Letters to the Editor
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Slaughter and company simply can't grasp the underlying problem.
As I pointed out yesterday, the various 'liberal hawks' and war cheerleaders haven't changed their tune for the simple reason that they have no real personal stake in the actual conflict.
It isn't them or their loved ones going away, getting mangled and killed, all in the name of...well, whatever the justification is this week. Their livelihood is not at threat at the loss of a partner or bread-winner, nor are their children at risk of loosing one or both parents.
Perhaps I'm being unfair and some of these 'hawks' honestly and sincerely believe military occupation of another country will spread 'American values' and transform the world. Perhaps they even believe such a chimera (and make no mistake, that's all it is) is well worth 4,000+ American lives.
But not their own life. Never must they themselves or their own families pay the price for invoking this disaster.
To hell with them and their self-serving plans and pleas, I say.
They've had their day and their say. If there were any real justice in the world, or if they had even a modicum of actual self-awareness, they'd politely bow off the stage and let people who actually know what they're doing take over.
If only.
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@ shooter242
So, whom do we invade next? And with what army? Staying engaged in the world is a completely different thing than invading other countries on a whim, for no good reason, or simply for political purposes.
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As I don’t hesitate to argue with him when I think he’s wrong,
this is due.
Shooter’s right.
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Clinton's files violated as well
This breaking on CNN minutes ago. Not yet posted on their website.
The State Dept. is reported to notifying the Clinton campaign that Hillary's passport files have also been breached at least once.
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If only...
I'd pay good money I tell ya, to see GG, on some MSM platform, deliver the sentiments expressed in this post directly to [insert "pundit" here].
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Glenn
Not on topic, but regarding your pieces on extremist pastors and their support for our presidential candidates, check out Barbara Ehrenreich's article on Hillary Clinton's right-wing Bible study group. It's in The Nation this week.
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Actually, shooter242 is an uber-conservative.
Shooter’s right. -- talesofunrest
More like an absolute conservative, in the sense he's deliberately kept himself unevolved and unchanged since falling out of the cradle.
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Worse Doctor than that
Great post.
The bad doctor metaphor makes the point well but I think it need to be extended a bit to really apply to Iraq.
More appropriate would be a doctor who insists you need surgery on your knee because he wants to bill for the MRI and procedure. When the MRI comes back normal he/she takes another x-ray with his "special machine" that confirms the need for surgery. He will only let his selected colleagues see the films and they confirm his diagnosis. When you insist on seeing the films he grudgingly allows you to show them to an expert and when that expert says he sees no problem, the original doctor calls him a quack and threatens to sue him. He also scares you into surgery because "if we don't fix it now, the disease will spread and kill you within weeks."
After the surgery leaves you gimpy and a biopsy shows the knee was normal the doctor says that, while the knee was part of the problem, he now thinks the real problem is the kidney and that goes. Then the problem becomes the lungs, then the heart.
When you complain that the doctor has destroyed you and you sue him, you find out from the courts that no malpractice law applies to him and you are presented with a huge bill.
Finally, as you start to pull your life together, still aching and paying bills, your sister sees a trainee of your doctor who tells her she needs surgery on HER knee.
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I just think...
...that Ms. Slaughter has a very fitting name indeed.
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Aych -
the learning ability of humans (not only Americans - Germans can be worst) is highly overrated!
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@ Iokannan
Perhaps I should have emphasized 'right in this particular instance.’ But he is. The U.S. needs to put its Messiah complex back in its pants.
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Anyone who believes in "preemptive war" has zero . . .
credibility and zero right to refer to themselves as a "fellow liberal." I'm all for addressing the reality on the ground in Iraq but that reality cannot be filtered through the twin lenses of American hubris and self-righteousness. It needs to be filtered through the lenses of humility and contrition. We broke it and we can't fix it alone. At least not continuing to intervene militarily other than as part of an international peacekeeping and anti-terrorism force.
Only in conjunction with the broader international community, which includes Iran playing a meaningful role, do we even stand a chance of contributing something meaningful to Iraq's reconstruction because we lost our moral legitimacy, which is key, when we went it alone. We bombed it to rubble and then didn't have a plan to put people to work rebuilding it (not that we should have bombed it to dust in the first place). We certainly haven't done a good job preventing ethnic cleansing or assisting refugees and their destination nations. In fact there is ample evidence that we've done nothing to help them in pursuit of political gain. The reality is our ME and worldwide foreign policy needs a complete and fundamental overhaul and reorientation.
Superpower my ass. We don't seem so powerful now, do we. Bleeding lives and money in pursuit of a dying resource into perpetuity if we stay on this path. The power to destroy isn't half as meaningful as the power to peacefully build bridges and adapt quickly to changing circumstances. Some never seem capable of learning the very simple lesson that most people will never accept an occupying force on their soil any more than Americans would on theirs.
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Don't forget the inherent Bigotry in idea
of teaching "THEM" how to be Free, even if it means a few thousand of "THEM" have to die.
Birth pangs and all that...
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Wanton Slaughter
Somewhere in one of the collections of Garrison Keillor's short pieces, c. 1995-- "We Are Still Married", possibly-- is a funny-because-it's-true musing on America as a "big two-hearted forgiving country".
I'm sorry for spoiling it with imperfect paraphrase, but one trenchant bit involves imagining what it would be like if Hitler survived and appeared on the network teevee morning shows to pimp a newly-published memoir.
He suggests that American viewers would pause between bites of toast to stare at the TV screen as the white-mustached Hitler easily deflects questions about his storied past with good humor: "Katie, that was a long time ago! I'm not about dwelling on the past-- a lot of things happened on both sides, we all have our regrets. The important thing is how we face each new day, and what we do to make the future a better place..."
That wickedly excellent satire came immediately to mind when I read Slaughter's screed in the trash-tabloid Huffington Post. It's so transparently lame and self-serving that it's bound to elicit vigorous nods of approval from the rest of the "liberal hawk" infotainwhore community.
Slaughter and her ilk will wave the tattered scraps of their groupthink security blanket until they are wrapped in their shrouds.