? Bush kicked them out of Iraq so he could invade.
So can we please toss the "everyone believed there were WMDs" into the trash can with all the other specious reasons Bush gave us?
But great post Greg quoted of yours, TCR. You hit the nail on the head the first time around. Too bad he muddied it up with a bunch of other nonsense.
Great link! I agree with much of it especially the need to win. I think he overstates weakness in the flypaper theory. Bush says we fight them there so we wont have to fight here, by here I take him to mean the US and our core allies (Europe, Japan, Australia). The numbers here are much better. 9/11 3000, 3-11 200, 7/7 50, 7/21 0. The rise in attacks in the Middle East seems to affirm the theory that this battle for Iraq is a battle for the Middle East, IF we win the Middle East will inevitable change for the better but IF we lose it will be much worse.
And would you people quit referring to TCR as conservative, because he is not really conservative it is more like his gimmick.
Americans are finally waking up and realizing they were bamboozled in the last election.
jeremy:
Thanks for pointing out again that not everybody fell for the fabricated 'evidence' leading up to the war, hook, line, and sinker.
"On the second weekend in February, they all came to Munich to participate in the 39th Conference on Security Policy, where they were eagerly awaited: Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Fischer, Mr. Iwanow, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Solana and Mr. Struck took the lead among numerous well-known politicians and top military representatives from Germany and other nations. (...)
[Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer] voiced his concern and criticized the US for their strategy against international terrorism as adopted in the aftermath of 11 September 2001. He added that the peace process between Israelites and Palestinians should have been promoted after fighting the Al Qaida terror organization. Regarding the conflict in Iraq, Mr. Fischer kept emphasizing the German position, stating that diplomacy had "by no means [been] exhausted". The weapons inspectors needed to be given more time. The threat level produced by Iraq did not yet justify a war. "Why now?", Mr. Fischer wanted to know, affirming again: "I am not convinced!" (...)"
http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/2003/index.php?menu_2003=&menu_2005=&menu_konferenzen=&sprache=en&print=&
Whereas the NY Post infamously smeared:
"Weasels to hear new evidence"
- doctoring actual weasel-heads on the torsos of the German and French delegates to the UN:
http://tomburka.com/archives/pics/nypost.gif
'Fair and balanced', my ass.
Oh, and here's another interesting read:
"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The following is a transcript of remarks from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House Thursday.
Bush: (...)In Iraq, the United States, Britain and other nations confronted a violent regime that armed to threaten the peace, that cultivated ties to terror and defied the clear demands of the United Nations Security Council.
Saddam Hussein produced and possessed chemical and biological weapons, and was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. He used chemical weapons in acts of murder against his own people. (...)
The regime of Saddam Hussein was a grave and growing threat. Given Saddam's history of violence and aggression, it would have been reckless to place our trust in his sanity or his restraint.
As long as I hold this office I will never risk the lives of American citizens by assuming the good will of dangerous enemies.
Acting together, the United States, Great Britain and our coalition partners enforced the demands of the world. We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. (...)
BUSH: We'll take a couple of questions.
QUESTION: Mr. President, others in your administration have said that your words on Iraq and Africa did not belong in your State of the Union address. Will you take responsibility -- personal responsibility for those words?
And to the both of you, how is that two major world leaders such as yourselves have had such a hard time persuading other major powers to help stabilize Iraq?
BUSH: Well, first, I take responsibility for putting our troops into action. And I made that decision because Saddam Hussein was a threat to our security, and a threat to the security of other nations. (...)
QUESTION: Mr. President, in his speech to Congress, the prime minister opened the door to the possibility that you may be proved wrong about the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
BUSH: Yes.
QUESTION: Do you agree? And does it matter whether or not you find...
BUSH: Well, you might ask the prime minister that -- we won't be proven wrong.
BLAIR: No.
BUSH: I believe that we will find the truth. And the truth is he was developing a program for weapons of mass destruction. (...)"
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/17/bush.blair.presser.transcript/
...and so on.
"...bamboozled in the last election."
They can thank the right wing radio folks for that.
Go here, scroll down, and read and click on the video "Christopher Hitchens (CH) vs Jon Stewart".
I'm not a big fan of CH, but there is something about him, perhaps he comes across authentic and has the background to support it. The other night on Charlie Rose they had the editor on from The Nation and it was The Nation that brought CH to the US, but after awhile there was a disagreement and they split.
Jon asked CH for clarity about what does it mean "stay'n the course", "fighting them over there, rather than over here", and CH said it is contraditory; it is either global or it isn't; it's stupid. He also said, and I absolutely love this, it is based on what Rumsfeld said about the military - "unfortunately you go to war with the President you have, not the one you want".
Jon Stewart is the man, smart, nice, clever, thoughtful. Wow!
spider - you have a good story - anyway you can send your comment to other blogs?
And a letter to the WH requesting Jenna & Barbara take your sister's place?
It appears the flypaper just got shredded, courtesy of TCR and Greg D. Game, set, match.
To the anonymous guy who liked my comment, what blogs do you want me to send it to? Also, do you want me to really write my whole story out?
And, I've been meaning to write the president for awhile now. Mainly to ask why he hasn't answered the questions posed to him by Rep. Conyers regarding the Downing Street memo. I wouldn't ask that he send his daughters to take my sister's place. I would demand that he bring the troops home, because nobody's daughters/sons/husbands/wives/brothers/sisters/etc should have been there in the first place!!!
Semper Fubar, great point. Aluminum tubes much?
I blog, I blog with gusto.
