Inexperienced, very liberal politician files papers to run for President

you listen to rush? that stuff is just toxic, and should be avoided at all costs, just like his couterparts elsewhere on the ploitical spectrum.

this is primarily why i still post here. i've long since given up any hope of actually persuading anyone, but the FUD from those afflicted with terminal BDS needs to be called out- it's hurting us in the war, and this is a war we can't afford to lose, batman's wishful defeatism notwithstanding.

 

Understood. At a certain point however, calling out someone only gives further publicity to their ignorant propoganda. How often do you hear about the recent idiocy espoused by Ann Coulter, unless someone takes offense to it and subsequently dissects it to the point of mockery? And what good do said actions accomplish? Does Ann Coulter fade away into oblivian, embarrased by the utter demolition of her so-called arguments?

Of course not. Rather, she achieves even more publicity and access to forums where her ignorant views are actually presented as a legitimate "side" to an argument. The only time people stop wasting time considering Ann Coulter's useless and pathetic viewpoints is when she is completely ignored. Sure, her buffonery will keep some percentage of the most ludicrously simple-minded ignorants engaged, but it won't be given mainstream mention, and achieve the associated relevance that people like to place on the ideologies garnered from the hideous charicatures of "liberal" and "conservative" portrayed on the TV every bloody day.

You could argue (and successfully) that ignoring it lends one to be unprepared to counter it should it ever garner enough support to threaten (*cough* - right wing nutjobs and the Bush junta). I'd like to argue that this too was the result of too much attention being placed on these loony groups, but I suppose you are right that sometimes it pays to point out the hypocrisy and lies of the wingnuts from any vantage point, if for no other reason than to briefly point out their typically vague substance (or complete lack thereof) . Meh.

 

Funniest **** I've read in here in a long time. You complain of FUD, and then proclaim anti-war groups are "wishing for defeat" and "hurting the war effort".

That hypocrisy borders on hilarity.

 

Why is it that whenever I hear dead-enders talking about the war while using phrases like "we can't afford to lose" or "failure is not an option," it always sounds to me like they are talking about the domestic political standing of the Republican Party as currently constituted under Bush?

 

because you're projecting your own biases on the conversation?

 

...then why do you so willingly tolerate such a half-assed approach to it by your president, who's ready to stay up all night to avoid losing Mary Schiavo's corpse, but not willing to impose any sort of requirements on the people whho cannot afford to lose out, and is busy handing out tax cuts and patronage rather than trying to win it?

Further what have YOU done if the struggle is so vital? if you truly feel the struggle is so vital, surely you would have done SOMETHING. I'm not talking about enlisting, just ANYTHING to prove that this is not just empty rhetoric on your part.

 

You are absolutely correct. It is mind blowing that anyone still responds to tj in a substantive way. The only correct response is ridicule or no response.

 

No, it's not jsut that, the rest of your tone and your other posts about the Bell Curve seem to have a pretty distinct agenda in mind.

 

Perhaps. Yet I wonder why, if this is a war too important to lose, the administration goes to great pains to keep the war from affecting the average American. If this is truly on par with WWII... if it is truly a World War of ideologies, if our country and way of life are indeed threatened as never before, then why doesn't anyone from the administration make the case for that in a way that would include all Americans instead of making it in a way that divides Americans?

While no war has ever been unanimously popular, this administration has, from the very beginning, gone out of its way to intensify those natural divisions in an obvious electoral strategy instead of trying to minimize them for the greater good. If Iraq is the issue of our time, why isn't McCain getting more play in the right-wing media... after all, his idea of a surge is closely realted to the plan the President is pursuing, so McCain should be held up as an example... yet many on the right hate him for other reasons, which lead me to believe even those most vocal about the war are only paying lip service because they can sometimes beat political enemies over the head with it.

 

IT is hurting us in the war?

That is laughable. What is hurting us in the war is the fact that the planning, execution, and decision making involved was pisspoor.

