Good point Sergey.

Choice #1: They can acknowledge what is right in front of them and risk the ire of their far left, liberal base, like MoveOn.org and Code pink and the liberal bloggers that have shown they will “go after” anyone that dares speak up and tell the truth…

Yes, it would sure be nice if there was a simple, easy, and morally pure solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism. But there isn’t. So we do what we must rather than do what we would like.

One day, we will retrospectively convince ourselves that “of course we knew, in advance, what the outcome would be. It was completely obvious to any smart person who looked at the situation.”

Without organization that “bomb” simply makes an isolated event that can be shut down with normal laws that prevent crime and catch criminals.

9/11, 7/7, Madrid Train Boming and all those people blown up in Iraq by terrorists and their suicide bomber fodder shows how different organizational skills and resources can change something like the Oklahoma incident into something that is more than a one album hit.

Often people witness violence and believe that it was somehow “spontaneous”. The people rose up against Cuba’s former government and the Shan of Iran “spontaneously” via grassroots. It’s complete bull. Such revolutions are meticulously crafted and organized via, if not foreign sources, then top echelon elite cadres.

If we take the example of Iran’s hostage taking of US citizens on American soil, we can either say that the cycle began there with the spontaneous student protests or we can say that the cycle began when such activities were organized with the intent to target Americans.

Things like the victory of the soccer team also help. I only wish that the media would pay respect to the little victories of self determination achieved by the Iraqis. But , of course, like good left thinkers everywhere, they prefer victims they can pity and the big bad bogeyman they can blame.

I recommend you go here to hear what the Left actually thinks or prefers.

Barf bags not supplied

I think I am going to write a post about some things mentioned there. Or not.

This site for example, tends to have a large variation in writing styles and thinking methods. Sergey, for example, would be a total alien using the Left’s metric of common traits.

I liked the engineer/hippie dynamic, of course. That was something new. Almost Steven Den Beste, almost.

This really isn’t an indepth analysis so much as a set of observations. For example, you can analyze the social justice aspect using ethics and epistemology to figure out what exactly Leftist actions have to do with justice in relationship to the justice conservatives seek.

There’s also a subtle belief on the Left that attacking Republicans for political points and defending Hillary not because she is virtuous but because Republicans are her enemies, is somehow NOT an act of violence. They have traded physical violence for emotional violence, since nature dictates that no organism can truly rid itself of the need to kill. Even vegetarians kill, they just happen to need to kill plants to live.

Iraq and Iran have been at serious odds with one another for decades. Remember back in the 1980s when we were supporting Saddam as the “lesser evil” as a means to go after Tehran? Saddam was on Al-Qaeda’s hit list and his regime was also unfriendly toward the Taliban.

In short, however much we might wish it were not so, the execution of the occupancy of Iraq has done much to make it a significant recruiting and training opportunity for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It also distracted us from our focus on capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and going after Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. And it has strengthened Musharref’s anti-democratic regime in Pakistan. And has made more precarious the Kurdish situation vis a vis Turkey and Syria. And has effectively made the Shia Sunni divisions in Iraq more pronounced and volatile.

Are there currently hopeful signs that some progress is being made? Probably. However, this situation is like a benevolent family (the USA) calling the cops and hiring a contractor to take away the abusive father and fix-up a poor family’s home only to watch as the cops destroy the house hunting for Dad, then the contractor tackles the repair job by sub-contracting most of the tasks to the cops and others who are not trained or equipped for carpentry and plumbing work. After a few years members of the benevolent family begin to complain things aren’t going well and are told, “But look, we’ve got a roof back on the north side and water to the sink in the laundry. Why stop when there is so much progress being made?”

So, having made such a mess, we must continue to clean it up and hope for the best, but let’s not confuse this with being either a success or a good idea in the first place.

His point about levels of democracy is spot on and usually forgotten. Before the American Revolution the colonies had been pretty much ignored by Britain until they were seen as a source of income after the Seven Years War. By that time, republican ideals and local government were established and deep rooted.

