It’s why they can put the “Free Tibet” and “Save Darfur” bumper stickers on the Prius; that’s all that’s required to prove to the world that they’re concerned. Heaven forbid that we send troops to either of those places; no, diplomacy will work. Just see how successful Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were with North Korea. And if only Israel would give up 50% of its land, well, the Palestinians would instantly stop rocketing Israeli villages, don’t you know.

No, I’m afraid that your metaphor of children’s stories is absolutely spot on—pacifists are always willing to sit out the conflict and let others do the suffering and dying to save them. After all, smelling flowers under the cork tree is ever so much more comfortable.

This seems so shocking that one’s initial reaction is “that’s crazy.” But think about all the rest of the Left’s agenda. They don’t like anything about America or Americans. They don’t like the way we live, they don’t like the way we earn our livings, they don’t like the things we do for fun, they don’t like the way we go to church, they don’t like the fact that many Americans are white, they don’t like the fact that America is strong and rich and powerful in the world.

Just listen to their rhetoric, and to the odd way in which they speak of Americans as something almost foreign and apart from them and their supporters. The Left in America are not Americans. They don’t think of themselves as Americans, they would be insulted if you called them Americans, and they hate America and Americans with a burning passion.

So the prospect of a humiliating defeat for America pleases them. The idea of American cities being attacked pleases them. The thought of Americans dying pleases them. They want us all to die.

I think many of them actually do understand that the destruction of America means suicide for themselves, but they’re so consumed with self-loathing and hatred that they’re willing to make that sacrifice.

A prediction: if a Republican wins the Presidency in 2008, expect to see a new development in the War on Terror — the rise of “secular jihadis.” These will be Western-born, even American individuals who don’t come from Muslim immigrant families and aren’t Muslims themselves. They’ll be white upper-middle-class leftists making suicide attacks on U.S. targets. It’s the logical outcome of the Left’s decades of indoctrination into anti-American hatred and self-loathing.

Leftists and Jihadis both want the violent overthrow of the US and the US military. What else stands between them and world dominance? The problem is that although leftists are willing to tolerate jihadis as long as they behave like mad killers against US interests, jihadis do not really think too highly of leftists—except as temporary allies of convenience.

Afterward, the deluge.

I don’t hold your view of the anti-war Left as antithetical to America per se. After all, Nancy Pelosi is nothing if not an avowed capitalist as far as her personal life is concerned. Jack Murtha is certainly not wishing for his pork barrel to dry up. No, they’re interested in personal power, and in creating a victim/infant state that requires their remaining in power to provide services and “leadership” to the sheeple. So, they don’t want America to be defeated; they just want the Republicans and George Bush to be defeated, or at least for their policies to fail.

I don’t think that they think it’s possible for America to “go away”. I think that they think the jihadis can’t possibly succeed in bringing such a great country to its knees. They don’t see that another 9/11 (or worse) could do irreparable economic damage; that pulling out of Iraq would be a disaster of perception for American might; that the U.S. would be hard-pressed to find an ally anywhere after such an occurrence. They’re only interested in the next election cycle and how they can customize that taxpayer-furnished Gulfstream. Sadly, there are many Republicans who are just as short-sighted…and I really do fear for the Republic.

But it’s not overt evil, it’s just the dumb, ignorant kind.

If Bush had bothered to at least avoid the appearence of cronyism and corruption, his and the war’s approval ratings might have stayed in the 40% range instead of the Nixonian 20s they have today.

Making nonsensical charges against the vast majority of Americans who now oppose the war is just digging the hole deeper.

But it beats self-reflection, don’t it?

And who’s the savior on the other side, alphie? Putin? Chirac? Villepin? Pelosi? Murtha? Annan? Kennedy? Kerry?

The world is filled with corruption. As I’ve said before, our choices were bad…or unbelievably bad. I choose just “bad”. The alternatives were all worse. See how the Democrat Congress has altered the “culture of corruption” they were elected to eliminate….

Compared to Bush, anyone on your list now qualifies as “lesser evil” these days, even to most Republicans.

In what way shape or form does your statement “Could the pro-war crowd have picked a worse poster child for their endless “war of civilization?” make any sense? Did you just make that up?

The Huntington interpretation actually runs counter to both the realist (and neo-realist) schools, as well as being contrary to Democratic Peace Theory which, as you know, is combined with an essentially Wilsonian Internationalism yields the whole foreign policy outlook of the Straussian Neocon movement.

But you know that already don’t you? Because you couldn’t just persist in making sh!t up without any basis in fact and then with amazing consistency, fail to back up anything you’ve said, right?

