It is incumbent upon the hawks to very specifically define the war aims as they see them.
I have been a paleoconservative non-interventionist since well before the start of the Iraq War, and I have been trying to support and spread that view among my interventionist conservative brethren for many years. The non-interventionist side seems to be winning converts, if the comments and debate at conservative websites is any indication, and presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has given us a candidate to rally around. But unfortunately the Iraq War and the amorphous War on Terror retains broad support among the GOP base, and is still fervently supported by a group of uber-hawks. (More on the uber-hawks in a future essay.)
I am a veteran of many internet battles defending the conservative credentials of a policy of non-intervention, so I am very familiar with the arguments of the war supporters. I frequently see pro-Iraq War arguments that use words like “victory” and “winning” to support the pro-War side. We can’t leave until we achieve “victory.” Conversely, supporters of the War use words and phrases like “surrender” and “cutting-and-running” to describe opponents of the War and advocates for withdrawal.
But this line of argument raises a very significant question. “What exactly would ‘victory’ entail?” This is a serious question. It is not raised just to be argumentative. When I raise it, people often act as if the answer is self-evident so I must be just making trouble. But the answer is not self-evident. It is especially not obvious when addressing the larger War on Terror and not just the Iraq War. Austin Bramwell addressed this “What is victory” issue brilliantly in his American Conservative piece “Good-bye to All That.” (I don’t agree with the whole article because part of it is a not so veiled slap at paleoconservatives, but the first half of the essay is devastating.)
Does victory mean toppling Saddam? Done. Does victory mean ensuring Iraq doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction? Done. Does it mean a stable and Western style democracy in Iraq? Good luck with that. Does it just mean a stable but perhaps not democratic Iraq? Good luck with that as well. Does it mean modernizing and westernizing all of the Middle East? Does it mean stamping out all vestiges of “Shari’a-observant Islam” or more crudely put, wiping out “Islamo-fascism.” Most War on Terror supporters I have talked to cannot give a coherent answer. Instead they resort to talking points and boiler-plate accompanied by foot-stomping and eye-rolling.
“I would rather fight them over there than fight them over here.” “If we leave Iraq unfinished they will follow us home.” This latter jewel has been repeatedly spouted by Senator McCain, who aspires to the highest office in the land. Work that out for me, Senator McCain. If they could come here then, why can’t they come here now? In fact, it might even be easier since we are distracted with the War.
The more sweeping the goal, such as stamping out Shari’a Islam, obviously the more time, treasure and lives it will cost to achieve. Some uber-hawks who have attempted to define victory say we must eliminate the motivation and the capability of the “enemy” to resist. (See here and here for two admirable attempts at specificity.) I admit this is at least a strategy and an aim, although a rather vague one, but it is only slightly less sweeping and unattainable than Frum and Perle’s silly little notion that we should have as a war aim the end of evil. Sorry guys, but since the Fall we have evil ever with us.
These sweeping definitions of victory are a prescription for “perpetual war for perpetual peace.” The war they envision would cost untold amounts of money and lives, ours and theirs. It would last perhaps generations. The American people do not support the current limited war in Iraq. How do the hawks and uber-hawks propose to sell their grand strategy? The War has already cost the GOP the House and Senate. If this thing is still dragging on in ‘08, the Republicans risk a crushing defeat. Once stalwart Republicans are getting cold feet and mass defections on the War are likely if the surge fails. Politically this strategy is untenable unless they are planning a coup. (And this is coming from someone who is no political pragmatist, but I readily admit when I am jousting at windmills with little chance of success. These guys are serious.)
Also, the military, especially the Army, is being stretched to the breaking point. Top generals are now conceding this. Do the hawks plan a draft to support their grand war aims?
And even if we pursued the War on Terror with gusto, it is not clear that that would necessarily make us safer. The now much discussed concept of blowback, thanks to presidential candidate Ron Paul, is a real phenomenon no matter how much the oblivious War supporters insist Muslims hate us only because we liberated women and produce dirty movies.
Talking points and the ritualistic demonization of Muslims does not a war aim make. It is incumbent upon the hawks to very specifically define the war aims as they see them. What countries should we attack and/or invade? What regimes should we change? Syria? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Should Pakistan be allowed to keep its nukes? Etc. Let’s put this on the table for all to see. I think many have been deliberately vague and have relied on talking points because they know if they were honest about their aims the public would not buy it. So better to get us entangled and then scream “cutting-and-running” when anyone suggests it is time to bring the boys home.
In all fairness, the war supporters could ask, “What exactly is my plan?” Good question. My next essay will outline what a conservative non-interventionist foreign policy would look like.
According to a document released by President Bush in Novermber 2005 entitled “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” “victory” has short term, medium term, and long term definitions.
In the short term, “Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces.”
In the medium term, “Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential.”
In the long term, “Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.”
Read the whole thing at http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html
Dr. Phillips briefly mentions something like this definition, but dismisses it with a flippant “Good luck with that.” Perhaps there is a reasonable argument that unity is Iraq is unacheivable, but I can’t find it in this article.
The insinuation that President Bush has not bothered to explain his conception of victory is tiresome. I came across the above document by googling “Bush defines victory.” If Dr. Phillips has a problem with the above definition, he should explain that problem. But he can’t pretend that the definition doesn’t exist. And he can’t demand that war hawks define “victory” when the war hawk-in-chief has so clearly done so.
Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.
By now, I think even the strongest supporters of the War can agree that we will not achieve this long-term goal. By setting the bar so high, the Bush Administration set itself up to fail.
Katzen,
No need to call me doctor. This essay was aimed primarily at the keyboard warrior crowd that I debate on the internet as well as the partisan pundits. I didn’t suggest that Bush didn’t define victory. In fact, Bush was clearly drinking the neocon red Kool-Aid when he launched the invasion as the document you provide shows. He had a very grand war aim. That is part of the problem. His war aim was unattainable.
My “flippant” response was because I think the last 4 years have illustrated that the grand war aim is clearly unattainable. The anti-war right knew this from the beginning. So when supporters of the War say today that we can’t leave until we achieve “victory,” do they still mean the long term goal that you outline above? How long do you think that will take? We haven’t even achieved the short term goals yet, esp. standing up security forces.
Also, Bush’s war aims were way out of sync with the stated justification for war. Briefly, the stated justification was that Saddam had WMDs that he could use and was blocking inspections. (I don’t believe the Administration ever really believed that Saddam had WMDs, esp. nukes, in the first place. The whole thing was a big con job to convince the public of the need to invade.) So if WMDs and inspections was the problem, why not oust Saddam, keep the Iraq security forces intact, install an American friendly strongman, allow the inspectors in and withdraw?
The war in Iraq was never simply about potential WMDs. It was phase I of a grand neocon strategy of democratizing the Middle East, and Iraq was intended to be a beachhead for that.
Some uber-hawks that I joust with reject the whole democratization thing, because they rightly see it as Utopian, but in its place they embrace a strategy of total war against potential jihadists that borders on genocidal. By comparison, the neocons are touchy feely. They just want to snuff out knuckle-dragging recalcitrants who are resisting their scheme of spreading liberal democracy world wide.
Of course neither strategy is remotely conservative. One is creative destruction and the other is just plain ‘ol destruction.
Dan Phillips is completely correct in his article but then I think he goes too far by saying in his last comment that Bush knew all along there were no weapons of mass destruction. I would like to think that Bush is not quite so stupid that he would base the war primarily on something that he knew was false. Well, maybe that’s not quite so crazy as LBJ probably did the same thing with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (but I think his screwing up America with Vietnam drove him to the grave prematurely).
I still choose to give Bush the reasonable doubt on his perception of WMD. I suspect Bush was conned by the Jewish neocons (ex-communists) who seem to control him. Regardless, Bush’s definition of “victory” is a vague, subjective, pathetic joke.
While we’re all being flippant, perhaps it should be pointed out that someone who needs victory to be defined to them, has very little of substance to contribute to the discussion.
But to be flippant with a tad more of a point, trying to prove the abject failure of the war by finding supporters who are unable to defend their position, is in and of itself a weak argument. “A stupis neo-con from Kansas, who flips burgers for a living can’t tell me how to win in Iraq.”
