Pioneer Wellbert John Perry Barlow steps outside the gated community with a load of mush that would have sailed by without a challenge on The Well, only to be slapped upside the head by Misanthropyst Don McArthur. Barlow retreats and cops a plea (guilty of hyperbole, but not of mush-headedness) and many bloggers applaud, others offer raspberries.
Here’s another raspberry. Barlow wants to stipulate that his people, the “anti-Bush” side, have failed to deliver their policies effectively because their rhetoric has been too hyperbolic. With all due respect and in the spirit of respect for everyone’s inner child, I beg to differ. What lurks behind the over-heated rhetoric of the anti- crowd is not a set of unappreciated but superior policies, but no real policy alternatives at all. Let’s take a few examples.
The antis don’t like the Bush tax cuts as a means of stimulating the economy. In their stead they offer no alternative, unless you consider universal health care to be an economic stimulus, a hard position to champion.
The antis don’t like the Patriot Act as a means of closing the noose on terrorist cells operating on American soil, but offer no alternative for dealing with a loosely joined network that relies on e-mail and cell phones for communication.
The antis don’t like pre-emptive invasion of terrorist states as a means of knocking foreign support out from underneath terror networks, but offer no alternative apart from UN jawboning that failed to produce a constructive result in Libya during 20 years of sanctions that hurt innocent people or in 12 years in Iraq with similar results.
The antis would do well to study President Bush. His demeanor is a lot more personable and open than is Howard Dean’s, although he’s every bit as direct. The president is able to speak softly because he carries policies that have produced clear and obvious results: a growing economy, a reduction in terrorist attacks, the overthrow of a genocidal regime, and, in Libya and Iran, a reduction in WMDs in the hands of terror-friendly states. The president has even beaten the antis on the traditionally Democratic issues of health care and education, passing an education bill that increased federal funding to the schools and a Medicare bill that offers prescription drugs to the elderly, both coupled with programmatic reforms important to conservatives.
Left-wing, anti-Bush politics are too much about emotion and identity and not enough about policy. For thirty years, the Democrats blindly supported a dysfunctional welfare system by telling themselves that only they really cared about the poor, but it was Republicans who came along and finally made the program work in 1996 when they made it an avenue to work and not a permanent dependency plan.
So all this talk about rhetoric and manners is nice, but it doesn’t go very far. Unless the left can come up with some realistic and practical policies, they’ll continue to be the weak sisters of American politics, all alone in their gated ideological communities crying to each other about how nobody understands them, and losing election after election.
Saying that the “antis” are all dumb and wrong because they don’t offer any alternatives to your points does not logically mean that Bush’s is correct.
First the administration was all about pre-emptive strikes because of imminent threats, and now since there doesn’t seem to be any real proof that Hussein could have harmed a hair on an American’s head, it’s all about “liberation”, when real countries with real weapons get a pass.
Please explain how there have been a reduction in terrorist attacks as a result of Bush’s foreign policy. Bush _has_ done some very smart things, and some of them have angered many *real* right-wingers. But let’s not pretend that Bush is the shining hope of glory that the world needed.
Also…If the administration is so open and direct, why did it scrub (i.e. edit, erase, reformat) it’s own website of comments made by USAID Director Andrew Natsios on Nightline to Ted Koppel ? The comment was benign, understandably incorrect and most likely forgiveable, given the circumstances, but the White House took it down, obviously fearing losing face with the quote of
“In terms of the American taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the US. The American part of this will be $1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.”
which is now proven to be more like upwards of $166 billion ?
<sarcasm>Yeah, and Bushitler lied about the turkey too!</sarcasm>
Proving that there he no longer possessed WMDs was Saddam Hussein’s task – the US didnt need to prove anything. In the absence of such proof, and given the continuing shell game played during the ridiculous inspections, the invasion of Iraq was completely justified.
Did Hussein ever possess such weapons? Of course … he even used them. Did he prove that he had dismantled them (by, for example, showing inspectors tons of neutralized chemical weapons – they didn’t just get poured down the drain, surely)? Nope. Instead he played games with inspectors.