For a wonderful study of the pre-revolutionary internal debate, see Rossiter, Clinton; Seedtime of the Republic : the origin of the American tradition of political liberty; New York : Harcourt, Brace; (1953)

Your analogy is flawed. Leaving the status quo in the Mideast alone is what got us attacked on 9/11. The status quo failed and it was time for a change. We didn’t make the mess; that region’s been a mess since the collapse of the Abbassid Caliphate in the middle ages.

Leaving Saddam in power because he wasn’t actively supporting Al Qaeda at that particular moment would be idiotic. He was a danger to everyone, and should have been removed after the first Gulf War.

Where did liberals like you develop this sudden fetish for “stability” and the status quo? You guys used to support every self-proclaimed “liberation movement” — as long as it was sufficiently anti-American. But when anti-American thugs are removed, suddenly that’s endangering your precious stability.

I was surprised that the Bush administration failed to apply this knowledge to its construction/reconstruction efforts in Iraq. It took me quite a while to see that they didn’t have a clue. Someone hadn’t studied his/her colonial American history!

Anyway, colonial American history shows how we lucky Americans got our unusually strong democratic system, and it’s too bad more people, including Americans, don’t study it in some detail. (A few college level non-Marxian courses would open eyes to the from-the-ground-up process.)

To not have intervened after 9/11 would have been the height of irresponsibility. Saddam’s regime had been long moving away from a secular décor – by attracting radical Islamist to set up shop in Baghdad, stitching “Allahu Akbar” on the Iraqi flag to show his solidarity with radical Islam, and was openly sponsoring jihadist terrorists in Palestine.

During the coalitions 2-year mobilization around Iraq, the A. Q. Khan network and North Korea’s WMD dealers ran for their lives from Damascus (a regime that still hasn’t learned their lesson as we’ve recently seen), and Colonel Kadafi’s handover of his WMDs to Bush and Blair.

If we had not intervened, the blood-bath that would have ensued would have seen an invasion by Turkey, Iran/Syria/Hezbollah, and thus Saudi Arabia (elements of which are involved with the insurgency) – we’ll never know what ultimate horror we have so far prevented.

So what, Communism and Fascism has been at odds for the great majority of their history, but I don’t hear people like you talking about improving upon the US’s alliance with Stalin as a standard lesson on how to deal with Iran/Iraq.

Saddam was on Al-Qaeda’s hit list and his regime was also unfriendly toward the Taliban.

As if Saddam is a more reliable and useful ally than the people of Iraq. On the global list of power players, people who are dead are far less useful than people that are alive and not only fighting but growing in strength and numbers. Even without that, Saddam was always useless for he was far more a tool of the UN than the uS.

Alliances are based upon mutual interest. That is why the Shia and Sunnis allied together to kill Americans, cause they hate Amis more than they hate each other. When they found they couldn’t kill Americans, they had to settle for second best. You somehow think America has enough money to bribe Saddam into hating us less than he did his own people and various revolutionary organizations like AQ? Saddam hated everybody that wouldn’t bow down to his power. The US should not allow people like Saddam to bribe the international community into anti-Americanism just because our enemies were trying to off each other. I’m sure Saddam got France and Company to backstab America at the UN because Saddam just wanted help against America’s enemies.

Such calculations for alliance based upon some idealistic belief that Saddam could have been a buddy if the dominion of American forces could have just steered him towards some targets, is unhistoric and ineffective. All alliances are made upon mutual interests. If Saddam had a chance to become the US’s enforcer in the Middle East, he certainly didn’t take it in the decade after 1993.

Leaving Saddam in power because he wasn’t actively supporting Al Qaeda at that particular moment would be idiotic.

Saddam was left in power and alone after Gulf War 1. We already tried this path to hell.

Dead people don’t become problems, that is a truism that is still true today.

I was surprised that the Bush administration failed to apply this knowledge to its construction/reconstruction efforts in Iraq.-P

That is because the Bush administration doesn’t like to involve themselves in small time local matters. Bush was elected to the Presidency, where macroscale projects and policies were designed and implemented. He doesn’t like to micromanage, so he doesn’t like to go into personal neighborhoods, like ours, and tell us what we need to be doing. A plus in America, a very big negative in Iraq. Somebody expected the Iraqis to suddenly create their own “American style” townhouse meetings just because. Just because that is what Americans would do. However, Arabs are not Americans.