And? Of course they can’t. Most of your “keyboard warriors” are not soldiers, they are not generals, and do not understand the broad strategies of how to deploy an army overseas, let alone fight a complex counter insurgency and prop up a government all while dealing with hundreds of different factions that have no desire to work together. In this aspect, the “keyboard warrior” is more honest that the “realist” anti-war whiner. They say, in essence, “Look, we support this, but we are not knowledgable in military strategy, so we will defer to military professionals.” Whereas the anti-war “realist” comes from the exact same position, but makes ridiculous statements such as “the very fact that people are dying (in a war) proves that Iraq can’t be ‘won’, whatever that means.”
I’m sorry, but in my opinion, the anti-war movement wants no answers, and just seeks to sit back in moral superiority. Nowhere is this more evident that Dan Phillips above comment that “Bush may have defined victory, but that doesn’t change my point.”
WolvenBear, “victory” is not just a military issue. Is “Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism” a military objective? A military objective is “take that hill.” Is that still the war aim when we haven’t even been able to achieve the short term aim yet? If not, what is the new objective? How does anyone propose getting there? How long will it take?
Did you read the Bramwell article I linked to? The problem is not burger flippers in Kansas except to the degree that they got on board the war train. The problem was all the conservative thought leaders such as the crew at NRO/Hannity/Limbaugh/ etc. who were unquestioningly saber-rattling for War.
Liberius, I don’t know for sure what the Administration thought. I said what I believe they thought. But “regime change” in Iraq was a starry-eyed dream of the neocons from at least ’98 as spelled out in the now infamous Project for a New American Century document. Well before 9/11. What is indisputable is that intel was spun and messaged to emphasize a possible threat so they could sell their War.
Dan,
I think Bush would say that the reason we did not install an American friendly strongman is that, besides being immoral, it doesn’t work (Saddam Hussein, the Shah). I think there is certainly something to this.
Liberius,
“I suspect Bush was conned by the Jewish neocons (ex-communists) who seem to control him.”
Was that before or after they poisoned the wells?
Wolvenbear:
Sorry, but I must disagree. The problem that we in the “anti-war” crowd have really is the POLITICAL decision to go to war in Iraq and/or to continue the war. I have served in the military for 23 years combined Army and Navy, enlisted and officer, active and reserve but I am still in no position to question the tactics or strategy of the flag officers but that’s not what we are trying to do. The problem in Iraq is not and has never been with a failure of the military, their tactics or their strategy. But the political question as to the war and it’s political goals are fair issues for us to question and opine on.
“Stability” for Iraq is just far too vague a concept to justify sending our boys to patrol the streets in Bagdad only to get blown to bits by some civilian Muslim fanatic hiding under his wife’s skirt a block away with an IED remote detonation device. That’s not a war. There’s no point to this.
Bush originally stated that the goal was to “eliminate the threat of Saddam Hussein”. We should hold him to that and not allow the goal to be redifined in such a vague manner. He initially had the support of Congress and the people primarily based on WMD intelligence that has been proven false. Well, we have clearly eliminated the threat of Hussein, we have given Iraq a democracy, we have trained their security forces, we rebuilt Iraq’s schools and hospitals. It is time we DECLARE VICTORY and come home. We have our own borders to protect now. Let’s stop being stupid.
Katzen:
It was clearly AFTER they poisoned the wells. Geez man, do I have to point out every obvious thing to you?
On a serious note, if you would rather not wallow in ignorance you should actually study the matter a little. Perhaps you would see the special role that the group composed of folks like Douglas Feith, Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Norman Podhoretz, and Irving Kristol (all Jews) played in the lead-up to the Iraqi war. Anyone who knows anything knows that neocons are primarily Jewish. According to Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, it was Irving Kristol (former communist) who invented the word “neocon” and according to Wikipedia, Kristol is the “founder and god-father” of neoconservativism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
As for what happened in the Middle Ages, I don’t know if Jews poisoned wells but many Jewish writers have conceded that Jewish crimes against Christian people always preceded anti-semitism. Consider a recent book by Israeli Jewish professor Ariel Toaff (he’s the son of an extremely prominent rabbi in Israel). His book, entitled Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders recently caused a stir. I had assumed that there was no substance to the “blood libel” charge but now I will have a more open- minded about that. Are you open-minded Katzen?
To my shock the Jerusalem Post actually wrote an article about Toaff’s book here: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1170359806416&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull. Of course they concluded that Toaff was being unfair. Ultimately, Toaff was threatened to be fired from his teaching post as a result of his book and he was forced to withdraw the book from print. So much for freedom of the press in Israel.
Ah, the joy of being told that I “wallow in ignorance” by someone who defends the blood libel and apparently thinks Scooter Libby was a communist. Irving Kristol played no role in the lead-up to the Iraq War, despite his Jewishness. You might be thinking of his son William, who edits a magazine as does Norman Podhoretz. Scary guys. By the way, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, George Tenet–all these guys were tricked by the Jews?
“Anyone who knows anything knows that neocons are primarily Jewish.” They are even more primarily white. Why don’t you suspect Bush was conned by the “white neocons?”
It may be difficult for you to understand, but there is a difference between being open-minded and being frivolous. Showing that a Jew once did something bad to a Christian before many more Jews were massacred does give “substance” to the blood libel. You insinuate that JPost was wrong to conclude Toaff’s book was unfair. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t judge it. But I doubt he can argue plausibly that Jewish crimes against Christians were worse than Christian crimes against Jews. And I’m sure he can’t seriously say that “Jewish crimes against Christian people always preceded anti-semitism.” Always? I’m sorry, but that’s just frivolous.
I think I’ll rest my case with this simple observation: You’ve certainly put a lot of thought into finding a way to vindicate the blood libel.
A follow up point about Professor Toaff. Here’s an excerpt from another JPost article:
“Speaking to the Post, Toaff replies with a defiant “No” to the question of whether he believes Jewish communities could have committed ritual murder.
His previous statement had been an ironic academic provocation, he said – a premise for breaking the taboo of academic research into the anti-Christian atmosphere in Ashkenazi European Jewish communities of the Middle Ages.
According to Toaff, this atmosphere was an understandable aftermath of the Crusades, the massacres of Jews and the mass suicides of Jewish families who preferred death to conversions forced on them by fanatic Christians. However, he feels it played a role in the recurrent traumatic events which saw Jews as victims.
What he contests are the foregone conclusions by historians, who claim that all statements made by Jews under torture were dictated by their tormentors and therefore untrue. In the medieval trial documents he found statements in Yiddish formerly ignored by investigators, which, he holds, provide additional keys for interpretation and understanding of the times.”
Read the whole thing here: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170359833493&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Looks like you’ll have to find a new favorite historian, Liberius.
Dan,
Iraq being a “stable viable part of the world community” is absolutely a military goal. This is two-fold.
1) You can’t take out a genocidal dictator (especially a Middle Eastern one), and then leave without setting up a new government. It’s why, after every single war we’ve fought and won to overthrow a government, one of the military goals has been to set up a new government.
2. Even if this was a new idea, nation building, it is one that cannot be done any way other than militarily in the Middle East.
And contrary to your continued talk of “intel was spun”, this just simply isn’t a charge you can prove. The world community told us Saddam was going after nukes, not vice versa. All of Bush’s intel was from the Clinton era.
You can cry all you want about how Bush “misled us into a war”, but the evidence still shows he didn’t. The best you can claim is that Bush got duped by the before of a dictator that suggested he had WMDs.
And again, if you need Hannity, Rush, et anyone to define victory for you…then you really don’t have anything worth considering to add to the debate. (But, just to further hammer home the point, Hannity-that military general, has defined victory before). Regardless, the fact the you are more worried about Hannity’s defense of the war than the President’s definition of victory is quite illuminative to your position.
Liberius,
The original thoughts of Bush were that once we overthrew Saddam, a government would magically appear out of Iraq. Obviously that didn’t happen. And he didn’t quite plan for an inevitable insurgency, which obviously DID happen. So why are we complaining, then, that the goals changed? When the war situation changes, so does the plan, and the goals. Complaining that Bush redefined the mission when the situation changed is… pretty stupid.