Given a homicidal dictator with a history of using such weapons, and legitimate uncertainty as to whether or not he still had them, AND belligerent rhetoric coming from said dictator, invasion was the only reasonable course – especially with those lovely allies (the French) proclaiming that they would block any progress we tried to make in the UN.
And the comment scrubbed from a website? Let me know when jack-booted Bushitler goons force CNN to remove a comment from its website … until then, I really don’t care.
Did Iraq possess the ability to attack or harm the US ? No evidence whatsoever of that. Could they have helped fund terrorists ? Possibly, but no real proof there either, and if there was, they are one of many nations in that area in that club. So…pre-emptive attacking pre-empts nothing, except to run on a very expensive egghunt where our military could have been used to use pre-emptive doctrine where it actually could prevent something.
So…pre-emption is a redherring, and liberation is the reason. If that’s the case (it is), then fine…Hussein is a jackass, bad man, and needed to go. But that is *not* the way it was sold.
Afganistan was justified. Iraq was not, and the people dying there are not making the US safer, only Iraqis more liberated. A good thing, yes…but we have better fights, and better places to spend this kind of insane money. Period.
And if you can’t see why the White House editing its PAST comments in plain view to support or negate whatever the recent results of its assine policies…you are short-sighted. Maureen Dowd can misquote Bush, and the righties are up in frigging arms. The administration wipes clean of past unsupportive comments and they should be given a pass ? I think NOT.
“Did Iraq possess the ability to attack or harm the US ? No evidence whatsoever of that.”
No need for evidence of that. Did Hussein ever possess WMD? Did he prove that he had destroyed them? Did he threaten the US in speech after speech, and play stupid dictator tricks with the inspectors, all in defiance of the terms of his surrender in 1991? QED.
“Could they have helped fund terrorists ? Possibly, but no real proof there either, and if there was, they are one of many nations in that area in that club. So…pre-emptive attacking pre-empts nothing, except to run on a very expensive egghunt where our military could have been used to use pre-emptive doctrine where it actually could prevent something.”
Sounds like you support the pre-emptive doctrine … just not for Iraq. But here’s a novel concept: when dictators with a predilication for mass murder say that they are going to kill you, believe them. Take them at their word, and start taking measures.
Does this mean we should go after Kim Jong-Il as well? You betcha. But of course, since we didn’t go after him earlier – when he was not as well-prepared (Yay Clinton!), we have to be more circumspect. If you are trying to kill a scorpion in your kitchen, you can go hog wild. But if its a rattlesnake, you have to use a little caution. Doesn’t mean that you should give the scorpion a pass.
“And if you can’t see why the White House editing its PAST comments in plain view to support or negate whatever the recent results of its assine policies…you are short-sighted. Maureen Dowd can misquote Bush, and the righties are up in frigging arms. The administration wipes clean of past unsupportive comments and they should be given a pass ? I think NOT.”
Is there a difference between Maureen Dowd and whitehouse.gov? Sure … one of them is a journalist/columnist, whose chosen profession is to (supposedly) report the truth in an objective manner. The other is the website of a politician, who, like every politician on earth, wishes to cast himself in the best light.
Again, when jackbooted Bushitler thugs assassinate Maureen Dowd for her misquotes, I will be worried. Do you honestly suppose that the whitehouse believed that by removing a quote, they could keep something secret from the world? And I never said they should be given a pass .. I just don’t understand the level of hysteria over it. They should have said, “Well, that was certainly an incorrect estimate. Darn.”
You yourself said: “The comment was benign, understandably incorrect and most likely forgiveable, given the circumstances, but the White House took it down, obviously fearing losing face with the quote of [snip] which is now proven to be more like upwards of $166 billion ?”
So what’s the beef?
I’m not sure you’re understanding.