Real diplomats, back in the day before the Left corrupted the Foreign Services, knew that if you treated foreigners like they were your own people, it would be a very nice way to start a war.

Bush should not have believed his own rhetoric that Iraqis yearned for freedom, since he associated too closely Arabs with Americans with that belief. You should recognize the idealistic framework that human beings are more powerful in a cooperative society, but also recognize the pragmatic situation as well that Arabs are believers in insh’allah and children of their culture. Their messed up culture in addition to the damage Saddam did. Had Bush called in Kurdish leaders for advice, things might have been different, but the military told Bush to leave out the Shia/Kurds since this was going to be a military invasion solely based upon American forces (read American glory). Last and best chance for some of the generals to get some combat experience and commands. Cynical, but true nonetheless since generals are human too.

In short, however much we might wish it were not so, the execution of the occupancy of Iraq has done much to make it a significant recruiting and training opportunity for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It also distracted us from our focus on capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and going after Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

You must be talking about getting local Afghanistanis to deal with AQ, thereby allowing Osama to bribe his way out to the safety of Pakistan. Your solution to this is to get the local dictator called Saddam to deal with AQ in/around Iraq. Why exactly do you think your solution is better than the problem?

The real problem is that people want to get other folks to deal with problems that they don’t wish to. The entire reason why COIn is being implemented is that before, American was trying to push every security and political detail unto the Iraqis. When the Iraqis started sinking, COIN came in to help the locals out more. This will always happen, whether the locals are allies, maybe friends, enemies, and neutrals.

And it has strengthened Musharref’s anti-democratic regime in Pakistan.

As if Saddam’s regime was more democratic. That’s really the point. You simply pick and choose places for the US to go into or not go into based upon some personal calculation of what is more “efficient”. That calculation has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual intel and psychological profiles of the various power players, factions, and nations in the area. You would keep Saddam and weaken Musharref simply because of an arbitrary decision to get Osama, regardless of the consequences to the people living in that area or the soldiers sent out to fight for such a cause.

Such strategic calculations will always end in ruin. Because it is simply too tunnel visioned, it is too focused on one aspect above all else. THe United States military may be able to fight in manifold climes and places at the same time, but the same can’t be said for the various individuals that make up America.

And has made more precarious the Kurdish situation vis a vis Turkey and Syria.

Sure, the Kurds would be a stronger ally if we sided with Saddam. Absolutely no consideration of the beliefs and psychologies of the players in question.

The priority is getting Osama, since that will make people feel psychologically better. The priority is not avoiding ultimate horrors.

The Bush Administration never really had their hearts in reconstruction, and regime change for that matter — the Administration and other Federal hierarchies had been split on this. The President’s church, the Methodist, or Christianity in general, has had nothing to say on ousting Saddam, at least without some quick retraction.

Fallujah is doing better because vehicle traffic is completely forbidden, to prevent car bombs. There is 80% umemployment there.

Baghdad was 50/50% Sunni/Shia before we invaded. Now it is 25/75% Sunni Shia, and the Sunnis are protected by concrete barriers and the U.S. forces. I hate to think what will happen to them when we eventually leave, whether that’s next year, or several years from now.

Al Qaeda has less of a presence that it did in recent years, but still more of a presence than it had before we invaded.

The Basra region is almost completely under control of independent Shiite militias. Oil money going to that region goes to these militias and their causes. Taliban-like strictures are on the rise there, signaling a rise in fundamentalism since the fall of Saddam, not a decrease in it.

If Iraq is going better now, can the 4 million refugees forced from their homes (2 million out of the country to Syria and Jordan) return? ‘Cause they’re draining resources where they are being housed now, temporarily.

Not to cast a dark cloud on things, but I would like to see hopeful pieces like that in the Times Online address these matters. But hey, maybe he’s right. Maybe the Maliki government will actually do something soon to help move things forward! Maybe Sunnis and Shia will begin to reach agreements, albeit slowly. Let’s watch and see if this article shows itself to have a grasp of reality.