And you can pretend that the anti-war crowd has these great intentions, but that’s not even remotely the way it is. Here’s the problems with the “anti-war as anything but political power grabbers scenerio”.
1. It was started by the very people who demanded we rush into Iraq. Before Bush even got into power, before he even ran, the Clintons, Kerry, Schumer, et. al. told us what a great threat Saddam was. The Dems sent a letter to Bush demanding he impliment Clinton’s policy to out Saddam. As soon as they saw a chance to use Bush’s acceptance of their policy against him…the ran with it.
2. Even the rather silly Buchanan types see this more as an opportunity to bash foreign interventionalism than to be fair and honest with the facts.
Both the anti-war left and right are more concerned with dogma and power than truth. And at the end of the day, our enemies know that everyone of our soldiers that gets sent home in a body bag makes you guys jump up and down and scream like Howler monkeys. They (like the North Vietnamese) are just waiting for the magical number of dead soldiers that makes us flee from Iraq in shame.
Look, if you want to pretend that there’s some grand reason that makes your rather silly criticisms of the war valid-great. As long as you can sleep at night. But when you complain about political motivations, I have no problem shooting you guys down. And if you don’t like the fact that your positions are being used by our enemies as motivation to keep killing our soldiers…perhaps you should re-evaluate your positions.
But don’t try to tell me that the troops are on the minds of the anti-war crowd and expect me to do anything but laugh.
“Anyone who knows anything knows that neocons are primarily Jewish.”
According to Dan, I’m a neocon (when I’m not busy being a Marxist). Although I share a few things in common with Jews — such as circumcision — and my wife often accuses me of thinking with that head when the lights go out and the kids are away at school, I’m not quite ready to trade in a scapular for a skullcap. How quickly the paleo version of reality seems to descend into anti-Jew, anti-anyone-but-white rhetoric by its supporters.
Katzen, Wolvenbear and others, you’re wasting your time trying to engage in rational, policy-oriented debate with ideologues. There is only one truth in life (which they conveniently possess), and anything that diverges from that paradigm is wrong regardless of the evidence you muster or the inherent logic of your arguments. Unless Aristotle said it, or it can be linked to a Ron Paul website, their thought process ends — or wanders off into the “Jews are evil” or “race matters” realm.
The problem with the kinds of discussions sparked by the Ubercon ideolobilge is that they treat reality like a Life of Brian movie. Rather than actually think about an issue they go back to the ancient texts and cherry pick a phrase or two, and that becomes the new religion we all must adhere to or be drummed out of the ranks of conservatism. They have no real solutions for contemporary problems other than to point to events dozens, or hundreds of years in the past and say “we shouldn’t have done that”. Leaving a situation is not a “solution”, particularly in an age when the oceans no longer divide us from the rest of the world. Maybe we shouldn’t, or maybe we should have, but these are the kinds of college level pseudointellectual pursuits most of us left behind when we went off to live in the real world. Wishing the world was different so your philosophy made sense is not the same thing as dealing with the real world opportunities and threats this nation faces.
So don’t get frustrated by your inability to make the Ubers see that life is a teenie bit more complicated than they imagine. The real audience are those looking in on the conversation who are trying to decide if they really want to be associated with Uber thought in all its manifestations and glory … which explains why this mindset gets so few converts.
Phil,
For the record, I didn’t say a word about Jews. In the past you said you didn’t know much about neocons. I said your philosophy was entirely consistent with their’s. Does that make you a neocon? I don’t know. The phrase I have used of mainstream conservative who spout neocon rhetoric is that they have been “neoconized.”
I have never said that neoconservatrism is an exclusively Jewish phenomenon. The intellectual leadership initially was and arguably still is. I actually think that trying to make it that simple, focusing on a “Jewish cabal,” has been a mistake. The problem is not just a group of intellectual thought leaders with access to the President. The problem is also that the leadership and rank and file of the mainstream movement swallowed the War and the War on Terror hook-line-and-sinker as well. Wolfowitz, Perle, and company would not have been able to sell their policies if Hannity/Limbaugh/ FOX/Savage/Coulter etc. etc. etc. hadn’t been drum beating for war as well.
They took a Cold War interventionist mentality that already existed in the mainstream conservative movement and just swapped enemies. From communists Russians to “Islamo-Fascists” Muslims.
Who is engaging in mindless group think is clearly in the eye of the beholder. To you we are simplistically spouting anti-intervention dogma. I think we are actually more realistically assessing the situation. That is why we were right when we said this would not be a cakewalk and plopping down American style democracy is not going to work. The way I (we) see it, it is the neocons and the “neoconized” mainstreamers who are engaging in simplistic, dichotomous thinking. What the heck is “the end of evil” and talk of an “axis of evil” if not simplistic dichotomous thinking.
I know you hate links for some reason, but I see no reason to repeat what others have said better than I can. Did you read the Austin Bramwell article? If I or all paleos were just a mindless echo chamber then I wouldn’t have linked to that article which is right on about the lack of a war aim, but is very dismissive of paleos in the second half. Go check out the Chronicles website where there are very heated discussions among the paleo ranks. You may want to check out the Ann Coulter thread. That one got pretty heated. If anything, the “paleo movement” lacks ideological coherence and discipline, instead of suffering from too much of it.
I really do try to be nice to you? Why the hostility? I don’t get it.
WolveBear,
The evidence was clearly spun. Read for example the archives of Lt Col Karen Kwiatowski at Lew Rockwell. She worked in the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon. (That is such an Orwellian name it sounds like a bad novel.) She has also testified to this to investigators, so unless you are suggesting she lied the whole sorry story is there.
“Look, if you want to pretend that there’s some grand reason that makes your rather silly criticisms of the war valid-great.”
You mean silly criticism like 3,000+ dead, many thousands more wounded, mental health sequelae, families ripped asunder by repeated deployments, untold thousands of dead Iraqis, no casus belli, violation of the Just War Doctrine, etc. Are those the silly criticisms you are talking about?
This is why a real discussion is impossible. No one — Bush, the “neocons”, Fox TV, etc. — ever said fighting the War on Terror would “be a cakewalk” and that literally “plopping down American style democracy” was either a goal of the US government or a panacea for the world’s problems. This is what the critics of the policy have said the supporters have supposedly said, so they can raise a straw man and go on to prove that point wrong.
It’s completely dishonest debate, and flies in the face of history. Just take the “cakewalk” hyperbole for example. The International Herald Tribune reported on September 22, 2001 — that’s 11 days after the September 11 attack — that “Global financial markets shuddered Friday, sending stock prices lower around the world after President George W. Bush warned in a major speech that the U.S.-led fight against terrorism would be drawn out. … Rather than looking at economic fundamentals, many investors were selling on instinct, concerned that Mr. Bush’s speech late Thursday signaled the United States would engage in a lengthy military response, analysts said.”
But the far-Left crazies and Ubercons of the world want to rewrite history and make us believe that Bush promised a “cakewalk”, so they can condemn present actions as a failure. This is as dishonest a way to argue a point as is repeatedly citing bogus quotes or half-truths. But this is how Ubercons “realistically assess a situation”. Then, they toss in a few references to a Jewish conspiracy just to round things out. And when they’re called on this despicable practice, they just say that they, personally, never used those exact words, and that they consider it a tactical mistake to do so. This allows them to condemn the tactic of Jew-bashing, but not the Jew bashing itself.
Saying “I know you hate links for some reason,” is an equally dishonest way to debate. The point you don’t want to acknowledge about web links, Dan, is that people who are confident about what they believe use them to point to factual evidence (“George W. Bush warned in a major speech that the U.S.-led fight against terrorism would be drawn out”), like I did in citing the Herald Tribune story to refute your contention that we were promised a “cakewalk”. You, on the other hand, use them largely to point to other people’s opinions. Your “comments and debate” link in your article is a John Hawkins opinion piece. Your “internet battles” link is a Libertarian opinion piece. Your next link is an Austin Bramwell opinion piece. You can’t even support a position that all the non-Ubercon policies you dislike will lead to a GOP defeat without citing another opinion piece that all the non-Ubercon policies you dislike will lead to a GOP defeat.