-- IF we win the Middle East will inevitable change for the better but IF we lose it will be much worse. --
America has had some success setting up governments after removing dictators (Panama seems to be doing ok post-Noriega), but then again, didn't we set up Saddam in the first place? I seem to remember a picture of Rumsfeld shaking Saddams hand over a weapons deal of some sort. It MAY be better, but I cannot agree that it will inevitably be better.
The old: We set up Saddam and Bin Laden story is getting a little tired, don't you think?
First of all neither story is true, but even if it was, I guess that because we were allied with Russia and gave the Russians weapons and food in WWII, Chruchill and Roosevelt created and set up Stalin.
No exit plan in WWII either, Britain went to war because Germany attacked and occupied Poland...the war ended with Russia occupying Poland for the next 50 years!
I guess we shouldn't have fought that war either!
Give us a break and try to argue real issues.
PenDragon
Even if people were dumb enough to believe that Saddam had WMD, and in Europe while some political leaders lied and said there were some, the people, almost unanimously, believeed there were none. I know no one, even at my work which is an American MNC, who believed Saddam had WMDs... but even if you did believe that you might want to ask how a poor and broken impoverished country which spent les than $1bn a year on its military was a threat to a country that spent $320 BILLION...
it was blindingly obvious before the war there was no WMD... and TBD bullshit about the possibility of 'victory' would be funny if it wasn't so sad, it also totally discredits his other analysis
It was not unreasonable to think, before the war, that saddam conceivably had some chemical and/or biological materials, possibly in weaponized form.
it was completely deluded to think, before the war, that saddam had a highly advanced nuclear weapons program.
The fact that both of these types of things are regarded as WMDs confused the issue for a great many people, a confusion encouraged by the lying scum of the bush administration, who emphasized the nuclear threat (hence the 16 words).
Those who say that european intel also thought that saddam had wmds, for instance, are simply not making the appropriate distinction between chemical and biological weapons and nuclear weapons (which, in my book, are the only true wmds).
pendragon's comments, btw, make zero sense: i have no idea what point he/she is trying to make. We most assuredly had an exit strategy for World War II: the defeat of naziism and italian fascism. We achieved it. That we then left troops in Europe is because we had a new problem to deal with - the expansionist tendencies of the soviet union - not because we didn't have an exit strategy for the actual war we were in.
Anyhow, the notion that saddam = hitler was delusional before the war, and deranged after. There was no need for this war, which made it all the more important to set clearcut objectives, which even now, 2.5 years later, we don't have (unless, of course, you think we'll stand down as the iraqis stand up constitutes an objective).
Howard,
I don't know where you've been for the past year, but it has been conclusively proved that the "16 words" were true, then, now and tomorrow.
Read the 16 words. Now consider that the British thoroughly investigated the allegation that British Intelligence had uncovered this information and concluded that the statement was "well founded." Next, read the conclusion of the US commission that did the same thing. Next, read the actual facts, not the John Kerry advisor conclusions, contained in the report of Joe Wilson, yes, that Joe Wilson. Lastly, read the reports of the amount of Yellowcake US forces removed from Iraq after Sadam was deposed.
Tell me now, on what authority do you claim that Busk's 16 words were false?
What else do you need?
Howard, please read some history, England went to war over Polish freedom. I spelled this out in my earlier post, but I guess I was writing too fast for you. Was Poland free when the war "ended?"
Suppose Churchill had told the British people, "We are going to war to defeat Nazisim because they enslaved a free nation, Poland. Our exit strategy is to defeat Nazism and allow Russia to enslave Poland for the next 50 years."
The defeat of Nazism didn't do squat to change the facts on the ground in Poland, the cause of the war to begin with.
People who talk about an exit strategy being necessary before going to war are really dishonestly disguising the fact that they will never go to war for anything.
I love your novel definition of WMDs. The problem is that the rest of the world knows that chemical and biological weapons are really the most dangerous WMDs, since they can far more easily be acquired by tin-horn despots. Nice try.
The best part of your post is the denial of the Sadam = Hitler idea. Come to think of it, you do have a point. While both were violently anti semetic murderous maniacs who used warfare as an instrument of national policy (Hitler: Poland, France, Russia; Saddam: Iran, Kuwait, the Kurds)and they both were pretty keen on mass graves, Hitler never employed his chemical weapons (He did have them.) Saddam did; Hitler did not have meglomainiac sons who maintained rape rooms and Hitler did not pay suicide bombers families a $25,000 bounty, an astronomical sum in a region where having more that one camel makes you part of the neuvo riche, because he wanted so badly to kill jews. I am, therefore reluctantly forced to agree with you there.
There was not a real comparision between Hitler and Saddam, and after the war was over and we found all these things, it was dilusionl to compare the two.
Howard, please find one area where Hitler was worse than Saddam...please! And don't use the "killed 6 million jews thing, Saddam was just warming up.
PenDragon
Pendragon, a really impressive pile of piffle! first rate demonstration of the propagandist mind at work - congratulations.
one of the things i admire about the cunning realist is that he has no patience for sloppy thinking and sloppy language. out of respect for our host and for what has been a congenial and high quality discussion area, i won't respond in detail to your tendentious and silly remarks. People who think that saddam = hitler, people who think that the distinction between chemical/biological weapons and nuclear weapons is that the former are more dangerous, people who think world war ii was about the freedom of poland, people who think there is anything relevant about world war ii analogies for this little fiasco, people who think that the "16 words" were anything but an attempt to mislead the american people (although i will pause here to note that the ISG has concluded, pendragon, that you are full of shit), people, in short, like you, ol' buddy, don't deserve any more. It's thinking like yours that has gotten us into this disaster.
Howard,
I luv when you can't back any of your positions with facts.
PenDragon
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