Here’s how I follow key events over the last half century or so. We can begin with the restoration of the Shah to the Iranian throne by means of an American backed and instigated coup against one of the first democratically elected governments in the region. This was done in the name of anti-communism. Move forward a couple of decades; many, including me, argued for years before the Shah’s overthrow that it was long past time to support the moderate, business community based, democratic opposition or face a far more radical alternative that would not be advantageous to our long term interests. I guess we know how that turned out.

Once the Ayatollah was in power and the embassy hostage crisis took place, our interests shifted and so we shifted our regional proxy to Saddam. That some of the materiel we provided him was used against his fellow Iraqis, most notably the Kurds, rather than Iran … and that much of the funding went to graft and greed in Saddam’s regime was merely the cost of doing business, right?

This was the period when the Reagan administration was similarly supporting the mujahadean in their anti-Soviet rebellion in Afghanistan. They were the progenitors of the Taliban and Al-Quada, but for the moment they were useful tools in our struggle with the Evil Empire.

In the late 1980’s, as the struggle between Iraq and Iran became a stalemate, Saddam went off reservation in an attack on Kuwait after getting mixed signals from the Bush 41 administration. Something finally had to be done. For the record, I did not LIKE Desert Storm, but understood it and accepted it as a necessary conflict. It had international support and was predicated on international laws and various treaties. I argued then that it was a mistake NOT to have completed the mission and removed Saddam; especially after urging the people of Iraq to rebel against him. When the Shias did begin to rise against him they were left to suffer the consequences when we (Bush 41) failed to support them.

The next decade was the era of “No Fly Zones” and clandestine support for the Kurdish rebels. We had concerns about Turkey and Syria’s interest in this region, but we could leave that to another day … which seems to be dawning.

Then came 9/11 and, for Americans who’ve been so fortunately spared conflict on our own soil for a century … and that was not a foreign invasion … everything seemed to change. We wanted justice. We wanted someone to pay. We wanted revenge.

When efforts to bring down Osama and punish Al-Quada began to bog down in reality rather than play out like a season of “24″ Bush 43 (and the remains of his father’s and Reagan’s administrations who had once supported Saddam before they were spurned and who failed to finish the job in Desert Storm) took it as an opportunity for regime change. Better late than never, I guess.

They then failed to make a strong enough case for it to pull together a true international coalition. And failed to listen to the generals about what it would take to secure the peace after the initial invasion. And ignored calls, both before and after the invasion was underway, to expend more energy on regional diplomacy. And made no real effort to back up the troops through the swift restoration of basic services needed to win the hearts and minds of civilian Iraqis, not just fill body bags with combatants. Oh, yes, and then there’s the not so minor issue of how the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of civilians lost as “collateral damage” and millions of refugees effect our long term interests. In short, they’ve made things worse overall, not better, at least for the foreseeable future.

And if I hear the argument that the lack of a major terrorist action on our soil proves the effectiveness of the Bush approach one more time I’m going to scream. I am also tired of the notion that anyone holding views that are not in line with, say, Cheney’s are “anti-American.” Many of us feel that American foreign policy serves the interests of global capitalism too much and the interests of both the American people and the citizens of those countries in which we intervene too little. This is patriotism, too.

Ah.

May I suggest as well the following commentary from Andrew Bolt, if you’ve not seen it yet:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22689634-5007146,00.html

But, since one of the objectives of the war was to establish a unified nation-state, then clearly we’re losing. After all, we didn’t arm the Sunnis in Anbar by working through the central government in Baghdad. We just armed them directly - in effect, we’re helping the Sunnis create their own militias to help take on the Shiites.

It’s time to end this unjust invasion and occupation of Iraq…and Afghanistan too!

Incidentally, that is what Benedict Arnold thought when he tried to turn over Westpoint to the British.

But this is progress, Sergey.

Ah, I see. You are simply noting the realities that the reality based community have recognized. Which is that Saddam was better alive then dead, which incidentally helps Saddam out.

Except for the fact that the Shah started to loosen his grip on things and thus allowed the key leaders of the Iranian Islamic revolution to actually live, that might actually count for something other than digitized words.

