Anti-War Self-Delusion | KXNet.com North Dakota News
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SayAnything Anti-War Self-DelusionDisclaimer: This article is a blog post and does not represent the views
or opinions of Reiten Television, KXNet.com, its staff and associates and is wholly owned by
the user who posted this content.
Jul 17 2007 12:00AM
http://sayanythingblog.com/index.php The Republicans had the numbers, for one thing. Capitol Hill was deluged with outraged calls, killing the switchboards. Republican donors began demanding refunds. The outrage was palpable, and authentic. Democratic 'outrage' against the war, in contrast, is knee-jerk, mechanical, and ho-hum predictable. Moreover, the numbers just aren't there. Oh sure, there are the polls that claim that 120% of the American people loathe the war and want our troops out yesterday - but the Democrats have been duped by these polls and the tepid anti-war movement proves it. Besides, typical poll questions ask something akin to "do you want our troops to come home?" Hell, I am a huge supporter of the war and I too want our troops to come home. I am sure that if you polled the American people in the depths of World War II if they 'want the troops to come home', the answer would have been hell yes. Another great question is "do you approve of the way the war is being handled?" Well, if we haven't won yet, I guess the answer must be no. The typical American's views on the war are actually quite complex in ways that cannot be capture by polls, and many seem to adhere to the following points:
However, a great many Americans also believe the following:
These are not mutually exclusive views. It is possible to hold all of these views without suffering from cognitive dissonance. This view of things is far more nuanced than the typical Democrat defeatists who think, in their deluded way, that they actually have the full support of the American people and have a mandate to end the war. If so . . . where is the clamor to end the war on par with the clamor to end the immigration bill? Live by the polls, die by the polls: the Dems have overrelied on polls and are now paying the price.
Crossposted from WILLisms.com
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Disclaimer: This article is a blog post and does not represent the views or opinions of Reiten Television, KXNet.com, its staff and associates and is wholly owned by the user who posted this content.
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a reasonable view - seems intelligent - not a bit windy and tiresome. Nicely done.
How did this happen? Write more.
The real reason for not leaving Iraq is one of consequences. These include the possible escalation of the civil war or dismemberment of the country.
The possible reasons listed for staying are not valid.
*Leaving Iraq may or may not have a net positive effect on terrorism. We know staying helps the terrorists worldwide.
*Our investment in blood and treasure is irrelevant to this decision, investors must measure their options and make decisions based on what they can gain in the future not how much they have lost.
*Pride as justification for a war? This is part of the investment decision. Is the risk of losing face now greater than if we invest further and then lose face vs. the prospect of "winning"?
*Our Sunni allies will be fine without us. Our Sunni enemies will either leave, die or fit in. The elected government may or may not evolve, adapt and survive.
*"Winning" is not an Al Qaeda Iraq (AQI) issue, currently the occupation is Al Qaeda's biggest asset world wide. "Winning" defined in terms of leaving a stable country without support for terroism is the goal. We cannot win with the incompetent leadership we currently suffer under.
This war's failures are proof that the neo-con military theories are invalid and result in military misadventure.
Neither does staying in a once totally SECULAR nation that has ABSOLUTELY NO TIES to the small band of islamic extremists you are referring to. Stop filling your head with this nonsense that ITS THE KAYDAs we are fighting in Iraq. Even Petraeas said they represent a VERY small minority of the fighters there.
Its very simple... when a country tries to piss down your back and tell you its raining, you will naturally turn around and smack the snot out of that country as best you can, period.
Stop juxtiposing "the terrorists" with the country of Iraq. You just look completely ignorant to the actual social structure that exists there.
Ask yourself this question first before waxing pseudo-intellectually about this topic: What the hell was L. Paul Bremer doing in Iraq anyways?
* The war was a mistake to begin with - we didn't know what we were getting in to.
* The war was oversold, and much of the intelligence was faulty.
* The war is very expensive in blood and treasure, with no end in sight.
Do you believe this to be the case?
If a vote were held today the Republican Senators would be forced to go on record; exposing themselves in way that they have avoided for 6 years.
Who exactly is the enemy we are trying to defeat.
How long will our kids be held hostage there while this insane target practice rages all around them?
Meanwhile, the only "benchmark" the White House is demanding the Malaki govt meets is a law to privatize Iraqi oil for American oil companies. So I guess this war was an oil grab after all.
Perhaps we should think twice before dismantling another foreign nation that did not attack us. Quite a mess Mr. Bush has created over there.