To try and pass the blame on groups exercising democracy is pitiful.

Again you make personal attacks on people and accuse them of wishing defeat.

Get real. Guess what people are gung-ho about Afghanistan, and it isn't going that well either. The answer is something different.

 

The book the Bell Curve has been debunked as the scientifically unsound crud that it is.

 

I dont know what FUD and BDS are.

Like everyone has said already, I think the flaw in the argument here- not to further derail an Obama thread - is that if this war was essential to our way of life - rather than a diversion from the real War On Terror - why the hell weren't there 300,000 troops in Iraq when generals were testifying before congress that that's what it would take? For that matter, why wasn't there a draft? A surge of 20K troops? Man, that probably would not have made a difference three years ago, but now the toothpaste is out of the tube over there, as I understand it. What's our favorability rating in Iraq now, 17% or something? Maybe Bush is right - he's certainly due to be right - but I don't forsee wonderful things from this surge - its more of the same, tepid efforts to win a war that has not gotten nearly the attention and care that a true "war for our way of life" should and would have gotten. That's the issue - the bluffing.

Batman Jones really is not the problem. Senior leadership of the campaign that grossly underestimated the scope of the sectarian problems in Iraq, and sent in substandard forces to maintain order and foster the development of democracy is probably at the top. But I just can not fathom how Batman Jones "wishful defeatism" is in the top 927320 problems with the Operation Iraqi Freedom.

I really hope that this is not the beginnings of a pre-post-mortem on the failure to accomplish goals in Iraq. "It's not the leadership of the executive and legislative branches that bungeld the war, no no no, it's all those Batman Joneses theater types who wanted us to lose the war, they are the ones who really sank that ship." The Tinkerbell theory - if we had all just shut our eyes and wished hard enough, we would have won. Blame those who did not clap hard enough to save Tinkerbell.

I dont know, I work at a VA and have yet to see any of the returning OEF OIF veterans complain about Batman Joneses of the world. Who knows, maybe it's just me, but I have yet to hear about any batallions who lost a firefight or were hit by an IED strapped to a ten year old Iraqi kid because Batman Jones thinks the war is not going very well.

 

that is totally awesome, you need a blog or something.

 

Damn, CBFC, you went right for the jugular. Sadly, the response will be the equivalent of holding your breath, closing your eyes, and crying. As for Trader_J, what he does here is a form of mental masturbation, which you shouldn't think about taking seriously, as hard as it is to ignore him. He makes a lot of noise, signifying nothing.



D&D. Frozen Solid.

 

Unfortunately, you're going to be disappointed because the first skirmishes of the Who Lost Iraq War have already begun. Even the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts are starting to grasp that there will not be a good end for the US in Iraq, so they are starting to pivot and try to place the blame for this debacle on the dirty f_cking hippies that have been stabbing our troops in the back here on the home front. People like tj and basso are rushing to the front lines of this fight.

 

Post of the year.

 

FUD= Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
BDS= Bush Derangement Syndrome

CBF-

with all due respect to the lovely tinkerbell analogy, casualities are a poor indicator of whether we're winning. and in any case, whether we are winning, or eventually do win, is immaterial to batman, rimmy, and their fellow travelers who oppose the war at all costs. rimmy's post above about sacrifice is yet another red-herring, as is your arguement about the draft. to posit "i would've supported the war if only bush articulated the rationale more cogently, or put the country on a war footing, or instituted a draft, or yada, yada, yada..." is nonsense. either the war is empirically righteous, or it isn't. no amount of salesmanship by bush, me, or anyone else is likely to change that strategic calculus for you.

and to argue "i would have supported the war if only there were fewer casualties, or if the war were going better," as you imply above is equally fatuous. war is about killing and breaking **** in the name of strategic, national security or political goals. for the united states at large, it's the former two. for al queda, it's the latter. unfortunately, batman has also made it about the latter. and yes, his continued harping on the mistakes made in the war does help the enemy. it contributes to flagging homefront morale, which embolden's the enemy's propaganda efforts.

the MSM is largely complicit as well. They're incurious, generally unethical regarding reporting the war and far more skeptical of the US military than they are regarding the insurgents, the militias and even the Iranians. The media hardly ever reports on victories in Iraq because the kinds of things that demonstrate real success, such as opening a new school, or bringing infrastructure back on line, all things that demonstrate a functioning civil society, just aren’t sexy, and honestly I don't think they believe in victory. As a result, they feed the insurgency’s propaganda needs and damage our efforts to win.