BRD

He was a pretty smart guy.

Give me GWB over any of the fools on my list. Any day. As far as “pi**ing away” approval ratings, it’s only because of the endless litany of “Iraq war gone bad.” Which isn’t true…and you don’t hear any good news about the higher-than-ever economy either, do you?

But it doesn’t matter, ’cause it’s just more comfortable to blame W for all of the world’s problems, isn’t it?

You may see the 60% of the Americans who have abandoned Bush and his war as easiy beguiled sheep.

I think the charge is better applied to the 28% of Americans still paying dues to the dead-enders club.

Each of them thinks they are using the other as “useful idiots”. They are each thinking that once they defeat the West, they can then turn around and liquidate their “ally”. Should be interesting to watch, but I’ll probably be dead by then.

“We must rediscover the strength and clarity that forged a great nation. We face an enemy who hungers for the destruction of not only the lives but also the spirit of the American people. In the long, exhausting war against terrorism, our love for the American people and our country will be tested. We will learn intimate depths of sorrow, pain and death. But, no matter the price, we can afford no weakness in our resolve. Our American generation carries now a terrifying responsibility: the fate of a great nation and a great people. We must not fail. Victory is Life.”

- My Students United for Victory/America (Columbia University student group) Victory & Peace statement from 2002-2003.

Read all our statements:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2005/10/victory-peace-statements-by-students.html

And I LOL at you wingnuts fantasising about a leftist jihad. Dudes, it’s your guys who are doing all the killing. We just want you to stop.

What, exactly, do you mean by “your guys”?

What’s the “us” versus “them” split you’re seeing here?

BRD

Who’s “we,” Dr. Zen? The peace-loving folks who are stopping the fighting and the jihadis in Darfur? Rwanda? Bosnia? Chechnya? Thailand? East Timor? Israel? Madrid? London? Paris?

Clearly, Dr. Zen is is talking about the Buddhists.

He’s obviously one of the splinterists who considers Buddhism to be a taint on the spiritual purity of Zenland.

One of the things that causes such ill-will on the subject of this post is the difficulty in believing the “give peace a chance” people actually believe that stuff. Nobody could possibly be that stupid.
Thus, they must have some reason for pitching that crap. Some reason they want to hide from us, since they’re speaking in total opposition to facts and logic and history. They have to lie, we think, because they know they can’t sell what they’re really trying to do. Has to be the case.

Being lied to annoys people.
Being told a lie which presumes you’re a total idiot because the lie is so lame–compliment me by lying well, please, don’t insult me by mailing it in–is more annoying.
And seeing the horrid consequences of what they are trying to isn’t comforting, either.

Welp, lessee if these aging eyes can manage this code.

I hate to tell you, but not even Bush pretends Saddam had ties to al Qaede anymore.

What percentage of Americans do you figure true believers like yourself and lee total up to?

5% maybe?

We still live in a democracy. To keep troops in Iraq beyond January of 2009, you’re gonna need a majority of Americans on your side.

You guys really need to put away the “MSM” conspiracy theories and come up with some reality-based arguments real soon or its all over.

I imagine they got some agreements to cap Bush’s nuttiness in the closing months of term in exchange for the money.

I’d bet it was an agreement not to attack Syria and Iran and instead, begin negotiations with them.

Not a bad deal, considering.

Yeah, “honorable”…

Look at what we have wrought, and cry…
May 29, 2007
The New York Times

Desperate Iraqi Refugees Turn to Sex Trade in Syria

By KATHERINE ZOEPF

MARABA, Syria — Back home in Iraq, Umm Hiba’s daughter was a devout schoolgirl, modest in her dress and serious about her studies. Hiba, who is now 16, wore the hijab, or Islamic head scarf, and rose early each day to say the dawn prayer before classes.

But that was before militias began threatening their Baghdad neighborhood and Umm Hiba and her daughter fled to Syria last spring. There were no jobs, and Umm Hiba’s elderly father developed complications related to his diabetes.

Desperate, Umm Hiba followed the advice of an Iraqi acquaintance and took her daughter to work at a nightclub along a highway known for prostitution. “We Iraqis used to be a proud people,” she said over the frantic blare of the club’s speakers. She pointed out her daughter, dancing among about two dozen other girls on the stage, wearing a pink silk dress with spaghetti straps, her frail shoulders bathed in colored light. […]

And though some women of other nationalities, including Russians and Moroccans, still work as prostitutes in Damascus, Abeer, a 23-year-old from Baghdad working at the same club as Hiba, explained that the arriving Iraqis had pushed many of them out of business.