“Did Hussein ever possess WMD?” – he sure did, and used them, he did. But were they/he able to use them against the US ? No. No If we did anything, we protected Iraqi citizens and their neighbors from them, but not North America, even with their best ones. Mustard gas us from Iraq ? No. So why is it SO hard for Rummy and Bush to admit that what we did was pre-emptively strike Iraq not to protect the US…but to protect other folks ? It’s hard because we were never at risk from attack on Iraq.
The war was sold as the US protecting ourselves, and it was sold that way because of immediacy. Frustrations about inspectors and the UN (and France) were about how LONG before we did something, not whether to do something or not. It was about *time*, and hurrying up, because US’s safety was at stake.
But now, that topic is not brought up. Note that Bush, or even Rummy, makes mention of “now, the US is safe from attack from Iraq”. They don’t say that, because the US was safe from Hussein all along, inasmuch as we’re safe from any country in the middle east.
To reiterate: Hussein was a very bad, murderous, and evil dictator, who shot his mouth, defied and killed people without cause, and was a scourge of the area. But *none* of that has any bearing on whether he was a danger to the US.
Is the area and the Iraqi people better off because he’s out of power ? Yes. We did good, indeed.
But make no mistake…US military who have died there did NOT die defending their country. They may have died for a noble cause…liberating the Iraqi people and possibly stabilizing the region…but they did not die defending the US from any Iraqi attacks. Call a spade a spade, or risk looking deceptive. At this point, I’d say it’s not just anti-Bushers who feel and express discontent with that deception.
About the quote scrubbed…you seem to imply that politicians attempting to erase their past comments that don’t support their present interests should somehow not only be ok, but it should be expected…because that’s what politicians do. And somehow, they shouldn’t be held accountable for
Politicians do, and probably should, try their best to put themselves in the best light possible…but that is *quite* different to do that retroactively. Some examples:
‘read my lips..no new taxes’
and
‘I never had sex with that woman’
did Bush Sr. and Clinton regret saying those things ? I’m sure they did….but it’s on tape, not quite available for erasing, as a website might be. Look, there’s no “hysteria” about it, like you seem to think…there’s concern, and there should be. It’s not even the content of the quote…it’s clear to everyone by now that the administration was quite wrong about how much the war would cost, and they’ve paid the price for that embarassment.
Removing a quote that was VERY damaging might even be more understandable (of course, also should be scrutinized and investigated)…but to remove that one implies that the administration is not tolerant whatsoever for statements that even *might* lose support. It’s disturbing on many levels.
“Did Hussein ever possess WMD?” – he sure did, and used them, he did. But were they/he able to use them against the US ? No. No If we did anything, we protected Iraqi citizens and their neighbors from them, but not North America, even with their best ones. Mustard gas us from Iraq ? No. So why is it SO hard for Rummy and Bush to admit that what we did was pre-emptively strike Iraq not to protect the US…but to protect other folks ? It’s hard because we were never at risk from attack on Iraq.
Let me summarize:
Allow me to state that, for myself at least, the above items, in and of themselves, constitute sufficient reason for us to invade Iraq. You are conceiving “threat” as “the ability to launch missiles against the continental US”, or “the ability to send tank battalions racing across Texas”. Those definitions are not appropriate to an age when weapons can be, literally, no bigger than a breadbox.
I will make a more generic statement: ANY belligerent power in possession of weapons of a type that can be used from the concealment of the general populace (for example, detonated from the trunk of a car, or used to poison a water supply, etc) is a fair target for pre-emptive military action by the US. If those powers think that is unfair then they are advised to think twice before threatening that which they do not intend to do.
Re the quote: I think we are nearly on the same side on this, but I just don’t think its a very big deal at all – not nearly so big a deal as Dowdification, for example.
But let me make my position on this clear: Bush is in all likelihood a vainglorious, lying little twit. If he walked into the room with me I would check my wallet. So what? He doesn’t have to be free of personal foibles to be a good leader … and in this time, in this age of very real threat against the very concept of the USA as a cultural entity, he is the best we have.