If you look at what Katzen, Wolvenbear, Mountain man, Steve Sabin and others regularly do when making comments, when they use links like Katzen did in comment #1, it is to point to a primary source document to address the substance of an issue, not to an opinion piece by Joe Blow who thinks the same way he does! Most of the time they don’t even use links, because they have the ability to make a persuasive argument on the merits of an issue. This is because they’ve actually thought the matter through, instead of having to measure every thought against a rigid ideological template. And it’s why Katzen and I can debate the meaning of certain constitutional matters without losing respect for each other, even though we end up disagreeing on the issue. He’s put a position forward that doesn’t require someone to drink the Kool aid or read a bunch of other people’s opinions to grasp. In short, even though we may disagree at times, we both come away from the debate learning something about the issue because we’ve had to actually wrestle with the matter, instead of relying on Aristotle or Ron Paul to validate our positions.
The extreme Right begins with the premise that they have an exclusive lock on the answers, and their job is to persuade all us poor uneducated fools that we need to see the world as they do. By contrast, the people I’ve come to respect try to apply the things they’ve studied and learned about life to the world as it actually exists — doing so without blaming Jews, making up quotes, or relying on other people’s opinions as a substitute for their own effort to understand the issue. This is the type of exchange that earns the respect of the people viewing or participating in it. And it’s why your only comment about the matter is to say “I really do try to be nice to you? Why the hostility? I don’t get it.”
“No one — Bush, the “neocons”, Fox TV, etc. — ever said fighting the War on Terror would “be a cakewalk””
Oh really? Sorry, I thought the infamous “cakewalk” quote (regarding Iraq) was common knowledge. I guess I was wrong. Do you follow this debate at all outside your pro-war circles?
“Kenneth Adelman, a longtime neocon activist and Pentagon insider who has served on the Defense Policy Board, wrote a famous op-ed article in The Washington Post in February 2002, arguing, “I believe that demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.”"
Here is a link.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/01/neocons200701
This Vanity Fair article about Adelman’s “famous” (apparently not) cakewalk remark and subsequent neocon backtracking is just one of many hits (73,700) that I got when I entered “neocons cakewalk Iraq” into Yahoo. Perhaps you should read a few of them.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=neocons+cakewalk+iraq&yhdr_submit_button=Web+Search&fr=ush-news
BTW, the link at internet battles to a “Libertarian opinion piece” was to a piece written by yours truly about my internet battles submitted as evidence that I have engaged in said battles. Apparently you missed the author.
The link to the Hawkins piece was intended to demonstrate the comments section which was OVERWHELMINGLY pro-Paul and anti-intervention. Submitted as proof that the case for non-intervention is making headway on the internet.
Perhaps you should read for context before you spout off.
Dan: The irony of quoting yourself in your own article to validate your own opinions was not lost on anyone accessing the link.
And your cakewalk reference was to the “War on Terror” (read your own comments) which you lumped together with Iraq to blur the real facts of the issue that Bush never said that the War on Terror would be a cakewalk. He said the exact opposite. The cakewalk quote is from one person in a Vanity Fair article in 2003 which Helen Thomas and other astounding intellects of our time repeat endlessly as if it’s official US government policy … which accounts for the repeated hits this phrase gets on Google. But you’d know this if you read any of the 73,700 hits you cited.
Since the new standard of scholarship is to quote ourselves as a source authority for our own opinions, I offer the following link as incontrovertible proof that everything I said is beyond question: \http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/02/20/who-are-you/
By the way, if you type my full name into the Google search engine, you get 2,110,000 hits. I guess that makes me a complete source authority on just about any issue you want to discuss, since that’s another new standard by which we will now judge the credibility of information.
“That is why we were right when we said this would not be a cakewalk and plopping down American style democracy is not going to work.”
Actually I was speaking of the War in Iraq, not the broader War on Terror, but since there is really no context other than me saying that paleos were more realistically assessing the situation I guess you will just have to take my word on that.
I stated I was a veteran of internet battles and linked to an article about my internet battles. What would you like me to link to? An article about me feeding the dog? I am not sure what part of that you are having trouble with.
I couldn’t possibly count the number of times you have directed me back to your “What Kind of Car Would Jesus Drive” article. Does a different set of rules apply to the mighty Phil?
Also, the I guess not so famous “cakewalk” article initially appeared in the Washington Post in Feb 2002. The Vanity Fair article was referencing back to it.
Dan:
The “Jesus” article is an original theory of mine, not a re-statement of what others believe. That alone separates it from the Ron Paul website links I pointed out, or the countless links you give us to someone else’s opinion to validate your own opinion.
Besides, I referred you to it because you wrote on December 26, 2006 that “I suspect Phil’s nemesis he is arguing against by promoting a ‘Universal Moral Code’ is moral relativism, but those two are not the only options.” I thought you might actually want to see what I said before you came to a conclusion about it. I didn’t link to myself to use my own opinions as a validation for my own opinions, which is a point you still seem not to have grasped.
BTW, if you Google “Phillip Ellis Jackson” in quotes you get a much more pedestrian 17,500.
BTW, if you Google “Phillip Ellis Jackson” in quotes you get a much more pedestrian 17,500.
** All of which goes to show how irrelevant the original observation was that spurred this discussion.
When did “Kenneth Adelman” become interchangable with “the neocons?” Though the former is one of the latter, they are not synonymous. For instance, I do not impugn Dan Phillips’ reputation by replacing “Liberius” with “the palecons” in a sentence which continues with “think(s) the blood libel has merit.”
If you mean all neoconservatives, you’re probably wrong. If you mean Kenneth Adelman, say “Kenneth Adelman.”
And, if I may point out something else, Kenneth Adelman did not say “Iraq will be a cakewalk.” He specifically identified the would-be cakewalk as “demolishing Hussein’s military power” and “liberating Iraq.” Forget about democratization or “winning the peace” or stability–he doesn’t discuss them. Looking only at the things Adelman did predict would be a “cakewalk,” I think it’s hard to say that he was wrong.
By the way, if you google my name, you get 20 hits–most of them German. I hereby declare myself Chancellor!
Dan Phillips,
You can crow to your little hearts content about how Bush spun the information, but the bottom line still is…he didn’t.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/16/clinton.iraq.speech/
The clinton speech reads as identical to everything Bush told us. Why? Because it was Clinton\’s intelligence that Bush used to justify military action. And it was why everyone believed it without question. Because it was the exact same thing the last two Presidents told us for the past 12 years. Furthermore, it was not the neo-cons (another term to which you have the meaning wrong, as neo-conservative-or new conservative, is a socially liberal pro-war politician) who sold us on the war, but it was the liberals.
http://usconservatives.about.com/od/iraq/p/quotes.htm
Hanz Blix pre-invasion said that there was a very real possibility that Saddam was lying, that the records raised many questions, and that he hadn’t “fully accepted” the resolution to comply.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/27/sprj.irq.blix.report/index.html
It was England who told us that Saddam was seeking uranium in Niger.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/07/12/sprj.irq.uk.uranium.straw/
This is why, pre-invasion, there are no articles talking about “how Saddam didn’t have weapons”, because everyone who had seen the evidence agreed. Saddam had weapons. The “Bush lied” nonsense didn’t come about until after the body count started rising, and his enemies realized they could use the war against Bush. Your position that “Bush manipulated the intel” doesn’t fit with what happened and is only a fantasy of (now)anti-war liberals who seek to revise history to their benefits. No reasonable person can look at the info and conclude that Saddam had no WMDs. They certainly couldn’t in 2003. That so many people have been lied to so much that they believe it doesn’t make the nonsense that “Saddam had no weapons” any truer than if I was telling you “dog poop tastes like candy.”
Seeing as we’ve been over this, you’re deliberately ignoring the evidence (all of it) which simply proves you wrong. It’s like a damn whack a mole game. No matter how many times I smack you down in one forum with the facts, you pop up in another and pretend your political smoting didn’t occur.
