Letters to the Editor
-
Back to his failed tricks, I see....
The smart thing? You certainly have the right to an opinion that Bush should have put 300 million people at risk against the possibility that Saddam was bluffing.... but then again you have no responsibility for that particular gamble. In other words it's very easy to be a "hindsight hero" and complain that Bush did the wrong thing. OTOH if YOU were wrong, tens, hundreds, thousands, or millions of people would die. I'm glad Bush called the bluff.
Now then, there is no such thing as a "wayback" machine. You can whine, complain, and kvetch in your martini all you like, but we are there now and the CURRENT realities must be dealt with.
One thing I have learned from years of investigations and fraud prevention. When you question somebody as to why/what they did, and they change their story substantially, you cannot trust any of the reasons they give.
The maladministration's first inferred claim was that Saddam was behind 9/11. That didn't stick under the light of reason almost from the get go (especially since they were fixated on SH from prior to the 2000 election).
Then he had weapons of mass destruction. That, too, turned out to ba a false claim, that was being disproven before the invasion went off.
Then he was a bad man, and had to go. True, as far as it goes; but he was a bad man who we supported for decades as a potential catspaw against Iran, and who previous adminstrations decided to leave declawed, in place, to prevent a power vacuum in the region.
Then we wanted to spread democracy--as if any lasting democratic movement has been successfully enforced from above. Usually, it is a home-grown endeavor against a repressive power. Hmm.
Now we want to stop Iran's hegemony as a regional power. Kind of a zen exercise--to prevent a power vacuum, we must create a power vacuum.
There was no gamble to protect 300 million Americans. That is a red herring the size of Cleveland and as smelly as driving past a pig farm.
People here are mostly not hindsight heroes--I knew the reasons for the war were B.S. from before the invasion. I recall well watching cable that day and saying to my wife "there's no reason for this." Maybe you weren't listening to the opposition to the invasion at the time, because the credible information available even at the time indicated that Saddam was bluffing, and a honest examination of the record, and your conscience, would indicate that.
Barbara Tuchman, in her work "The March of Folly", used three criteria in deciding whether to include an historical event as one of her examples.
First, the actions must have been self-defeating; i.e., actions taken against the best interest of the actors.
Second, the actions had to be those of a group, not an individual.
Finally, the actions had to have a viable alternative, that was recognized at the time, which would not have been against the self interest of the actors.
Fitting those criteria, she found the Renaissance popes whose actions caused the ferment that resulted in the Church's split in the Reformation; the English Parliament whose handling of the American colonies led to our Revolution; and Vietnam, where successive administrations funded, continued, and expanded a war that served no actual strategic purpose and brought forth movements that undermined the political system at the time.
Now we have another clear example, a war of folly, clearly contraindicated from before its beginning, but created, expanded, and supported by those who are acting against the best interests of the United States, even though they are part of it and are charged with defending it. And all, apparently, to restore the power loss caused by the previous reign of folly.
-
Jordan Orlando
I think that is about the best defense of the Chickenhawk ad hominem I have seen. Whether the proposition is supportable empirically is a different question altogether, especially when one considers that a very high majority of the persons who have actually served in Iraq support the positions articulated by persons such as Lowry and VDH.
Let's face it. None of this would even be worth talking about (the Chickenhawk argument) had Bush or Cheney actually served in combat. This understandably might viscerally piss people off, but it is not an Argument.
-
Bumper sticker
I think we need a bumper sticker saying
Support the Troops! ENLIST!!!
-
@ Jim Montague
I'm not much with a scalpel, but I can cut drywall pretty accurately, so I'd be willing to give it a shot. As for the great Digby, I am to her what Dan Quayle is to John Kennedy, but thanks. I do seem to have a talent for tripping shooter's trigger, though. Let's brace for his next, uh, shot.
-
@Bo Steele
"Chickenhawk" is an interesting term that different folks define differently, but as I see it, McCain is excused from chickenhawkery not by virtue of his service in a previous war, but by his age. He would not be fighting in this war in any event, so his willingness to fight is a moot point.
To me, a chickenhawk is someone eligible to enlist who cheerleads for a war and claims that said war is vitally important, but declines to fight in said war, preferring to leave the icky no-fun parts to others. The chickenhawk is unmoved by the fact that the military desperately needs more soldiers to prosecute the war he asserts is so important, and he believes that his willingness to advocate wars in which others will do the fighting makes him more manly and courageous than those who oppose such wars.
Bush, for example, was a chickenhawk in Vietnam. He supported the war but wanted no part of it himself. McCain, by contrast, was a heroic warrior in Vietnam. Now, they are both soulless old men who send soldiers off to die for nothing, and bask in the applause of the chickenhawks.
-
Central to the Warhawk's Ideology...
is the axiom that the POTENTIAL loss of SOME American lives justifies the ACTUAL loss of any number of foriegn (in this case, Iraqi) lives. That's a position that can never produce a positive result, or anything that could ever be described as a "victory".