The babyjesuschristsuperstar on Board: filling the moral void of Clinton’s legacy

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Spanky
Are you really comparing Germany in WWI to the United States in the Vietnam war? Ty has left the building and reality.

Let's see: Germany at the end of WWI was outgunned, outmanned and out of money. The US at the end of the Vietnam war outgunned, outmanned and infinitely out bankrolled North Vietnam.

In fact you have just shown us when the stab in the back argument is absurd and when it is relevent. In WWI it was absurd, but since the US involvement in Vietnam was almost the complete opposite of the German situation in WWI, that must mean that the stab in the back argument fits perfectly for the US situation in Vietnam.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Most people on this board have that sock on ignore. when you quote it you force us to read it, or to put your sock on ignore, DO NOT QUOTE THAT SOCK UNLESS really REALLY NECESSARY. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Most people on this board have that sock on ignore. when you quote it you force us to read it, or to put your sock on ignore, DO NOT QUOTE THAT SOCK UNLESS really REALLY NECESSARY. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION.

Translation: Hank misses Paigow. *sniff*

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
No. My point was somewhat more subtle than that.

Actually - no it wasn't.

[bilmore]

"I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn. . . ."

"Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory."

Joe Lieberman

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
What do you think caused Daniel Ortega to finally call for open and free elections? Did he just realize the error of his ways?

I probably should STP, but . . .

Ortega and the Sandinistas were really out of touch the sentiment of a majority of Nicaraguans -- especially those in rural areas. They were stunned when they lost the elections, absolutely shocked. (As contemporaneous coverage indicated.)

Free elections are great when you think you'll win. But Ortega was always (and still is) a reluctant democrat at best. In my view, though, still far morally superior to Somoza and his ilk.

[eta: Of course, it was our continued funding of an armed resistance (and general enmity) which brought Ortega to that decision, but he would not have agreed if they didn't think they'd win.]

S_A_M

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
"I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn. . . ."

"Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory."

Joe Lieberman

Too late. Bush is expected to announce a near-heresy and begin drawing 'em down prior to the 2006 elections. Why does he hate America so?

• Brace yourself for a mind-bog of sheer cynicism. The discombobulation begins Wednesday, when President George W. Bush is expected to proclaim, in a major speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, that the Iraqi security forces—which only a few months ago were said to have just one battalion capable of fighting on its own—have suddenly made uncanny progress in combat readiness. Expect soon after (if not during the speech itself) the thing that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have, just this month, denounced as near-treason—a timetable for withdrawal of American troops.
  
  And so it appears (assuming the forecasts about the speech are true) that the White House is as cynical about this war as its cynical critics have charged it with being. For several months now, many of these critics have predicted that, once the Iraqis passed their constitution and elected a new government, President Bush would declare his mission complete and begin to pull out—this, despite his public pledge to "stay the course" until the insurgents were defeated.
  
  This theory explains Bush's insistence that the Iraqis draft and ratify the constitution on schedule—even though the rush resulted in a seriously flawed document that's more likely to fracture the country than to unite it. For if the pullout can get under way in the opening weeks of 2006, then the war might be nullified as an issue by the time of our own elections.
  
  The political beauty of this scenario is that, even if Iraq remains mired in chaos or seems to be hurtling toward civil war, nobody in Congress is going to call for a halt, much less a reversal, of the withdrawal. The Republicans will fall in line; many of them have been nervous that the war's perpetuation, with its rising toll and dim horizons, might cost them their seats. And who among the Democrats will choose to outflank Bush on his right wing and advocate—as some were doing not so long ago—keeping the troops in Iraq for another five or 10 years or even boosting their numbers. (The question is so rhetorical, it doesn't warrant a question mark.)
  
  In short, Bush could pull a win-win-win out of this shift. He could pre-empt the Democrats' main line of attack against his administration, stave off the prospect of (from the GOP's perspective) disastrous elections in 2006 and '08, and, as a result, bolster his presidency's otherwise dwindling authority within his own party and among the general population.
  
  The signs are clear, in any case, that a substantial withdrawal—or redeployment—is at hand. Top U.S. military officers have been privately warning for some time that current troop levels in Iraq cannot be sustained for another year or two without straining the Army to the breaking point. Rep. John Murtha's agenda-altering Nov. 17 call for an immediate redeployment was not only a genuine cri de coeur but also, quite explicitly, a public assertion of the military's institutional interests—and an acknowledgment of Congress' electoral interests.
  