You refuse to grasp history and have an understanding of war, comparable to that of a fifth grader. “People have died! Mommy says that makes war a failure!” So, my mockery of you is warrented.
You have no desire to be truthful or accurate. That, in and of itself, is despicible. But add the cost in human lives to the bill, and your side gets nothing from me but contempt. You chase a goal (our withdrawl) that you know will get our soldiers killed. But, truth be damned, we have a goal to achieve! Military action must never be used.
So shove your manufactured outrage over the death count. You don\’t give a damn about these people. You can cry about the sacrifices of war, but I certainly don’t buy it, and neither do our boys in uniform. Given the choice between a nation of “stupid no-nothings who blindly support them” and people of your caliber…they’ll choose the supporters everyday.
But hey, don’t take my word for it! http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/01/sergeant_in_afg.html
If the troops matter to you as much as you pretend, then perhaps we can count on you to do the right thing…and shut up?
Dan Phillips started out with two legitimate points but then failed to fully expand upon them. Specifically, we set military goals in the Iraq war and then achieved them all; we also set political goals and have not yet fully achieved them. I expected Phillips to note the inherent differences between military and political goals and there are substantial, and often overlooked, differences.
Strategic military goals have a “tops down” structure; the highest goals devolving into subsidiary goals, which break down into more specific goals which break down into tactics, etc. The important point to note here is that once the high level strategic goals are achieved, the war is over in all practical sense. For example, in World War II, our strategic goals were the surrender and disbanding of the Axis armed forces. And, the dissolution of the present governments of the Axis powers. Our subsidiary goals were to keep the Soviet Union from making a separate peace with Germany, thereby freeing 200 German divisions to attack the western democracies. Another supporting goal was to keep England free and in the war for use as a staging area for the invasion of Europe. These subsidiary goals created action items such as Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union and the diversionary attack on North Africa in 1942.
Why didn’t we make our WWII strategic military goals the defeat of worldwide fascism, instead of just the Axis countries? Spain was fascist (while Japan was not) and there were strong fascist movements in South America – we actually offered military aid to South American countries to prevent their governments from being overthrown by domestic fascists. The short answer is that we saw no imminent threat from worldwide fascism for various reasons. We also lacked the military force structure to root out fascism worldwide.
And, why didn’t our military goals include the establishment of western style democracies in the defeated countries of Europe, defeated Japan and our Chinese and Soviet allies? Because, our military leaders in the 1940’s didn’t see such goals as either feasible or attainable through military force. Both Churchill and Stalin saw the linkage between military and political goals however. Stalin was characteristically blunt when he confided to a high level Communist Party member that he believed a military victor establishes its own form of government on the defeated enemy to the extent of their military advances. And, history shows Stalin proceeded to do exactly that in Eastern Europe and attempted to do the same in Manchuria and Japan.
Churchill, before his ouster as Prime Minister, also advocated the same concept and wanted the democratic Allied forces to push deeper into Eastern Europe. But, the British Commonwealth forces lacked the military strength to accomplish that. Note that Churchill’s concepts, while admirable political goals, were unobtainable because his country lacked the military strength to obtain them and military force must support wartime political goals.
For the Americans, we still had a war to finish against Japan and took the very pragmatic position that we didn’t have the military strength or ability to oust the Soviet armed forces from Eastern Europe or later in Manchuria. Stalin, on the other hand, did have the military strength to impose his will on defeated territories. However, he didn’t take the naïve approach that imposing communism was a desirable goal and then hope that the eastern European countries would adopt communism as the most desirable form of government. He firmly planted the Soviet foot on the necks of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, part of Germany, Albania, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and forced them to adopt communism.
As Phillips did point out, there is no stated (or explicit) linkage by the Bush administration between military force and the various Muslim countries. Are we to impose our form of government militarily on Iran, Pakistan, Syria, etc.? Or, do we simply hope that by turning Iraq into a basic democracy the other Muslim dominated countries will take the hint? Are we advocating a Vietnam War style domino theory for the Middle East, only in reverse?
For those who point out that we did establish a democracy in Japan subsequent to WWII, there are inherent differences. MacArthur was the undisputed ruler of post-war Japan, even the Emperor acknowledged that reality. And, we carefully and firmly controlled ALL aspects of Japanese society through our military occupation. Why haven’t we taken that approach, it worked before? And, where is the linkage between military goals and political goals in Iraq or the broader war on terror?
If we have ongoing legitimate military goals for Iraq and the war on terror, where is the military force structure to support them? How do aircraft carriers, stealth bombers and ballistic missile submarines contribute to victory? What role do they play? Or, do we forfeit our technological advantages and fight what is essentially an OK Corral style gun battle in the Middle East?
The problem I see in Iraq is failure to link political goals to specific military strategy. To win a war, you need to define how force will accomplish specific strategic military goals. Can we impose democracy and stability by gunpoint? If we choose not to, then how do we effectively use our military forces? So many questions and President Bush has supplied so few answers.
Pat,
You are correct to note that Japan was a different situation, because we imposed government by force. It shows a practical way to accomplish our goals.
And as for “do we just expect countries to fall in a domino pattern”…then answer is yes. Look at what happened after we originally invaded Iraq. Our mistake was in pushing our advantage, so that momentum was still in our favor, and then letting that momentum fall short. Now, we are trying to pick up the momentum again, with much more baggage. It’s still possible, but will be quite a bit harder this time around.
Pat,
We did discuss the difference between political and military goals in some of the comments. Bush’s goals were primarily political, and there is a limit to which political goals can be implemented by military means without overwhelming and ruthless force and/or a compliant population. I think the neocons expected the Iraqis to be reasonably compliant. We as a society are not willing (thank God) to be as ruthless as Stalin. But what are you advocating now?
This also gets at Katzen’s point. Yes Adelman was the only one to use the cakewalk term, but if you read the whole Vanity Fair article many top neocons predicted a reasonably easy transition to democracy for Iraq. Some said we would be greeted as liberators with open arms. The article is some mea culpa and a lot of finger pointing at how the Bush administration failed.
WolvenBear,
Pardon me. I didn’t realize that your pronouncements on this issue were the final word. Pardon my insolence for not believing the pro-war party line. Like I said in the article, I am not a Johnny-come-lately to the anti-war right. I opposed this War all along, as I opposed the First Gulf War. I know everyone didn’t believe Saddam had usable WMDs at the time because I didn’t believe it, and the paleocon people I discussed it with didn’t believe it. We used to comment about how weak the case was and what spineless wimps the Dems were for allowing themselves to get rolled. In fact, when Colin Powell went to the UN and presented his extremely weak case, I remember thinking, “Is that all they got?” If they had something surely they would have presented it instead of making poor Powell look like a laughing stock. Foot stomping does not make your point truer.
It is simply wrong to say everyone believed the WMD claims. No they didn’t. Try Weapons of Mass Deception by Rampton and Stauber (from 2003 so not just hindsight).
Hubris by Corn and Isikoff. David Corn is a lefty but Michael Isikoff is a respected journalist who did some very good investigative journalism of Clinton which conservatives praised. The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Rich. A Pretext for War by Bamford. Etc. It is a sad indictment of the institutional nature of modern conservatism that these books have to predominately come from the left.
“So shove your manufactured outrage over the death count. You don’t give a damn about these people. You can cry about the sacrifices of war, but I certainly don’t buy it,”
Finally, it is extremely obnoxious for you to speculate about what my motives are and what/who I care about. You have no idea. Have you ever worn the uniform? I have. For 12 years. That’s Lt Col Phillips to you. And as a military shrink I had to deal with the consequence of War. The deceased troops and the impact on those left behind. The repeated deployments. The broken marriages. The mental health consequence for those sent away and their love ones who remained home. I don’t play the “I served” card often but I can assure you that I have no “manufactured outrage,” and for you to unknowingly assert that is way out of line.
If you want to know what my motivations for opposing this War and interventionism in general are then ask me. I think that all along I have made clear that they are both political (small government conservatism) and Christian.