“From what I’ve seen, 70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis,” she said. “The rents here in Syria are too expensive for their families. If they go back to Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.”

Full:

Meanwhile, back in reality….

I don’t see the Iraq mess in terms of “winners” and “losers.,” we’re all losers in this one.

A compromise was obviouly reached between Bush and Congress, I imagine the details of it will come out over time.

Perhaps it was just an agreement about the number of troops that will remain in Iraq after the “surge” ends in September.

But don’t imagine there is no cost for having dragged the war on for so long. Once we pull out of Iraq, we’re never going back now

That’s probably the real lesson from Vietnam.

Um, the Brecht quote (”What if they gave a war…”) needs to read in full, since it actually turns that completely misleading quote on its head:

“What if they gave a war and no one came?
Then the war will come to you.
He who stays home when the fight begins
And lets others fight for his cause
Should take care. He who does not take part
In the battle will share in the defeat.
Even avoiding battle does not avoid
Battle, since not to fight for your cause
Really means
Fighting on behalf of your enemy’s cause.

- Bertholt Brecht.

In other words, the quote is anything but pacifist: it is actually a call to arms to defend your beliefs.

And the telling part, of course, is that not fighting for your cause means fighting for your enemy.

See my own blog (shameless plug) here:

http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com/2007/02/spurious-dissent.html

and here:

http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com/2006/03/short-answer-turning-long.html

for some illumination…

Oh, and Alphie: the US isn’t a democracy. It’s a republic. That’s why we don’t govern by polls and plebescites, like the Swiss do. Of course, the Democrats seem to have been doing exactly that the last 20 years, at least the polls part…

John

Yet I have to strongly disagree with Cal Thomas saying the Iraq is not like Vietnam. With respect to winning, and choices, it is exactly like Vietnam, because the USA is fighting a LIMITED* War.

In a Limited War, there are two strategic choices.
1) keep fighting, or
2) lose.

The Dems want to choose (2), because they are tired of the long war fighting.

And there is the Dem truth that Bush, and America, cannot “choose to win” — we can chose to fight, or choose to lose.
We only win when the Islamofascist terrorists choose to lose, by choosing to stop fighting.

They will do so sooner if they know we will only choose to fight. The Dem public desire to lose makes the terrorists willing to keep fighting.

(*My grandmother wanted the US to nuke Hanoi & bomb Haifong — fewer SE Asians would have died had we done so and established a “total war” victory in 1972, instead of the Paris foux Peace.)

Think so alfie? Because you do right?

After continuing to use the consensus argument to say polling numbers prove you right, Lee then asked you if that were true, explain the “fact that Democrats had to pass that spending bill, despite such “overwhelming” opposition?”

Your reply was:

“I imagine they got some agreements to cap Bush’s nuttiness in the closing months of term in exchange for the money.

I’d bet it was an agreement not to attack Syria and Iran and instead, begin negotiations with them.”

and…

“A compromise was obviouly reached between Bush and Congress, (Obviously) I imagine the details of it will come out over time.”

This is your reality based argument? You imagine?

but then…

“But don’t imagine there is no cost for having dragged the war on for so long. “

But we dont alfie. We also dont imagine the violence will end if we just left Iraq, and in truth would only grow far worse.

Why do you believe your imagination is more reality based than ours?

M: Oh look, this isn’t an argument.
A: Yes it is.
M: No it isn’t. It’s just contradiction.
A: No it isn’t.
M: It is!
A: It is not.
M: Look, you just contradicted me.
A: I did not.
M: Oh you did!!
A: No, no, no.
M: You did just then.
A: Nonsense!
M: Oh, this is futile!
A: No it isn’t.
M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn’t; no, you came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn’t just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can’t. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn’t.
M: Yes it is! It’s not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that’s not just saying ‘No it isn’t.’
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn’t!

A: Yes it is!
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
(short pause)
A: No it isn’t.
M: It is.
A: Not at all.
M: Now look.
A: (Rings bell) Good Morning.
M: What?
A: That’s it. Good morning.
M: I was just getting interested.
A: Sorry, the five minutes is up.
M: That was never five minutes!
A: I’m afraid it was.
M: It wasn’t.
Pause
A: I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to argue anymore.
M: What?!
A: If you want me to go on arguing, you’ll have to pay for another five minutes.
M: Yes, but that was never five minutes, just now. Oh come on!
A: (Hums)
M: Look, this is ridiculous.
A: I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to argue unless you’ve paid!
M: Oh, all right.
(pays money)
A: Thank you.
short pause
M: Well?
A: Well what?
M: That wasn’t really five minutes, just now.
A: I told you, I’m not allowed to argue unless you’ve paid.
M: I just paid!
A: No you didn’t.
M: I DID!
A: No you didn’t.
M: Look, I don’t want to argue about that.
A: Well, you didn’t pay.
M: Aha. If I didn’t pay, why are you arguing? I Got you!
A: No you haven’t.
M: Yes I have. If you’re arguing, I must have paid.
A: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.
M: Oh I’ve had enough of this.
A: No you haven’t.
M: Oh Shut up.