Jimmy Carter incidentally agreed with you, Chris, and that is why Carter pulled support from the Shah and prefered revolution instead.

It is the counter-reality that if you cannot accept that your opponents actually listened to you and took your advice, and that is why they went down in flames and took almost all their allies with them, then what good are you, truly, in the strategic narrative and war?

The same sentiments are what caused Diem’s assassination. The belief that if only we supported the people’s movement (of Communists and revolutionary destroyers) that somehow they will become friends and buddies.

It is always ignored by these idealists that grassroots revolutions simply do not occur without outside backing or support from elements of the current regime. The always repeated scenario is that reform is inevitably seen as weakness in the Middle East. It is why Sadat was assassinated when he brokered the peace deal with Israel. Accomodating Western grievances and guilt complexes is why the Shah loosened his grip and inevitably was overthrown by Leftists and revolutionaries, whom were executed in turn by their fellow Muslim brothers. Such things were promoted by those that believed moderation equaled strength and stability.

And if I hear the argument that the lack of a major terrorist action on our soil proves the effectiveness of the Bush approach one more time I’m going to scream. I am also tired of the notion that anyone holding

You can try to dodge and evade the issue all you want by changing the subject, but your compartamentalized mind knows as well as I do that your arguments do not parse logically.

I assume you understand that even with your skilled use of rationalizations to explain away the inconsistencies, they are still there to be seen if you look hard enough.

In the late 1980’s, as the struggle between Iraq and Iran became a stalemate, Saddam went off reservation in an attack on Kuwait after getting mixed signals from the Bush 41 administration. Something finally had to be done. For the record, I did not LIKE Desert Storm, but understood it and accepted it as a necessary conflict. It had international support and was predicated on international laws and various treaties. I argued then that it was a mistake NOT to have completed the mission and removed Saddam; especially after urging the people of Iraq to rebel against him. When the Shias did begin to rise against him they were left to suffer the consequences when we (Bush 41) failed to support them.-Chris

In short, however much we might wish it were not so, the execution of the occupancy of Iraq has done much to make it a significant recruiting and training opportunity for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.-Chris

You recognize in one compartment or another, that your opponents supported Saddam because he was the lesser of two evils. You believe that you, Chris, support only the better nature in men’s souls, such as moderate businessmen in Iran before the Mullah revolution. So you, logically, do not recognize or accept that it was only your support for more moderation and anti-Shah policies that inevitably gave rise to the true Islamic Revolution.

You were not out to look for actual and stable allies so much as you were out to appease Western guilt complexes. Which is fine for Al Gore flying in his jet and speaking about Global Warming, but has drastically more radical consequences in the Middle East.

And it has strengthened Musharref’s anti-democratic regime in Pakistan.

For one thing, you would wish to undermine Musharref’s anti-democratic regime. Should your efforts succede and Pakistan go into chaos, then you will say that it was the fault of not listening to people like you more when in truth, people had listened to folks like you too much.

So, having made such a mess, we must continue to clean it up and hope for the best

You truly do not recognize the cognitive dissonance inherit in speaking about supporting the moderate business based democratic opposition (as being a cleaner solution) while at the same time describing the United States military support of democratic opposition in Sunni areas as a mess that “we” must continue to clean up?

This was the period when the Reagan administration was similarly supporting the mujahadean

Once again, we have you directly attacking the support given to Massoud Shah, another moderate democratic opposition that made great use of American support against the Soviet invaders.

The divide is simple in truth, if complex superficially. You do not believe force can create prosperity. Thus you cannot sustain or guarantee security for any of your “democratic” proxies in the ME or elsewhere. That is why inevitably the Islamic Jihad fills in the power vacuum and takes control of whatever revolution you were starting to foment against the status quo, in the belief that if you didn’t do such things then the end result will be far worse for the long term interests of the United States. If not for the minor detail of bungled operations, things might have been different, but they aren’t.

I argued then that it was a mistake NOT to have completed the mission and removed Saddam

Another cognitive dissonance moment is that you supported removing Saddam before you were against the invasion of Iraq in OIF 1. You were willing to create a terrorist sanctum in Iraq that trained up American enemies, after Gulf War 1, but you believe that it was a bad idea to do so after Gulf War 2. The differences are small but vital.