And how does withdrawal get our soldiers killed? It keeps them from getting killed.
It is bellicose saber rattling and the equating of national glory with military might and safety and security with just doing something that is the real 5th grade logic.
Wolvenbear
Lt. Col. Dan has just pulled rank on you. He has 12 years experience as a military psychiatrist, so this is the new standard by which we should judge the credibility of his arguments about war. War can be bad for certain people. Of course, it’s also good for the people we liberate from concentration camps, or free from a brutal dictator, or keep from waging terror on our own population, etc. But those “consequences” don’t fit into Lt. Col. Dan’s world.
Never fear, though. In the U.S. we have civilian control of the military, and the decision to engage in armed conflict in defense of the national interest is not made by military psychiatrists. I have a Ph.D. in political Science and 15+ years dealing with state, local, national and international politics. I don’t think Dan has clue what he’s talking about once he gets beyond his Rorschach tests. By Dan’s own criterion we should disregard what he has to say and listen to me instead, since my expertise is greater than his. I also wrote a Christian novel with one of the Catholic Church’s leading theologians, so my Christian values clearly trump Dan’s Christian values as well.
Your assessment of the world situation is entirely correct. No need to change a word. Take care, Phil
Phil, you are so blinded by rage (at what I don’t know. Someone daring to disagree with you maybe.) that you can’t make a post that isn’t hateful. WolvenBear accused me, without any justification (unless being anti-intervention alone is justification enough) of “manufactured outrage.” Well my “outrage” is not the least bit manufactured, I can assure you. Hence the reference to my past military service.
All the keyboard warriors banging away about the glories of war that someone else is fighting do grow a bit tiresome, however. As I have said before, I have no problem with repealing the law against Americans serving as mercenaries. Then if you and WolvenBear wanted to liberate people or topple dictators you could do so until your heart is content.
BTW, does that Catholic theologian you wrote your novel with know more about this War than the current and former Pope? Both adamantly opposed it.
Also, I’m not sure YOU want to accuse ME of playing the credentials card.
Dan: I really do try to be nice to you? Why the hostility? I don’t get it.
For a shrink, you seem to lose your temper a lot. Better work on that bedside manner a bit.
As for the pope opposing war, opposing war is what Men of Peace do as part of being a Man of Peace. They also oppose abortion, birth control, sex outside marriage, masturbation, divorce, the ordination of female priests, and a bunch of other things a lot of people opposed to the war pretty much ignore.
So, we now have another standard for evaluating public policy: If the pope is opposed to it, then we must be opposed to it too … unless we can find enough Google hits or military psychiatrists to point us in another direction.
PS: I presume from your comments that you are not a Catholic, and therefore are not well informed about how the Vatican operates as a political and religious institution (how the two functions intermix and conflict at times, and thus how Vatican policies are actually made), the different Liberal and Conservative factions that exist within the church driving these pronouncements, what a pope’s personal pronouncement means vs. an official encyclical, whether Catholics are duty bound to adhere to every papal pronouncement or only ones that fall within carefully defined boundaries, etc. It helps explain thing like why the Church made treaties with Hitler and Mussolini during WWII, with neither of these actions implying the slightest support for either regime. Things are always a little bit more complicated when you have to go beyond the hyperbole to actually examine an issue.
Oh, and I wasn’t accusing you of playing a credentials card. I recognize that you don’t really have one. Since you brought up the issue in the first place, I was illustrating what a credentials card actually is should one decide to “play” it.
Dan,
I accused you of manufactured outrage because:
a) you don’t care about what the troops want
b) you completely disregard any and all knowledge that doesn’t fit your perceptions
c) you know that al Quida is saying, in essence, the same thing said by the Viet Cong “You will kill 100 of us for every one we kill of you…but you will tire of the war before we will.”
So, since your comments are the sole reason we are still fighting a desperate enemy that knows it can’t win, and only hopes to make us retreat…again, you are helping to send more of our troops home in body bags than would be sent home normally.
But who cares? Dan Phillips has goals to achieve!
You served in the service? Good for you. So did Murtha, and he has no love for our troops. From his slow bleed strategy to his “our troops are terrorists” comments, he has shown his support of our soldiers. Or what about former soldier John Kerry who accused our soldiers of “terrorizing women and children.” What about boot camp kickout Jesse MacBeth, who, after not being able to hack it as a soldier, accused our troops of war crimes. The list goes on.
Simply put, holding the uniform in front of you will not in any way deter me from slamming your positions. You can’t defend your ridiculous positions, and so now it’s “But I was a soldier!” Your tune still sucks, and the words get our soldiers killed.
But hey, you got principals, good for you.
As for “the tons of people who opposed the war”, you then tell me to look up a book that came out a year after the war started. Just wow. That TOTALLY disregards the fact that every world government and even Hanz Blix of the UN was saying “no, he’s TOTALLY got WMDs”, because two authors I’ve never heard of…point out a year after the invasion that “the war on terror” sells Hamburgers. Brilliant! That…has about as much relevance to the debate as how many wives any of us has had.
And furthermore, the Democrats didn’t “get rolled”, Dan. They made the case for war during 8 years of Clinton’s administration…you know…the guy who served before Bush ever even ran for office. So, if you want to be consistant, and say that Clinton lied to us for years, thereby setting up the basis for Bush to lie us into war, that (would sound laughable but) would be at least consistant. But this claptrap that the Democrats allowed themselves to get “snowed over” is revisionist history. Or perhaps you’d like to try and make the case that somehow Bush got to the Democrats in power, years before he ever started running for President, and corrupted their minds?
And a final word of mockery before I finish with you, we’re going to put the Saddam case in a criminal court in the US. Someone has been convicted of several crimes against their neighbors. But they get probation under certain terms. They have to admit cops to their apartment at random, they’re not allowed to have guns, and other conditions. They ignore this ruling for close to a decade. Finally, they get scared of the new sheriff and allow a cop in. He can search the living room, and kitchen, and bedroom, but not the bathroom. The cop leaves and tells his superiors that the convict still won’t accept the terms of probation. Finally they go back, and the apartment is COMPLETELY empty, and when they look out the open window, three black vans can be seen speeding away. Independant witnesses confirm that strange men were emptying the apartment into these vans.
What happens here?
The guy is arrested for violating his parole, and all but the stupidest onlookers agree that the felon was holding weapons, and the denying of officers into his apartment is uncontestable.
Furthermore , at trial, the convict admits he bought guns during the decade he wasn’t allowed to have, but he threw them away.
Who believes this nonsense? Fools.
So, you wore the uniform. You were a frigging shrink. Hell, I’ve counsiled people who return home from war too! I’m an expert in war and didn’t even know it.
You obviously have small gov’t objections to the war. What I’m saying is, is that they trump real concerns about real people. You cite “those poor Iraqis dying” as a reason to leave…as if they won’t be massacred in droves like the last two times we left them to fend for themselves.
But who cares? Dan Phillips wants smaller government!
And this puts soldiers at risk because even the most ragtag schmuck knows that him blowing himself up will make us retreat. So even if we can’t be beat on the ground, it gives a pathetic enemy a continued motivation to keep fighting us after the cause is hopeless, and keep killing our soldiers in hopes of making the American people queezy. You objection is akin to “criminals sometimes kill cops! Let’s not have cops arrest people anymore. That’s the only humane way to keep cops safe.” And all intelligent people look at you and ask the same question “Are you high?”
So retreat hurts the Iraqis, puts us at risk both now and in the future as civilians, and makes our overwhelming military more likely to face threats in the future that wouldn’t exist if the American people would just shut up and let the boys do their jobs.
But who cares? Dan Phillips wants smaller government.
So your arguments suck, they don’t take into account the facts, what the troops want, and how it’ll affect anyone, but I’m beginning to see your point. How dare I use the fact that you don’t care about what the troops want or how it’ll affect them to argue that…you don’t care about the troops.
And of course you have Christian objections to the war. Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.
OH, and P.S., if you can’t catch the dripping Sarcasm in Phil’s comments about seniority, that FURTHER proves to me your inability to grasp a ridiculously complex war, and further underscores your fifth grade approach to the subject.
