Letters to the Editor
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@Worst...
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army and US Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She served 16 years in the US diplomatic corps in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Micronesia and Mongolia. She resigned from the US Department of State in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq."
Don't you know that in the Republic of Wingnuttia, opposition to the current grand adventure, automatically and immediately renders your previous service non-existent.
Just ask:
Scott Ritter
Karen Kwiatkowski
Richard A. Clarke.
Paul O'Neill
Joe Wilson
Valerie Plame
Sibel Edmonds
(If anyone cares to add to this list, we could probably reach 100 names in no time.)
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@ Paul Dirks..
QUOTE
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Is there any scientific evidence that we collectively are really this stupid?
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I don't know if voting can be considered scientific evidence per se, but yes...any collective (ie, the American people) that would vote for George W. Bush twice is quite stupid.
Moreover, I do not think scientific evidence is necessary in order to conclude the typical American is not an intellectual.
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What I'm driving at....
any collective (ie, the American people) that would vote for George W. Bush twice is quite stupid.
Granted, but the the '06 elections showed that there is only a certain amount of twisting that reality can withstand before a tear develops and the truth starts becoming visible. Glenn's post today, is first-hand evidence that the administration and their enablers-in-print are still counting on the inattention of the audience. It will be interesting to see if it works.
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The press is also starting idiot polls again
CNN had the time tested poll regarding the terrorists being more or less likely to attack the U.S. if a Dem or Rep was in charge. And, is it likely to happen within a year? Here comes the fearmongering as Americans aren't sufficiently frightened anymore. One attack is all it will take to close the blinds again.
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I get the spirit of the article, but
It would be just like the Repugs to cap the hideous capitulation of our spineless Dumbocratic reps with a plan to take the debate from them permanently. I mean, none of the other times mentioned in Greenwald's excellent article had a competitive general election attached. Perhaps I'm just bitter after the week that has been, but really, if the Repugs take away the Dems signature issue -- troop withdrawal -- it's hard for me to see how this unprincipled collection of Dumbocratic cowards stands a chance in 2008.
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Shinola
Moreover, I do not think scientific evidence is necessary in order to conclude the typical American is not an intellectual.-- xititjur99
Being able to distinguish between shoe polish and organic fertilizer doesn't have much to do with being an intellectual. Much of our current foreign policy mess is the work of over-pedigreed pointyheads whose formal educations and degree trails outstripped their intellects years ago.
Most of the working people I know who fall into xititjur99's non-intellectual category were quietly skeptical of the Iraq venture by mid-2004. They weren't gunning for the U.S. to lose, but they weren't particularly snowed by the spinmeisters either. But people have their lives to lead. 13 hour night shifts at the rehab hospital. Sales coverage areas half the size of the Midwest. Child support payments, medical bills, refiling taxes because the accountant had incorrect information on the K-1. Mistaking these constraints for widespread dullness is an especially pernicious form of stupidity.
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Now. Glenn.
I admire your outrage. I do.
But there is nothing new in this. At all. War supporters have found, repeatedly, that if they just lie, and say what they think people want to hear, regardless of whether the lie comes true or not, that'd enough. It's worked for over 4 years now. Why won't it work again?
It seems clear that Bush will probably rotate some troops back to the US before the 2008 elections. These guys aren't stupid. But it will be a sham. Bush, and the GOP, are laying the groundwork to have it both ways: they can say to their base that they're still fighting the war in Iraq, they haven't "surrendered." And they can say to swing voters "look, we're reducing troop levels in Iraq, things are going better."
Look for Bush and the GOP to simply lie about conditions in Iraq before 2008. It'll be a variation on "who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes?"
After all, that's the game Bush has been playing for a long time now. Even before he was President. There is no reason that it won't work again.
All the GOP has to do is hang on to their Base, and convince a narrow plurality of swing voters in key states to vote for them again, and, viola! They have the house and senate back.
Bank on it. These guys never give up, and never give in, unlike the Democrats, who appear to know ONLY how to give up, and give in.
Bush and the GOP were just brilliant in not re-instituting a draft. Had there been a draft, this war would never have even started, and if it had started, we'd have been out very, very quickly, regardless of conditions on the ground.
No draft, no mass public outcry. No mass public outcry, no end to war.
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shooter's ignorance
Looking beyond his evident bigotry, he betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of human conflict.
"Muslims" are not some coherent monolith who collectively agree to make Iraq a shitstorm. Instead we have rival factions who hate each other as much or (believe it or not) more than they hate Americans.
We also have opportunistic factions who are happy to have the Americans present because for whatever reason they benefit by it.
Finally we have factions that know the departure of the Americans would be detrimental to their interests. I would put the Sunnis in this category. Right now with the American presence they are able to compete with the shiites militarily because the latter are prevented from using their full might against them. Frankly the numerical advantage for the Shiites would eventually mean they would destroy the Sunnis in any protracted conflict.
But to shooter, it's much simpler to think of them all merely as "muslims" and write them off as stupid for not acting collectively in their best interest.
As if Americans do any better on such subjects: Was the civil war good for America? Wouldn't it have been better if the South had negotiated some financial settlement, freed the slaves and avoided being defeated militarily by the north, which also would have saved the cost in treasure and lives of invading the south? The slaves could have been freed several years earlier.
Is the war on drugs good for America? Why aren't Americans smart enough to stop taking addictive and harmful substances on their own without massive police state intervention?
Any half decent social scientist could give shooter a variety of issues where Americans (or any society) could benefit greatly through cooperative collective action, but no one to date knows how to organize such things where it entails asking individuals to sacrifice personally for a greater good. People just don't do that reliably enough.
Shit, the UN is exactly one such effort, but because of many people like Shooter who distrust it and work against it, it is often ineffective as it requires an often unattainable degree of unanimity to achieve meaningful action.