If he’s embarassed by something an underling said, and seeks to hide it under the mashed potatoes rather than eat it … well thats stupid and childish. So what? If that makes you crane your neck seeking out the black helicopters and anticipate that soon we’ll all be in gulags, ok. I hope you’re wrong, but ok. I don’t agree.
If you want to really impress me, give me the name of a current, prominent politician who can’t fairly be characterized as an inveterate liar. That is part of the breed – it just is.
As for journalists who deliberately mislead their readers – much different case. I am far more concerned about the lies told by Rush Limbaugh or Maureen Dowd than I am about whether or not Bush’s handlers removed a quote by an underling from the whitehouse.gov website.
We’re getting better and closer, I think.
No neck craning or helicopter dodging going on over here…I actually feel oppposite. I almost expect bias to exist in journalism, because it’s the breed there, as well. To the extent that journalists and politicians go out of their way to handling revisionist actions like washing past comments or misquoting…in the end, for me, it’s more important that the Bush administration is upfront about making mistakes, than Dowd or even Limbaugh, because those people just have opinions…the governments opinions can get people killed.
My argument about Iraq again is about timing, not the issue of the attack. I think that it’s quite clear to me that other countries/organizations besides Iraq posed a more “imminent” threat. Of course Iraq could have funded/helped any breadbox sized weapon to get here and blow us up…but I would argue that the likelihood of that was much less likely than in other countries. Even before the invasion, Iraq was in very sorry shape, financially, organizationally, and military-wise.
Insurgents and their battles notwithstanding, we stomped Iraq like they did Kuwait.
So the fact remains that despite the pre-war administration statements that Iraq was a clear and present military danger to the US, and that America couldn?t wait weeks or months for UN inspections to be completed because of this imminent threat, when invaded, Iraq was demonstrably incapable of defending themselves.
Again…if this was last year and Bush had instead said “Hussein needs to go because he’s evil, done bad things, and the Iraqi people need our help” then I would argue that he would have received alot more support, and most likely had a lot more allies on the issue.
As to what should constitute pre-emptive action…we obviously differ. If every belligerent dictator spouting anti-US senitment was grounds for pre-emptive action, then we will be in war for decades. And adding to that the criterion of possessing bombs does not help the argument, since given enough money, any country can possess the equipment and will.
I think that it might surprise you that not every Bush hater is some sort of nutbag-conspiracy-theorizing leftie who is constantly pegging Bush as Hitler. No one is sad to see Hussein go, and no one (not even the right) is happy about how much money this war is spending, especially the established right who are totally opposed to nation building.
I agree … better and closer.
Let’s play with my scorpion/rattlesnake analogy for a moment. If they are both in your kitchen at the same time, it doesn’t make sense to ignore the scorpion just because the rattlesnake is more dangerous. You can squish the scorpion in an instant, and then focus your attention on the rattlesnake. But if you wait until the scorpion crawls up your pants leg, you are in for a bad time.
In short, the reason to do Iraq first is that is was an easier target than, say, North Korea. It was a low-hanging fruit that let the other nations hostile to us know that we aren’t playing around anymore. You yourself concede that it is a positive accomplishment … just not the best use of resources.
Here is a quote from a Bush speech on Oct. 05, 2002:
The danger to America from the Iraqi regime is grave and growing. The regime is guilty of beginning two wars. It has a horrible history of striking without warning. In defiance of pledges to the United Nations, Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. Saddam Hussein has used these weapons of death against innocent Iraqi people, and we have every reason to believe he will use them again.
Iraq has longstanding ties to terrorist groups, which are capable of and willing to deliver weapons of mass death. And Iraq is ruled by perhaps the world’s most brutal dictator who has already committed genocide with chemical weapons, ordered the torture of children, and instituted the systematic rape of the wives and daughters of his political opponents.
We cannot leave the future of peace and the security of America in the hands of this cruel and dangerous man. This dictator must be disarmed. And all the United Nations resolutions against his brutality and support for terrorism must be enforced.