Katzen (and others who commented about Jews):
I took the weekend off and now I must catch-up. You very much deserved the comment “wallow in ignorance” because of your sarcastic and ignorant remark about Jews poisoning wells. You brought that idea up (I didn’t) as a method of distraction from the very important fact that Jews dominate the “neocons”. From there you only expressed more ignorance, to wit:
1) I never said Scooter Libby was a communist. I said Irving was a former communist which is an undeniable fact. I said Libby was a Jewish neocon who advised the Bush administration to start the war which are other undeniable facts. Yes, I do opine that either Bush and/or the American people were “conned” by the necons and that opinion is supported by the now undeniable fact that Iraq had no significant WMD. I recommend that you read Ron Paul’s speech from July 10, 2003 appropriately entitled “Neo-conned”. http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr071003.htm
2) I did not defend “blood libel”. I gave that as an example of the need to keep an open mind. In the Middle Ages certain Jews were convicted of engaging in blood libel and now a prominent Jewish professor wrote a book indicating that it might actually have been true. I don’t know if it is true, I don’t have a belief on that either way, I only emphasize the need to be more open-minded. Obviously, I am wasting my time trying to get you to be open-minded. I know that Toaff has since backed off. This was his reaction to being threatened with being fired.
3. You say Irving Kristol “played no role in the lead-up to the Iraq war”?! This is incredible. Yes, I know his son is Bill Kristol who has ALSO promoted the war but no educated person can deny the father’s influence. Bill Kristol probably only has his job at the Weekly Standard (and Fox News) because of his father, Irving Kristol, who has been a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 1988, a member of the Wall Street Journal board of contributors since 1972, President of National Affair’s Inc. and perhaps most notably a lifetime member of the COUNCIL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS since 1972. President Bush thinks so highly of IK that he was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 2002. And this man was an “ACTIVE Trotskyist”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Kristol.
4. Katzen, your observance that Bush’s neo-con advisers were “white” is so foolish for a multitude of reasons I don’t know where to begin. There’s just not enough time to address that.
5. You are prejudice against Christians in favor of your Jews with your statement, “…I doubt he can argue plausibly that Jewish crimes against Christians were worse than Christian crimes against Jews.” You are prejudice because you really don’t know the history but TV and leftist professors have done a very effective job of promoting this false propaganda that in the course of the friction between Jews and Christians the Christians are mainly to blame. Consider a few quotes from some prominent Jews:
- “Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group… The Jewish group has thrived on opposition and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world” Albert Einstein quoted in Collier’s Magazine, November 26, 1938. http://www.semite.net/Index1.htm#259
- “There is not a single instance when the Jews have not fully deserved the bitter fury of their persecutors.” Samuel Roth from his book, Jews Must Live (1934, p. 64). http://wake-up-america.net/ARE%20YOU%20AN%20ANTI-SEMITE.htm
- “If this hostility, even aversion, had only been shown towards the Jews at one period and in one country, it would be easy to unravel the limited causes of this anger, but this race has been on the contrary an object of hatred to all the peoples among whom it has established itself. It must be therefore, since the enemies of the Jews belonged to the most diverse races, since they lived in countries very distant from each other, since they were ruled by very different laws, governed by opposite principles, since they had neither the same morals, nor the same customs, since they were animated by unlike dispositions which did not permit them to judge of anything in the some way, it must be therefore that the general cause of anti-Semitism has always resided in Israel [the Jews] itself and not in those who have fought against Israel [the Jews].” (Bernard Lazare, L’Antisemitism, The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins, p. 183) http://www.iahushua.com/JQ/436quote4.html
WB,
You and Phil are two testy fellas. Completely incapable of granting legitimacy to thoughts outside the little box you have been spoon-fed by the “conservative” powers that be. And completely intolerant of dissent.
By your logic once a War is started (and even in the lead up to the War) any dissent is somehow helping the enemy. No questions or concerns allowed. Following the decisions of the Dear Leader is all that is allowed. I might agree with you if I was a state worshipping fascist, but I am not.
We should not have invaded Iraq in the first place, so we should leave as soon as possible. Simple as that. Why is that so hard for you to understand? You can disagree with my judgment, but on what grounds do you question my motives? (Of yeah, I forgot. No dissent is allowed.) Yes there will be chaos, but that is the unfortunate and entirely predictable outcome of our invading in the first place. The chaos will rest entirely on the hands of the war hawks. We could stay there 10 more years and when we leave there will still be chaos.
I am not sure why the “Clinton believed it” line is supposed to sway me. On this War, the dividing line is more non-interventionist vs. globalist/interventionist. Of coarse Clinton saber rattled against Saddam. Clinton was an interventionist. Remember Bosnia and Somalia. (Policies that most Republicans opposed at the time if you recall.) Here is a link to an article describing this divide. Avert you eyes Phil. It is by Prof. Andrew Bacevich. (His son recently died in Iraq, BTW. A little collateral damage in the grand war to slay the Islamo-Fascist beast I guess.) Well worth a read.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_08_28/article.html
Unless I missed it, you still haven’t said what you think the war aim is/should be. When will we be able to leave Iraq/the Middle East and you think we have succeeded? The reason you and the rest of the pro-war crowd is so shrill is because you know the situation is slipping away from you. Cooler heads are finally prevailing, and it is inevitable that the troops are going to start coming home. Republicans are jumping ship. Dems and independents jumped ship long ago.
BTW, since its Monday I guess you are planning on visiting the recruiter today, right? May I suggest the Army? More likely to see action that way. I’m sure you are chomping at the bit to lend a hand to the war effort. Surely you don’t want to miss out on the glories of war. And I’m sure the Army could use someone like you who combines the aspects of both a Wolf and a Bear. I bet you are one fierce fighter. Please let us know how the visit goes. I’ll send you some home made cookies while you’re at boot camp.
Phil,
We had the Pope/Catholic discussion before. I am well aware of the distinctions you are making, but as before I am not exactly sure what is wrong with being a “man of peace.” Darn those men of peace spoiling all our war making fun.
Based on some of the things you have said, I suspect you are too old to enlist, but maybe Black Water or KBR could use a man of your considerable talents. I’m sure you, like WB, wouldn’t want to miss out of the glories of this War. Please tell us how the interview goes.
I’m surprised you and WB hadn’t thought of this already. Imagine all those evil Islamo-Fascists you could have killed already. Stop typing, and get started. I’m sure IC would love to print your pontifications from the front line.
From the Bacevich article: (Again Phil avert your eyes.)
“In a foreign-policy context, “liberal” and “conservative” don’t have any real meaning and never have. When it comes to statecraft, the operative dichotomy does not pit Left against Right, realists against idealists, or (as President Bush has fraudulently argued) isolationists against those committed to engagement and leadership. The real divide today occurs between those who buy into the myths of the American Century and those who see those myths for what they are: once useful contrivances that have become a source of self-delusion endangering the national interest.
The American Century is a morality tale. It instructs and inspires but also warns. It tells of how Americans, having lost their innocence on Dec. 7, 1941, rose up in righteous anger to smite a succession of evildoers. The American Century began when the nation finally embraced its providentially assigned mission to spread liberty around the world. Present-day adherents to this school—self-described liberals like Peter Beinart no less than self-described conservatives like William Kristol—do not doubt that the events of Sept. 11, 2001 simply inaugurated the next phase of this grand undertaking. Absent a failure of nerve on the part of the American people—the bogeyman of isolationism always lurks nearby—final victory in the global war on terror is certain to be ours, thereby securing the utopia of permanent U.S. global dominion. The story of the American Century, endlessly reiterated by members of the political elite, has become our substitute for history.”
So, you’re not Catholic, Dan, and don’t understand how the Vatican operates. That’s all you had to say.