So, having made such a mess, we must continue to clean it up and hope for the best, but let’s not confuse this with being either a success or a good idea in the first place.-Chris

I had no illusions about whether you supported Saddam in truth or not. Yet I could also not ignore the rationalizations and doubletalk you were using which covered for Saddam. You see the removal of Saddam as a mess, yet in Gulf War 1 you saw the removal of Saddam, which was not internationally sanctioned and thus not attempted, as a “necessary” and correct move. You argued that it was a mistake not to have completed the mission, which removing Saddam was never part of, and removing Saddam.

The difference, then, is that Gulf War 1 was internationally sanctioned in your view, and therefore correct, while Gulf War 2 was not internationally sanctioned, and therefore a mistake that creates a mess that has to be cleaned up.

You cover for Saddam in two ways, while ostensibly advocating his overthrow. First, you cover for him in the international community by seeking the international community’s agreement on Saddam’s removal. Second, you cover for Saddam by quoting the problems that have resulted, or problems you perceive to have resulted, from Saddam’s overthrow without international approval, aka your approval.

In doing these things, you have to cover for yourself, as well, since you would not wish to be accused of supporting anti-democratic regimes like Saddam, which you recognize as being a bad thing.

It had international support and was predicated on international laws and various treaties. I argued then that it was a mistake NOT to have completed the mission and removed Saddam; especially after urging the people of Iraq to rebel against him. When the Shias did begin to rise against him they were left to suffer the consequences when we (Bush 41) failed to support them.-Chris

One of the necessary components in covering your side of things, is to forward the implicit proposal that international support was for removing Saddam in Gulf War 1, which Bush’s father did not do, thus pitting Bush’s mistake against your advice, Chris.

While Bush 41 rightfully deserves scorn for allowing international treaties and borders to prevent him from helping those that he owes loyalty to, it is simply the same old game conducted by other Presi bvcfdxdents and US policy makers. They have often, if not always, promoted civic strife and rebellion in foreign territories and then failed to back up their promises with actual military security and force. This inevitably allows Jihadists and Communists to come in and fill the vacuum, by promising to protect the rebels from retribution by the state or simply through extortion and protection rackets where they protect you from themselves. Such things occured in the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, etc.

You logically believe that Bush 41 and others did not listen to you enough or at all. The truth is, they listened far too well to your beliefs on international law and what is or is not legitimate sanction for US actions. They may have shared those beliefs, erroneously, or they may simply have listened to bad advice. It is the same number of body bags in the end.

If more people actually believed, like you, that the mission in Gulf War 1 was sanctioned internationally in order to remove not just Saddam from Kuwaitt but Saddam from Iraq, then it follows logically that such folks would have favored advising the Shia and Kurds to rise up. These erroneous beliefs do have consequences, usually bad ones for the people in the ME.

Bush Jr also listened to the international community too much. Except unlike his father, Bush junior stepped over the international cabal of corrupt bureacrats and bought politicians in favor of a better life for human beings. He, unlike you Chris, actually tried to correct Bush senior’s mistake. At present, all you can talk about are the US sending in the cops (barbarians essentially in your view) that trash up the house while paid civilian contractors rebuild it at the same time, simultaneously.

You have no interest in improving the lives of those in the Middle East, for you do not even recognize such things when they do happen. So obviously your recommendations have no connection whatsoever to actual potential successes such as Massoud, Karzai, the Sunni grassroots councils, or the various other people that need American military security more than they need false promises of freedom. The belief in the international community will always limit you in such endeavours. If they had both the power and the desire to improve the lot of humanity, then you would be right and I would be wrong. However, the only organization with both the power and the will to actually create a better world is the United States military, not the international cabal of corrupted men and women.

For example, you believe the cops break things down, thereby requiring that it always be rebuilt, but in the end no progress is produced. I believe the same of the UN, that they are the ones keeping people down, while at the same time offering a helping hand with money from the US. Such beliefs are mutually exclusive.

This is patriotism, too.