With which part of this do you disagree? If Iraq no longer possessed chemical weapons, the onus was on Hussein to prove it. They were “inspectors”, not “detectors”.
Hussein paid a bounty/reward to Palestinian suicide bombers. That in itself is enough to establish his terrorist credentials.
You say: Of course Iraq could have funded/helped any breadbox sized weapon to get here and blow us up…but I would argue that the likelihood of that was much less likely than in other countries.
First of all, which other countries? Who better for a feasible second action than Iraq? We were able to take down Iraq. The radical anti-war left has howled to the rafters about the 500 or so soldiers who have died in Iraq. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to suppose that we might lose ten times that number in a war with N. Korea – so how will they react to that? I object strongly to the notion that we are constrained to attack our enemies in order of threat level, rather than in order of tactical convenience.
Colin Powell, today, said:
“My presentation … made it clear that we had seen some links and connections to terrorists organizations over time,” Powell said. “I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I do believe the connections existed.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-01-08-report_x.htm
he goes on to say that he believes Iraq had “intent”. Intent can be found in many countries that oppose the US’s actions in the middle east at one point or another, including Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afganistan.
To say that Iraq is low-hanging fruit I think might be just plain silly. If this is the easy win, then how much will a *substantial* pre-emptive strike cost ? Iraq was a very expensive hunch. Powell admits that there is no “concrete evidence” that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US.
I might even agree with you that North Korea might be good to strike, going along with the doctrine…but we’re digressing, and its beside my point.
My original point was not the issue of attacking other countries for protecting ourselves. It was that the administration sold a bill of goods that was wrong, and changed the reasoning for attacking from pre-emptive protection to liberation, when it became obvious that a threat from Iraq on the US was very far from being “imminent”.
also…about saying “The radical anti-war left”:
the anti-Iraq-war is not just the radical left, the left, or radical. placing folks who are anti-Iraq-war into that bucket reveals that you might not be aware of what sentiments there are out there. the number of people who suppported the war in Iraq on the basis of pre-emption are voicing their disapproval, including the far right, who, as I mentioned before, have historically been opposed to nation-building.
Look, I only oppose Bush’s policies about this because they have changed over time and never direct. Bush supporters have voiced that the reason why they voted for him was because he was direct and unwavering in policy, whether they were popular or not. This is not the case.
What I find ironic is that democrats have always been the ones to be attacked for pandering, catering, and wishy washy on foreign policy, not Republicans, and yet this is the very reason why Bush is receiving so much flack right now about Iraq.
I want to go back to the aircraft carrier scene with Bush in the flightsuit, when I still believed that we made the US safer and that the war was over. Checking the country’s wallet and security alerts, it would seem that neither are true.
Whoa, hold up a sec.
You say:
To say that Iraq is low-hanging fruit I think might be just plain silly. If this is the easy win, then how much will a *substantial* pre-emptive strike cost ? Iraq was a very expensive hunch. Powell admits that there is no “concrete evidence” that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US.
Powell certainly said no such thing whatsoever in that article. Here is the second paragraph:
Speaking at a State Department news conference, Powell openly disagreed with a private think tank report which maintained that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the United States. And the secretary defended the case he made before the United Nations for a U.S.-led war to force Saddam from power.
This directly contradicts the summary you attributed to Powell. Ouch.
Some further tasty snippets from the same article:
“In terms of intention, he always had it,” Powell said. Of Carnegie’s finding that Iraq posed no imminent threat, Powell said: “They did not say it wasn’t there.”
Also, Iraq apparently was expanding its capability to build missiles beyond the range permitted by the U.N. Security Council, the report said. “The missile program appears to have been the one program in active development in 2002,” it said.
And take a look at some other wars to get an idea of how much pre-emptive action might cost. 500 lives? While any loss of life is negative, I certainly thought we would lose many many times that number. Losing only 500 is a miracle, nothing less.
When we go after N. Korea, I think the price will be far higher. Still needs to be done, but the price will be higher. Iraq was just a warm-up for the ass-whipping yet to come.