Letters to the Editor
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and it's "inscribed on"
But don't let your language problems dissuade you, I didn't graduate either.
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@ jprfrog
Nicely done.
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errr...
"Did you find the WMDs? Good for you! Wow, we'll show those doubters now!"
How glib you lefties can be.
I have a lot more respect and time for someone who says Iraq was about oil, or energy, or imperial ambition - all of which are true to some degree or another - than I have for reductionist morons whose soap-opera world is no more complex than a Maureen Dowd column.
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Derbig
Inspiring, very! But who is equal to the story of Christopher Hitchens' war? Think of the logistics problems; the guy has to be tailed by a booze-filled fleet of C-130's! Heroic flying, "over the Hump and straight to the chump" as one pilot put it.
Temper your insolent tone when speaking of the legendary Admiral Hitchens. Like a great, alcohol-soaked War Steed, he requires epic amounts of sustenance, but no cost of spirits can outweigh the immeasurable contribution he offers to the great war of fair and sensible national security dialogue.
Shall we drink and urinate on ourselves in celebration of his Glory?
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Don't be a fool, ProWar
The critique - ad hominem of course - of WAR PROPONENTS AND THEIR MOTIVES (not the war itself) is often based on that.
It's worse than foolish to take the weakest possible interpretation of your interlocutor's argument, ProWar. It's chickenshit.
Something more than mere support for a war without fighting in it is required to earn the "chicken hawk" label. Chicken-hawkism is the belief that advocating a war from afar is a sign of personal courage and strength, and that opposing a war from afar is a sign of personal cowardice and weakness. A "chicken hawk" is someone who not merely advocates a war, but believes that their advocacy is proof of the courage which those who will actually fight the war in combat require.
Over and over again, those who simply advocate a war in which the lives of other people will be risked label themselves strong and courageous. National Review's Cliff May this week argued that those who advocate wars are warriors every bit as much as those who actually fight them. Conversely, pro-war advocates frequently ascribe qualities of weakness, spinelessness, cowardice, hysteria, and anti-American subversiveness -- not to mention being “small hollow men [who] are the equivalent of those grubby little Nazis” -- to anyone who is against the war in Iraq or who favors an end to our occupation there sooner rather than later.
This dynamic requires criticism because it is so irrational, false and manipulative. There is nothing courageous or strong about wanting to send other people to war or to keep them in wars that have already been started. And there is nothing weak or cowardly about opposing the commencement of a war in which others will bear the risks. To the extent courage and cowardice play a role in war advocacy at all, one could argue that those who blithely want to send other people off to war in order to protect themselves against every potential risk are driven by fear and weakness. And those who are less fearful will require a much higher level of personal threat before believing that it is desirable and just to send other people off to risk their lives.
Link at sig.
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@Proximity Warning
There are many cynical (and highly plausible) explanations as to why wars are fought - it doesn't surprise me that you favor the one that requires the least thought, the least knowledge, and an insight in to the male psyche of such complexity it could be adequately enscribed in a fortune cookie. It's the Oprah school of foreign policy analysis.
This is probably a war that beats most others for the cynicism with which it was started. The total lack of concern for human suffering and death by those who started it is what provokes the criticism that they have never been in the military: Only people who had never seen horror up close could do such a thing. That's a very valid criticism and not in the least oversimple.
Furthermore, it has been the behavior of the people in question that has provoked the description of the male psyche that Glenn and others have used. Science uses the Law of Parsimony and the simplest description that fits the facts is assumed to be the most correct. If your role models exhibited behavior that required more nuance than could be expressed on a fortune cookie, their male psyches would require more theory. But the facts speak otherwise.
No, it's not the Oprah school of foreign policy, its kindergarten at the Paul Nitze SAIS. Your comments don't rise to such a level as to preclude ad hominem retorts, since a condescending attitude, which is your most consistent but most undeserved personality feature, is also an ad hominem.
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Get Out !
Nothing permanent that's good will happen until we leave.
We are invaders, a cancer that the Iraqi people barely tolerate but their patience is wearing thin.
What idiot thought up this war anyway - oops - I forgot that a small town in Texas is missing its idiot.
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@RMP
Thanks, and again you've avoided the question. It must not be worth answering, and a disquisition on the homo-erotic nature of the command structure in the enlisted ranks is always worth having.
I don't think, sir, you are being completely straightforward with me.
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Another drink!
How glib you lefties can be.
I have a lot more respect and time for someone who says Iraq was about oil, or energy, or imperial ambition - all of which are true to some degree or another - than I have for reductionist morons whose soap-opera world is no more complex than a Maureen Dowd column.
To glib reductionism!
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@ Flatulence Warning
Mmm...
"I do know. They don't."
Though it wouldn't really matter to you guys if they did, would it?
We are accustomed to dealing with the facts as they exist. Maybe it's because too many people are spending time thinking about how things would be if the 'facts' were different that we're in the awful mess we're in. But over in your parallel universe, that tactic works out just wunnafull all the time....
As a couple of people pointed out over at ThinkProgress today, "every day is an 'opposite day' for this maladministration and its flacks...." (click my sig for link to these comments)
Cheers,