The answer is we confused religious "family values" with wanting to look out for our family's. What we ended up with is intolerant, ignorant, xenophobic, paranoid, homophobic, supers(believe in supernatural) calling the shots in DC. What we get with Republicans is what we got.
The only terrorism in Iraq is ****e on Sunni madness. The patriots who are fighting us are doing nothing less than a red blooded Texan would do if his homeland were occupied by a foreign power - who wanted his oil. All the CIA analyists say that we have created far more hatred and anti-american terrorists by our presence.
We have spent too much in blood and treasure to just give up.
So we should have stayed in Vietnam, The Japanese should have held out to the last man, the Nazis should have stayed in Russia, and Napoleon as well. Good logic there!
American prestige will suffer greatly if we cut and run.
Yes, that would be true if most of the people in the world didn't think we should never have gotten in in the first place. Don't you remember the protests? Don't you read the polls? Or are you referring to the old loss of credibility arguement? Heck, what's a few million Southeast Asian or Arab lives if the old US army is going to lost some of it's credibility to act unilaterally to support the oil companies and military industrial complex.
We have made much progress in Iraq: there is a democratic government and a constitution there, and we now have Sunni allies.
Iraq is falling apart faster by the month. The civilian death tolls have been going up every month for years. Hundreds of bodis in the street almost every day. The country is in civil war for crying out loud. There is no electricity, there is no more professional class, there is no security, and there are no jobs, asided from the fact that the police are doing most of the killings. Is that really progress?
We shouldn't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: while we haven't won yet in Iraq, it is clear that al-Qaeda hasn't won yet either. This war is winnable.
You can pay me now or you can pay me later, but what kind of self-delousinal spin have you been snorting. There are clearly no jaws of victory for us in Iraq. Only more certain death and destruction. You sound like Hitler in the bunker, just waiting for that phantom army to save the day. It's game over time, friend, that should be obvious by now.
Unfortunately for Democrats we see through their blind stupidity and fortunately for the world we don't share it.
We will overcome someday, sound familiar?
Iraq is simply too significant a prize to AlQaeda for them to leave it in peace just because we played nice and left it to them. AlQaeda's self confessed objective is to forcibly spread their own brand of Islamic radicalism, for some (blame America first) Americans to imagine they would give up their violent vision if we left Iraq is simply incomprehensible.
The writer equates killing the Immigration bill with public perception and agreement with the conduct of the war. They are very different groups. There were people of different political persuasions who were passionately against the Immigration bill. Working people, Union members, immigrants who came legally, to name a few. The support for the war has been generally conservatives. Many democrats supported the war. Journalist Christopher Hitchens is an example. He is a left-leaning iconoclast who believed in the war. He was as many of us, were affected by Sept. 11th. I was in New York that day. Many democrats were led down the path on the basis of the claims of weapons of mass destruction that were not true. The Valerie Plame- Joseph Wilson imbroglio was done to silence a critic of their theories. Once the war was set in place, and the United States was committed to ousting Hussein, we found ourselves in a very bad place. We are now acting as an arbiter between warring groups and clans. Support for the war is fading very fast in all quarters.
I ask the writer to put politics aside. How can we win in Iraq?
We have become the target in a shifting unbalanced society at war with itself. How can we turn it around? I do not think it is possible in time, money, any cost or human effective way. There is no way that the Iraqi government can hold the factions together. Iraq will be divided. It seems better to cut our losses and find a strategy that might work. It is never going to work militarily. The culture of Islamic radicalism is partially to blame. The culture seems to accept violence in the form of martyrdom as a premise. Al Qaeda is only one group among many that are setting our soldiers in their sights.
I think the author is taking a polemical stance for the sake of itself.
Chiding the democrats for being powerless to stop the war and stating that the "people" support the war. I think the writer is part of the problem rather than the solution.
I was in New York on Sept 11th, went to the ruins to help out. All of us were shocked and dismayed by the insane and vicious attack.
We now know that Iraq had nothing to do with it. Al Qaeda and radicals of all stripes are filtering into Iraq to fight our soldiers.
I believe the writer is equating the war to a poker game. It brings to mind a gambler who throws in his car after losing his cash. Throwing soldiers in the storm is not the answer. Finding a strategy that can bring a solution that can work is something all Americans want.
The reason the dems won't defund the war is they don't want to take responsibility for the consequences.
The republicans, for all of their flaws, have the guts to see this through where the Dems are following the polls.
Billybookworm: "Prestige" has a practical effect on foreign policy, and is very different from a cheap emotion like "Pride"; I don't think we're fighting the Iraq War for pride but that is your opinion.