Hitchens: Does the left really want the U.S. to lose?

For shame indeed!

basso name one "liberal" on this board who has advocated that they wish America would "lose" this war.

What a crock of bull.


So now it's the liberal's fault that we're losing the war? I guess that's the new talking points...

 

I, for one, hope, wish, and pray for us to win the war in Iraq.

I just know it will not happen with the idiots we have leading it.

 

So opposing Bush's policies (or even Bush-bashing as some Liberals like to do) = hating America/America-bashing/Blame-America-First crowd?

I guess fascism is making a comeback!

As for Iraq, we CANNOT afford defeat there, if the US leaves and IRaq goes to hell, then the costs would be absolutely enormous. I know Iraq pretty well, and anything short of a strong central government in Iraq (regardless of whether it's democratic or theocratic) that crushes Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups inside IRaq's borders will have disasterous consequences for the U.S., and the Arab regimes in particular due to them being the #1 target of these terrorists, more so than the US even.

We are there now, we can't afford to withdraw without establishing security there. Bring Saddam back if you must, I don't care, the bottom line is STABILITY, that's the only thing that matters.

 

I'm a small-minded and petty person so I think there may be a thread of truth in the theory that some liberals want the US to lose.

I think a lot of people (liberals AND conservatives) place a high value on being "right" and winning political points.

There is no doubt in my mind that plenty of conservatives shivered during the economic "boom" of the Clinton years. I also don't doubt that plenty of liberals now (especially politicians) hope for bad economic news. As a petty conservative myself, I certainly was hoping for some negative economic indicators during the Dole-Clinton election.

As for partisanship - I don't see how the Iraqi war can be construed along conservative/liberal lines. It seems to me it's more of a pro-Bush/anti-Bush thing. I would have thought that more conservatives, by now at the very least, would have changed their stances on the war. I also thought the the classicly more liberal view of foreign policy was to support regime changes/democratization. I'm probably pissing off everyone here from TJ to andymoon, sorry.

 

Actions speak louder than words. Rushing to post negative news about the war and continually trumpeting the temporary setbacks that our troops face are powerful actions that tell me a lot. Almost completely avoiding any positive news coming out of the region (and there is a lot of that) also tells me a lot about what people wish to happen. It's the simple principle of consistency in psychology. People were anti-war before this thing started, and if everything goes well for the troops in Iraq, they know that the US people will believe the war was successful and just, thereby making themselves look bad for opposing it in the first place. These people selfishly put their desire not to "look bad" in front of our troops and our country. Simple as that, friends.

 

There have been zero posts where people wished for a US defeat. And if anyone advocated that position why not name names. I would certainly name names of conservatives who advocated positions such as occasional torture which the U.S. armed services says is actually an endangerment to our troops.

Those names or TJ, Hayes, and there were others that I don't remember.

They are entitled to their opinions no matter how much I think they are wrong.

But just because those posters advocate a postition that our military deems to threaten the security of our troops, I don't actually believe that they want our troops to die, or our military to lose the conflict.

 

If so -- and I think your right that there are some who think that way -- then it's only because they are a bunch of idiots who have no idea whatsoever as to what the cost of failing in Iraq would be, they just don't understand what's at stake and are really victims of their ignorance and bias. In a way, I actually pity them.

 

Agreed.

 

Who the f*ck is Christopher Hitchens? He is a mole - just like Joe Lieberman. I'd rather listen to Rush Limbaugh than reading the bullcrap written by Hitchens.

 

Yes you're right. There is a major difference between wishing for some negative economic news to help "your guy" win the next election and hoping for some calamity in Iraq.

 

I agree that there has been an over abundance of negative threads about Iraq lately, but...

While i'm sure there have been some positive threads about accomplishments in Iraq ~ honestly there hasn’t been many posted from either side of the fence.

 

There is a considerable conservative base that vehemently opposes the Iraq war, and wants the troops back ASAP regardless of the current reality on the ground in Iraq.

You should read the American Conservative sometimes, they represent the 'old' traditional conservative stance on foreign policy issues, not the current Neo-conservative movement which has a very liberal Wilsonian approach to international relations (except when it comes to the part where liberal Wilsonians prefered asserting US hegemony through international organizations/world bodies, i.e. UN, IMF, World Bank, etc; the neocons prefer to a more direct US involvement, and dislike the idea of 'working with others'). If you study history, you will see that liberals have been the biggest proponents of the 'interventionist' mentality throughout our history, not the conservatives. Traditional conservative approach to foreign policy was best reflected in recent decades by Bush I's administration.

The current Bush administration's appraoch to foreign policy is anything BUT conservative; it's Neo-conservatism at its best. (If you want to know the roots of neo-conservative movement, do a little research on it, and you will see that they were originally a liberal 'faction' that sought to assert a more aggressive foreign policy, and were renamed "neocons", but they are not conservatives by any means).

 

Have seen him on a variety of shows over the years, rarely agree with him on anything.

 

They are smart enough not to come out and say that directly. But they (glynch, wnes, etc) take great delight in posting about everything that is negative. The more body bags, the better for them. It's one thing to be against the war, but this liberal schadenfreunde directed at our troops and the Iraqi people is evidence of a sick mindset.

 

texxx when was the last time you started a positive thread about Iraq?

friend...

 

Here's my view, I think the negative threads about the war (and as they are mounting up) are posted with "I told you so intent behind them", however that doesn't stray from the fact that it continues show that the leadership wasn't that great in the past few years.

I agree that a war is complicated and I do believe we are doing good in the region. I just think that the cost is too high and the benefits is to low from the stand point of a citizen of this country (who the "public servants" are suppose serve and take care of).

I know we hate them, but we really need some real politicians working with the government right now. People that know how to play the political game (which includes much more than wowing audience of a certain state to vote for you). It is my firm belief that if some one like Clinton was in office, we would've went in with UN support, he would've talked and worked out a deal with France, Germany, Russia, China whom ever we needed to to get it done. We definitely wouldn't have the "my way or the highway" -ish rhetoric that costs us major politcial brownie points.

Lastly, if you look at it from a business point of view, we had several chances to cut our losses (opening up bids even to those country that didn't help in the war for reconstructions) years ago which might've help right now. It might not be the fairest situation, but I do believe it was probably the best route to go, now Iraq is a money sink and a lives sink, just imo.

 

That's really slanderous, though hardly surprising from the polluted mind of a chickenhawk (sorry ima_drummer2K, I have to break my promise [to you] not use this word).

What have you done to support the troops other than displaying a couple of magnet bumper stickers (even this could be too much credit to you)?

 

basso must be bored.