Seems to me that many people around here confuse “fighting for one’s cause” with bickering on blogs.

There’s just so much wrongheaded thinking going on around here it is hard to even know where to begin.

I will just say that you may spin it as you wish, but the Democrats in Congress are proposing nothing that many, many prominent military leaders haven’t also proposed.

and the “wrongheaded thinkers around here” are proposing “nothing that many, many prominent military leaders haven’t also proposed.”

So let’s agree to disagree, and you can troll somewhere else, hmmm?

Or shall we just engage in the “I’m right and you’re wrong” game yet again, because that’s pretty much all that “dialog” with you accomplishes.

Most polls showed around 60% support for a timetable, did they not?

Yes, and when you survey 5 doctors and say “4 out of 5 doctors surveyed prefer Bayer aspirin,” it proves…..?

Government by polling is not terribly effective for that reason. You know, “lies, damned lies, and statistics”?

“The official poverty rate in the U.S. has increased for four consecutive years, from a 26-year low of 11.3% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2004. This means that 37.0 million people were below the official poverty thresholds in 2004. This is 5.4 million more than in 2000.”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

In 2005, “the nation’s official poverty rate remained statistically unchanged at 12.6 percent. The percentage of people without health insurance coverage rose from 15.6 percent to 15.9 percent (46.6 million people).”

Source: US Census Bureau,
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/007419.html

“Yes, and when you survey 5 doctors and say “4 out of 5 doctors surveyed prefer Bayer aspirin,” it proves…..?

Government by polling is not terribly effective for that reason.”

Well, perhaps Lee can tell us then how he knows that “the American people *told*” Congress they did not support the timetable bill? Maybe he read it on a “milblog,” would that convince you?

> We are looking for the writer (or translator) of a poem related to
> Bertolt Brecht’s “What if they gave a war and no one came?”. The poem
> and accompanying statement were printed in National Review, March 9,
> 1984 on page 16…”

There they go again! I don’t know who did this translation, but I doubt you’ll find “What if they gave a war” in any collection of Brecht’s poems.

Andy Behrens
South Strafford, Vermont

And you were openeing the mail and tapping into the computers and phone lines?

As it is, the Dems could have stood for “principle”, but chose reelectability and wound up doing the right thing.

Funny, and I thought it was because they didn’t have the votes to override the veto.

Yes UB, they didnt have enough Democrat votes to survive a veto.

Hear, hear!

So when are you signing up?

(I’m going to keep asking this of every damned GWOT-enamored wingnut until one them either gives me a date or cops to their flabbergasting hypocrisy.)

Did we do the right thing in going after the Taliban and bin Laden in Afghanistan after 9/11?

BRD

The chickenhawk argument is old. The refutation is quite simple. Do you really want the decisions on military action to be made only by military personnel and veterans? Civilian control of the military is normally lauded as essential to a democratic republic. I also hear all the time about the negative effects of the war on the economy and at home. If those are valid reasons to oppose the war, are they not also something that war supporters are bringing on themselves.

Also, what about an active soldier saying that they don’t want to leave and lose all that they accomplished? Would that convince you to change your mind about the war?

By the way, I have been considering following in my father’s (along with many others in my family) footsteps in the Navy. I was thinking about this before 9-11, and I’m sure you wouldn’t consider that sufficient even if I did serve. Fortunately, I don’t give a damn what you think of me.

You’ve been thinking of joining the Navy since before 9/11?!

I know time has a way of slipping by, friend, but that means you’ve been eyeing that recruitment poster for at least six years now. Time to put on the pea-coat or get off the pot.

Sorry, but your “refutation” makes no sense to me. Of course I don’t want “decisions on military action to be made only by military personnel and veterans” — but what’s that got to do with asking those who think the war in Iraq is a grand idea to step up to the plate and lend a little help? I hear our troops could really, really use it.

Barring that, I suppose you could become a tiresome, wimpy old liberal like me, who thinks the only possible good that can come out of this mess would be the realization by at least a few John Wayne wannabes that, alas, there are a few problems in this world too complex and intractable to be solved by simply throwing billions of dollars of ordinance and thousands of lives at them.