Having seen now that what you understand about US foreign policy is contained in the passage “In a foreign-policy context, ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ don’t have any real meaning and never have,” I now understand completely why you have no idea what you are talking about. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s foreign policy objectives and legislation are obviously indistinguishable from Bush Cheney
WB — I’m too old to join the Army (I’m in my mid 50s), so I’ve confined my support to the military by giving over ten thousands of dollars in food, DVDs and other supplies to our troops so they can rest and relax in between killing terrorists, as well as buying airline tickets for soldiers to visit their families — in addition, of course, to correcting misinformation from the Looney Left and Uber Right about why we need to fight international terrorism instead of re-institute the Articles of Confederation.
If you’re young enough to join the military and are considering a career, I suggest the Psychiatric Services. Apparently, you don’t need any special qualifications to serve in that unit, except for a resentment of the US military’s efforts to fight international terrorism because their actions sometimes get people killed.
Yeah that’s what we are doing in Iraq, fighting that “international terrorism.” And all the Iraqis who have died are terrorists. Right. Keep telling yourself that.
Dan: I really do try to be nice to you? Why the hostility? I don’t get it.
Sarcasm is different than outright hostility, Phil. What follows is sarcasm. I’m sure the esteemed Prof. Bacevich will be forced to reformulate his assessment since he now has the thoughtful input of the learned Dr. Phil Jackson.
Victory can be defined as achieving the following:
1) Control of Iraqi oil resources by Anglo/American entities
2) Establishment of an Iraqi government that will support (1) and will also invest an appreciable percentage of reminaing oil revenues in OECD capital markets
3) Transfer of several billion dollars in U. S. taxpayer funds to business with GOP political affiliations
As of now, the Bush Admin has only been able to achieve (3).
More sarcasm:
That would be Andrew Bacevich, Professor of INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS and History at Boston University. PhD from Princeton, B.S. from West Point. That Professor Bacevich.
http://www.bu.edu/ir/faculty/bacevich.html
Why don’t you school him with your GOP talking points Phil? He is woefully misguided. He wrote a book entitled The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War. I’m sure after a few thoughtful comments from a learned keyboard soldier like you, and he would be forced to reconsider.
Your bedside manner still needs a little work, Dan. Physician, heal thyself.
Now THAT’s sarcasm!
Liberius,
1. Actually, you did not specifiy Irving Kristol as a Communist. You wrote in post #4 that Bush was tricked by “Jewish neocons,” and put in parenthesis “ex-communists”–as though the two were synonymous. In post #9, you listed Scooter Libby as a Jewish neocon. If “Jewish neocon” = “ex-communist,” and Scooter Libby is a “Jewish neocon,” logic dictates that he must also be a communist. But I’m glad to see you now withdraw that assertion.
2. Again, with the “open-mindedness.” If I told you that a prominent Princeton ethics professor has written that bestiality is just fine, as is infanticide, would you be “open-minded” about it? Your claim that Toaff “retreated” only because his job was in jeopardy is purely speculative. Until evidence convinces me to do otherwise, I’ll trust his version of what he thinks over your version.
3. Thank you for citing wikipedia–your only source, apparently, when it comes to neocons. According to William Kristol, his father was a Trotskite for one year (when he was 19), and was an anti-communist Cold Warrior from the end of World War II (in which he served) onward. Capitalizing COUNCIL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS doesn’t make I. Kristol’s participation in it any more damning. It just make you look like you forgot to take your pinky of the Shift key. Do you have any idea how many people are members of CFR? And how many of them oppose the war in Iraq? And how they don’t actually make policy for the United States? Hell, Tom Brokaw serves on the CFR’s Board of Directors. Just what are you implying about Mr. Brokaw? Joseph Nye, who opposed the war and debated William Kristol on it, serves on the same board. But keep capitalizing things–it nearly convinced me.
I stand by what I said about Irving Kristol having nothing to do with the Iraq War, and your insistence otherwise in the absence of evidence is ludicrous.
4. I agree that it is foolish to point out the whiteness of Bush’s neocon advisers. I think it is equally foolish to point out their Jewishness. I’m sorry you’re too busy excusing genocide to address this.
5. So, you quote Jews saying stupid things. Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I supposed to say, “Well, if Samuel Roth says the pogroms were justified, that settles it!” Am I supposed to think that a stupid statement because less stupid when a Jew makes it? It would be funny, but you really seem to believe that you have good point.
I look forward to your response, in which surely you will explain to me the justice of each and every one of the events listed here: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8815/chrono.html
Please. Explain it to me. I’m trying to be open-minded.
UBERCON ALERT:
The pope has made personal statements opposing the war in Iraq, and this (in addition to a sufficient number of Google hits) has been cited as incontrovertible evidence that the war in Iraq is wrong. I pointed out that “the Vatican operates as a political and religious institution ([and we need to understand] how the two functions intermix and conflict at times, and thus how Vatican policies are actually made), the different Liberal and Conservative factions that exist within the church driving these pronouncements, what a pope’s personal pronouncement means vs. an official encyclical, whether Catholics are duty bound to adhere to every papal pronouncement or only ones that fall within carefully defined boundaries, etc. “ This was said in the context that “As for the pope opposing war, opposing war is what Men of Peace do as part of being a Man of Peace. They also oppose abortion, birth control, sex outside marriage, masturbation, divorce, the ordination of female priests, and a bunch of other things a lot of people opposed to the war pretty much ignore.”
This reasoning was specifically rejected by UberCon Central: “I am well aware of the distinctions you are making, but as before I am not exactly sure what is wrong with being a ‘man of peace.’ Darn those men of peace spoiling all our war making fun.”
Well, we all know that UberCons are nothing if not principled and consistent in their reasoning. If what the Pope says personally about the Iraq war is good enough to make UberCon policy, then an official pronouncement from the pope leaves absolutely no room for doubt that the policy is indeed correct.
Since the pope is now a recognized UberCon authority whose pronouncements must be obeyed, I issue this urgent UBERCON ALERT to all non-Catholic Christians. The Vatican today released a document that described “the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as ‘not proper Churches’ in a document issued with the full authority of the Pope.” Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2056515.ece
I expect every UberCon to visit their local Catholic parish priest first thing in the morning to begin the formal conversion process to Roman Catholicism. Otherwise, we’d be forced to conclude that when the pope speaks as an individual his words matter, but when he speaks with the full authority of the Church his position can be accepted or rejected at will.
Or … like their Looney Liberal cousins, UberCons will simply cite anything for any reason to validate their pre-conceived conclusions regardless of the implications or consistency of their pronouncements.
Katzen:
I have twice (yesterday and early this morning) sent you a response that fully addressed things you said. I can only assume my post was censored by IC.
Phil,
I don’t think they could bring themselves to acccept Vatican II.
Katzen — not unless Vatican II was against the war, cited Aristotle as a source authority on all matters political, and was in favor of re-instituting the Articles of Confederation.
Has anyone seen any straw men lately?
So neocons and mainstream conservatives are allowed to use nuance and subtlety and shades of grey when they look upon the actions/pronouncements of the Catholic Church, but paleos are not? I got it. That is because neocons are thoughtful, but paleos are all rigid hidebound ideologues. Whatever? In the Bizarro World that Phil lives in I guess that is correct.
As I said, I am well aware of the distinctions you make, even though I am not a Catholic. But if the Popes (Paul and Benedict) were for the War and thought spreading democracy by force was peachy keen, don’t you think they would have said so? Their denunciation of the War was/is purely a compromise political decision?
I still think it is telling that you casually dismiss their condemnations with your “man of peace” reference. I am still trying to figure out what is wrong with being a man of peace. I guess Phil is a mighty man of war (based on watching war movies or playing video games I guess) so he knows better. Got to break some eggs to make an omelet, right Phil?
UBERCON ALERT: UPDATE
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! UberCon Central has just issued a revised update.
If the pope voices his personal opinion about a matter like the war in Iraq, we are to follow his advice immediately! However, if the Pope — in his official capacity as the head of the Roman Catholic Church — issues an official decree, well, just go ahead and ignore it if you want.
Sorry for the confusion.
Hey, you IC folks! That was very unfair to allow Katzen to get his word in but then censor my retort (twice) and even my complaint about being censored. Believe it or not, we can have a reasonable and intelligent discussion about these senstitive enthic issues. It’s a horrible shame when even the words of Winston Churchill must be quashed. So much for free speech.