Certainly that can be true, given that Benedict Arnold believed that he was doing the best thing for his country as well. However, such things are open interpretation, usually depending upon how things go. The Iranian Islamic Revolution won out after all. So those for the mullahs are now patriotic while those for Western liberties and human rights are traitors to the revolution or simply traitors. It all depends upon the interpretation, you see.

“Seemingly, one can be wrong many times, and yet continue to be respected as a prognosticator.”

It’s these kinds of lines that pop up so often around here, inevitably directed at “leftists” and without any irony whatsoever, that leave me shaking my head at the narrow focus prevailing here.

As if you’ve never heard of “respected prognosticator” William Kristol.

Where? Where is it an embarrassment? That’s an unsubstantiated smear, and useless. Besides, how would a war hawk even know to recognize something like embarrassment?

You truly do not recognize the cognitive dissonance inherit in speaking about supporting the moderate business based democratic opposition (as being a cleaner solution) while at the same time describing the United States military support of democratic opposition in Sunni areas as a mess that “we” must continue to clean up?

Is this a joke? What exactly is “democratic” about the Sunni movement? It is a tribal movement, and a movement aimed at gaining more political power. Honestly, do you not understand this? The rest of what you write is hardly less egregious, but I read things like this and it makes me want to tear my hair out. You tell me that the Sunnis are “democratic” and I’m supposed to somehow listen to anything else you say? What’s next? That the Shiites are interested in political reconciliation, peace, love and harmony with the Sunnis? No thanks.

Certainly that can be true, given that Benedict Arnold believed that he was doing the best thing for his country as well.

And that’s just plain idiocy. You have nothing to contribute when you equate liberals with Benedict Arnold. That’s smear for one thing, and even if you sincerely mean it that just makes clear how misguided you are, as you seem to think opposition to a war that was premised on what has now proven to be lies and falsehoods and for which we have no strategy beyond “surging” everywhere, is un-patriotic.

You know who the threat is to this country? People who want to flush our constitution and national status down the toilet for temporary but illusory security gains. People such as yourself fancy that you are the “real” Americans, but I’m sure the loyalists of the Revolution thought the same of themselves.

“These methods are most cruel and hostile to every system of living, not only Christian, but human, and should be avoided by every man; and he should want rather to live as a private individual than as a King at the (expense of the) ruin of men. None the less, he who does not want to take up the first path of good, must, if he wants to maintain himself, follow the latter path of evil. But men take up certain middle paths which are most harmful, for they do not know how to be entirely good or entirely bad.”

I consider it to be loyalty to the Constitution, which I possess, as opposed to loyalty to a nation, which you possess. Unlike you, I understand that our nation is more than the people who comprise it, and thank God for that.

Where do your loyalties lie? What elements of the Constitution do you believe should be dismantled for the sake of security? List them the liberties the revolutionaries fought for that you think are worth throwing away. Be explicit. And then explain to me how you reconcile that with the near-sacred document they died for. Please help me understand why you’d throw them away in fear of a man who hides in caves from us.

The question is, what do you consider patriotism to be? Explain it thoroughly.

I don’t propose to throw away any civil liberties, but I don’t think any have been thrown away, either. And I don’t live in fear of a man in a cave; he’s just someone we need to kill, that’s all. It’s a big club.

No. Instead you list those liberties we have thrown away.

Good call Occam.

You’re wrong. The Constitution is what makes our nation unique among nations of the world. Without it, we are merely another in a long line of powerful countries seeking to advance our interests over those of other countries. Of course, that’s what you think America is, which is why you value the Constitution so little.

I don’t propose to throw away any civil liberties, but I don’t think any have been thrown away, either.

You’re wrong, and that comment is proof that you don’t value the Constitution like you think you do.

do you then love the Constitution, and consider it worth dying for, if you don’t consider the nation or its people worth such?

Rank dishonesty yet again, as I said no such thing. And a poor attempt to turn my question back on me. I expect no less from you, but am still disappointed to see it.

And you didn’t answer my question: what is patriotism?

No. That changes the subject. I want to know what OB thinks the Constitution stands for. Listing a bunch of things I think the Constitution stands for in no way answers that question. And anyway, it would be a long comment. See my blog archives if you want that answered.