Although i don't feel remotely qualified to to offer any meaningful critique, I would be delighted to have a conversation about the tactical mistakes made in the war. there seem to have been many, but that's true of all wars, and by themselves are not a reason for not fighting. but BATMEN (and here i'm referring the larger left-wing anti-war crowd, who are not so much anti-war as anti-bush) are only interested in such a discussion as a cudgel w/ which to beat the administration, so what's the point?

but in case you're being sincere, i'll engage to an extent. here are a few areas where, IMHUEO, we've made mistakes:

• failure to institue a version of zero-tolerance at the moment of capture of baghdad. although not directly related to the insurgency, the looting laid the foundation for the breakdown in civil society

• pulling back from first fallujah.

• leaving al-sadr alive

• refraining from attacking iran and syria, particularly iran. they are directly responsible for much of the insurgency. i wouldn't necessarily have invaded, but there are other ways to get your point across.

• Abu Ghraib, a massive public relations disaster. it's still continually used to smear our troops in the field, by the left in the West and by terrorist groups around the world. the military cleaned it up, and the terrorists do worse things every day, yet the left continues its Abu Ghraib-fixation and attacks. this demonstrates their fundamental unseriousness and basic ignorance of the fight. it's also a de facto alliance with the enemy.

• drastically miscalculating the extent to which iraqi society had been damaged by 35 years of saddamite rule, which obscured the fissures in iraq that might otherwise have been apparent. iraq is a vastly complex place, w/ divisions between arab and kurd, shia and sunni, islamic and secular, batthist and victimized, tribe and family. although you could certainly note the divisions, it wasn't until saddam was removed that the true extent of each groups estrangement from the other was fully apparent

and this is why our short attention span, and the efforts of the BATMEN to force an iraqulous interruptous are so dangerous. it took us five years to turn germany and japan from defeated enemy into allies, and many more years before they truly were able to stand on their own feet. but ww2 completely destroyed the infrastructure and will of the german and japanese societies, providing the allies with something of a clean slate. moreover, each had some sort of pre-existing democratic tradition (my prewar japanese history is sketchy). we're attempting something far more audacious in iraq, to essentially rebuild a society w/o first completely tearing it down. we should at least be able to provide our troops with the patience, support, and goodwill of all americans.

 

Good lord, basso, how could you ignore the biggest mistake of the war... not doing the deal with the lower level officers, already set up and ready to go, to give each soldier in the Iraqi Army $25 dollars, so they could feed their families, and get them back to their barracks with their weapons. This has been brought up numerous times, both here (by me, for example) and in the media. Bremer told the Transitional Team to forget it, that there wasn't an "Iraqi Army." When the incredulous people who had brokered the deal asked where he got this insane idea, Bremer replied, "from the top." From Rumsfeld, who claimed it was from Bush.

The biggest mistake of the war, and you don't mention it, instead spouting this BS about the press and others being "incurious, generally unethical regarding reporting the war and far more skeptical of the US military than they are regarding the insurgents, the militias and even the Iranians. The media hardly ever reports on victories in Iraq because the kinds of things that demonstrate real success, such as opening a new school, or bringing infrastructure back on line, all things that demonstrate a functioning civil society, just aren’t sexy, and honestly I don't think they believe in victory. As a result, they feed the insurgency’s propaganda needs and damage our efforts to win."

With all due respect, put your thinking cap on.



D&D. Ignorance is Bliss. A Lot of People must be Happy.