But what fun would that be?

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” - Chairman Mao

Pacifism is suicide.

When did I say I was a pacifist? I’ve always said, for instance, that the war in Afghanistan is perfectly justified — and probably would’ve been a great success if Dubya the Dumbshit hadn’t detoured us into Iraq.

But I do object to hopeless wars that are fought for agendas other than the ones advertised — which is why I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam debacle and why I wouldn’t touch Iraq with a ten-thousand foot pole if I were of fighting age today.

You guys, on the other hand, the ones who seem to think the future of Western Civilization hangs in the balance over there — I enthusiastically urge you to enlist. What kind of pacifist would do that?

I apologize for repeating myself but part of your later response brings the basic notion up again. You note:

there are a few problems in this world too complex and intractable to be solved by simply throwing billions of dollars of ordinance and thousands of lives at them

I was curious about your take on Afghanistan and whether or not you think the intervention in Afghanistan is a good idea or bad idea.

Thanks,

BRD

Exactly! Afghanistan is one of those rare cases where the problem was both simple (take out the @#%$ Taliban) and tractable (nab/kill bin Laden…oops. Oh well, maybe when we get a Democratic President again.)

Iraq is famously neither of the above, was never a threat, and is therefore a blunder of cosmic proportions.

I was kind of curious about your position on Afghanistan - thanks for clearing that up.

So when are you signing up?

(I’m going to keep asking this of every damned Bush-obsessed moonbat until one them either gives me a date or cops to their flabbergasting hypocrisy.)[Link]

Sorry about that - I had gotten to editing your original quote, and somehow zapped the rest of the comment when I posted.

In any case, I wanted to ask how the assertion that those who support the Iraq War have an obligation to fight it would be different from the assertion that those who support the Afghanistan War have an obligation to fight in that Theater.

BRD

Nonviolence moves mountains.

Name one. Gandhi doesn’t count.

Nice slogan. Paste that one right next to the one that says “Free Tibet”.

I’ll start with the points that you didn’t address. One: What about all of the non-military costs of the war that I hear so much about? Are they an actual concern or not?

Also, would the testimony of someone who served in Iraq convince you to support finishing the job, or is this just an attempt at character assassination?

I’m sorry that I did not make my point more clear. You argue that all supporters of the war should join the military or become leftists like yourself. I argue that you are demanding that only people willing to join the military or actually in the military can support the war. How is that not leaving military matters exclusively to the military? Unless, of course, you are just using this as a personal attack…

Good question.

Would’ve been a moot point, of course, if Bush had actually seen things through and finished the job in Afghanistan before jumping feet first into the Iraqi tarpit. (Parenthetically, I’m sure you’ve heard what our most famous Afghan vet, the late Pat Tillman, had to say about dubya’s Excellent Baghdad Adventure? Not terribly complimentary.)

Our volunteer army could’ve handled the Taliban — and put the hurt on bin Laden — with ease, if a certain unfortunate distraction hadn’t come along. Now, of course, the army’s stretched to the breaking point — which is why it would be so nice if all the young and healthy keyboard kommandos out there would pitch in.

But to get back to your question, would I urge supporters of the Afghani war to fight? I certainly wouldn’t object — but I’d also advise them to wait until we get a new, competent Commander-in-Chief.

“I argue that you are demanding that only people willing to join the military or actually in the military can support the war.”

No, I only demand that those who support the war face up to two facts:

1) the military is desperately in need of recruits to fight in Iraq,

2) knowing this, any young, healthy person who’s gung-ho for the war but is satisfied to let others do the killing and dying in his/her stead must face up to the fact that he or she is either a hypocrite, a coward, or both.

Once they’ve done that, they can go on supporting the war until they’re blue in the face for all I care — it’s a free country after all, despite Bush’s best efforts.

“[W]ould the testimony of someone who served in Iraq convince you to support finishing the job?”

Nope. Just because a farmhand works in agriculture, I’m not necessarily going to give extra weight to his opinions on the international trade in farm commodities. Likewise, a soldier might have a good grasp on what’s going on in his particular corner of the battlefield without having any idea at all of the global impact of the war. And since the only job I can see us performing in Iraq is the creation of terrorists faster than we can kill them, I’d really have doubts about anyone who supports “finishing” it.

“What about all of the non-military costs of the war that I hear so much about? ”

Don’t quite get you there; can you give me an idea of what kind of costs you’re talking about?

You mean after spying on Americans with the Patriot Act and rounding up and imprisoning all those people who disagree with him with no legal cause and turning America into an evangelist theocracy its still a free country?

Not bad for a dictatorship isnt it?