Christopher Hitchens has an article in Salon about Iraq and our attitudes toward it. He opens:
Another request in my in-box, asking if I’ll be interviewed about Iraq for a piece “dealing with how writers and intellectuals are dealing with the state of the war, whether it’s causing depression of any sort, if people are rethinking their positions or if they simply aren’t talking about it.” I suppose that I’ll keep on being asked this until I give the right answer, which I suspect is “Uncle.”
As we approach a domestic election cycle, war fatigue becomes more and more of an issue.Chris Bertram replies to Hitchens:
Needless to say there isn’t a mention of the fact that they wouldn’t be under assault from “the vilest movement on the face of the planet”, nor would that movement be as strong as it presently is, but for the policy that Hitchens and his co-thinkers promoted in the first place. Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice at first, but Hitchens doesn’t believe that since he claims:
Bad as Iraq may look now, it is nothing to what it would have become without the steadying influence of coalition forces. None of the many blunders in postwar planning make any essential difference to that conclusion. Indeed, by drawing attention to the ruined condition of the Iraqi society and its infrastructure, they serve to reinforce the point.
The “steadying influence of coalition forces” …..
Well, I guess Chris is kind of right; oppressive tyrannies are more stable. For a while. If you don’t mind the human cost. Until they need to attack their neighbors to try and maintain their power. Or until they feed human and financial (and possibly technical) capital into a worldwide conspiracy dedicated to destabilizing the world order so a new, purer one can triumph.
The sense of fatigue in the chattering classes is palpable. They’re tired of the war, resentful that it’s not going better, despairing of the sacrifices involved. I’d been meaning to blog about the similar effects in World War II (Churchill lost the election, and when Morgenthau visited England after D-Day, Churchill wasn’t willing to walk him around London for fear that Londoners would jeer him.) and the Korean War (Truman’s approval ratings were in the 30’s toward the end of that war) and how democracies don’t do well in long wars.
I was looking for an explanation of how much stronger that fatigue is today when I finally read the back of this month’s Atlantic, and read Cathy Seipp’s friend Sandra Tsing Loh’s review of a book on a modern marriage, Unraveled by Maria Housden. Sandra writes:
Finally, an American mother who stopped her yammering and found a stunningly simple solution to the work-life balance problem: she left her family—her husband and three small children!
The author goes on to forge a new life for herself, living her bliss with a hunky New-Age kind of husband in the redwoods of Northern California. She sees her children on alternating weekends and summers.
Loh’s response to this flight from duty into bliss is right on:
Still puzzling over what, exactly, Mark Matousek was thinking when he mentioned The Road Less Traveled [in lauding Unraveled – ed.], I flopped open our old water-spotted 1978 copy and read,
Life is difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.* …
Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others.
*The first of the “Four Noble Truths” which Buddha taught was “Life is suffering.”
Stuff is hard.
War is probably the hardest stuff of all, and sadly, there is no hunky new-age husband and no redwood-shaded architecturally-crafted cabin where we can hide from it.
Charitably, I’ll assume that people arguing “Out Now!” believe that we can somehow decompose the war in Iraq from the overall war between Al-Quieda and the West. I obviously don’t believe so.
It appears that they don’t either.
bq. The sense of fatigue in the chattering classes is palpable. They’re tired of the war, resentful that it’s not going better, despairing of the sacrifices involved.
I find the phrase “chattering classes” in general to be pretty repugnant, but that aside: isn’t _everybody_ tired of the war, resentful that it’s not going better, and despairing of the sacrifices involved? Even on this site, posters and commenters alike seem to have lost a good bit of their zeal for the Iraq project.
I don’t want to see an immediate withdrawal from Iraq; I don’t even like the stuff I’m hearing from the administration about a possible drawdown in late 2006. But I think it’s important that we stop blurring the lines between Iraq and the greater war on terror. It _is_ unquestionably true that Iraq is _part_ of the war on terror, and that the US will lose a great deal if we withdraw before Iraq is a self-sustaining democracy.
But it’s also true that Iraq is not the _whole_ of the War on Terror – a bad outcome there does not inevitably lead to Osama, or someone like him, as unquestioned lord and master of the entire Middle East, any more than our withdrawal from Vietnam lead to communist control of the entire world. In chess terms, it’s perhaps equivalent to losing a rook – painful, frustrating, debilitating, but not the end of the game.
I’ll close by pointing out that humans, and democracies in general, act in their percieved self-interests – they can and will sacrifice, but only if they see some eventual benefit in doing so. And the truth of the matter is that, however noble Bush’s cause, whatever the rightness of his actions, Bush, and most of the supporters of the Iraq war, have done a lousy job of convincing people that the benefit is coming. Fair or not, _selling_ the war at home and abroad is at least as important as any military considerations. Think of it in business terms – a boss can order his team to work on any project, carry out any actions, but unless the team actually understands and believes in the work they’re doing, success isn’t likely.