  Murtha wasn't merely advocating redeployment; he was practically announcing it. As he told Tim Russert on the Nov. 20 Meet the Press, "There's nobody that talks to people in the Pentagon more than I do. … We're going to be out of there very quickly, and it's going to be close to the plan that I'm presenting right now."

Slate

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Too late. Bush is expected to announce a near-heresy and begin drawing 'em down prior to the 2006 elections. Why does he hate America so?

You've not seen the constantly-updated progress reports of the Iraqi brigades certified as ready to control over the past five months? You've assumed that we would keep the same numbers there forever?

Or, are you just now catching the new Kos-spin (that's a nice word for "lie", or, in NewDemSpeak, "reframing the debate") that such a gradual move is some sort of reaction to Murtha's comments? Funny how that new 70% poll caused such a sea change in Dem strategy, innit? (Picture an astonished Sally Field standing on a table, saying "They hate me! They really hate me!")

If nothing else, it's always fun to watch you guys rewriting histories and philosophies to match what happened last week. I give it three weeks before the replacement for "Bush Lied!" becomes something like "Bush Cuts and Runs!" It may be fun for you, but it's playing hell with the two-party system. You're gonna leave us with . . . what? . . . Nader?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
You've not seen the constantly-updated progress reports of the Iraqi brigades certified as ready to control over the past five months? You've assumed that we would keep the same numbers there forever?

No. Since you bring it up, how many are there now?


ETA:

Or, are you just now catching the new Kos-spin (that's a nice word for "lie", or, in NewDemSpeak, "reframing the debate") that such a gradual move is some sort of reaction to Murtha's comments?

I don't read Kos, FWIW.

Funny how that new 70% poll caused such a sea change in Dem strategy, innit? (Picture an astonished Sally Field standing on a table, saying "They hate me! They really hate me!")

I was thinking more about the response to Murtha. Not that this is a reaction to it, but if this prediction of Bush's address is accurate, why the response wasn't different in the first place.

Why wasn't the GOP response -- instead parsing about whether he was a coward vs. simply advocating a cowardly route, because goddammit, we HAVE to stay, that's what patriots do -- that Murtha's response was factually incorrect? "Look, (a) things are going great!, and (b) look at the progress we've made! We're ready to go home!"

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Picture yourself as am eighteen-year-old. Now, try to make those same words. Ouch.

I understand. But we aren't 18 any more. And we have a world of experience teaching us that there are far more shades of grey than black or white.

We could have had the last man standing five hundred times over. You can't use that analogy when we make an arbitrary choice that we'll leave no more standing men in sight.

We could have. Just as we could be the last man standing in Iraq, and Syria, and the Sudan, and Liberia, and Chechnya.... But are we willing to keep sending our sins and daughters to die until we kill them all? And once we've killed them all, what have we left?

"We had to destroy the village to save it" doesn't sound any better echoing over the last three decades.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Why wasn't the GOP response -- instead parsing about whether he was a coward vs. simply advocating a cowardly route, because goddammit, we HAVE to stay, that's what patriots do -- that Murtha's response was factually incorrect? "Look, (a) things are going great!, and (b) look at the progress we've made! We're ready to go home!"

Um, do you not see a difference between "we can't win, we need to leave immediately" (his words, IIRC), and "we'll start pulling back some troops starting in 2006"? Cuz, like, I do, but then, I was sort of a hard science major in college.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I understand. But we aren't 18 any more. And we have a world of experience teaching us that there are far more shades of grey than black or white.

Yeah, but that can't be an excuse to drop at least the aspirational level. We do make compromises - we let practicality affect how we pursue our moral choices - but the moral choices remain the primary driver.

But are we willing to keep sending our sins and daughters to die . . .

Freudian?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
Um, do you not see a difference between "we can't win, we need to leave immediately" (his words, IIRC), and "we'll start pulling back some troops starting in 2006"? Cuz, like, I do, but then, I was sort of a hard science major in college.

No shit. That's what the "factually incorrect" part of my post was about.

By the way, how many Iraqi brigades have been certified recently?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Gattigap
No shit. That's what the "factually incorrect" part of my post was about.

By the way, how many Iraqi brigades have been certified recently?

What, you want me to google it for the latest figures for you?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Freudian?

Sometimes a cigar is just a step on the road to a heart attack.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
What, you want me to google it for the latest figures for you?

Huh. Your post implied that you've seen the constantly updated reports of improvement, that ANY idiot would have, and that my not having seen them correlated strongly with a Kosian desire to revise history.

Therefore, I thought you'd know them off the top of your head.