When I first starting reading Winds of Change, I saw it as a site that was trying hard to reach out and make that kind of sales pitch to people who weren’t fully convinced about the war in Iraq. Now I see a greater number of posts that link to stuff like Hitchens’ piece, where the focus isn’t on selling the war, or on analyzing the state and prosecution of the war, but on blaming the left for the lack of progress in the war. Doing that kind of stuff may stoke the fires in the bellies of the true belivers, but I don’t think it does anything else – it’s certainly not going to shame the left into doing more, and I doubt it’s going to influence the middle all that much, because it’s the right, not the left, that’s been running this war since 9/11.
Chris,
You make a valid point. The administration has let us all down on the public diplomacy front. i’m not sure why you can blame WoC for not taking up the guantlet though. They’ve made many here have made many strong arguments in support of the war. They’re still in the archives.
One definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over while expecting differing results. Is there one person visiting here that has changed their mind about the Iraq War after the invasion?
For whatever reason, people have hardened positions on this. Just look at the comments for the Crooked Timber post that A.L. linked above. If the image of free elections in Iraq couldn’t chnage their minds then there’s absolutely to be said that will. That’s why I refuse to engage in these arguments anymore. They’re fruitless and “deja vu all over again”.
I both agree and disagree with lurker, I think that Bush and company have laid out the rationale for Iraq in numerous speeches and tv events. I have not forgotten the speeches at the UN, at West Point etc. To many in the chattering classes and the media dens have either looked at these speeches and either ignored them or cherry picked them for gotcha quotes and accused the admin of outright lying etc etc etc. Now with Hindsight being 20-20, obviously they needed to do a better, more consistent job with the message that this is needed, they should have confronted directly the anti war nonsense of both the right and left. And honestly I have given up talking to people about the war in Iraq and the war on Islamic fascists. That they can not see the obvious is no longer my concern. When they repeat thier moronic nit picking point of disagreement, I know longer point out to them their mistakes. I don’t care anymore about thier arguments for past mistakes real or imagined. If they would say to me what we should do is knock the snot out of Syria, enlarge the Army and Marines, cut down this or that to reduce the deficit. Something. But All I hear on TV and from the left is how dumb we are, how imperial, how arrogant, and I do not have the energy or desire to talk about the past anymore.
a few points
1. Note = that Truman was unpopular, but we elected Ike, who was no softie on communism. Atlee kept the war going through to victory (Ike ended up with a stalemate in Korea, but that was not different from the Truman strategy at that point) Theres something BIG to be said for bipartisanism, if youre really serious about a big war. And that means recognizing the hawks on the other side, and NOT ripping them for their connections to doves.
2. Sacrifice – the problem, thus far is NOT that theres too much sacrifice, but too LITTLE, outside of the uniformed military and especially the Guard/Reserve. McCain understands that. If this is important enough, central enough, for 1800 americans to die, for reservists to have thier lives torn apart by constant deployment, why ISNT it important enough to expand the army, to fully fund and ride herd on) reconstruction, to fully fund public diplomacy, etc.
3.Hitchens is a good guy. I got no problems with links to Hitchens. He IS of the left. I got plenty of problems with the demonization of the “left”, but Hitchens aint part of that problem.
lurker-
Your post, and especially kevin’s post following, are a perfect illustration of my point. You’re absolutely right that Winds of Change _used_ to make all kinds of arguments in support of the war, but they seem to have given up on it, just like you and kevin.
The problem is that Iraq is not the Special Olymics – trying in and of itself means nothing. I acknowledge that the burden here lies more on the President than on WoC, but logic suggests that if what you’re doing isn’t working, then you should _try doing it another way_, rather than keep doing the same thing over and over or giving up entirely.
My hunch is that the right needs to eat some serious humble pie and cut way, way back on the hardball partisan politics that have marked Bush’s whole presidency… but I don’t expect that to happen, and it may be far too late regardless. In which case I suspect that Winds of Change, and sites like it, will be full of articles explaining why it wasn’t _really_ the fault of Bush and his supporters that Iraq failed… which in its own way, would be just as contemptible as anything the left has done with regard to the war.
Chris
I agree that the propaganda aspect of the WOT and the Iraq war has not as good as it needs to be, but at this point I have come to believe if Bush had the rhetorical arsenal of Reagan and Churchill combined it would not matter, there is simply no words that seem to be able to dent the MSM and the looney left (the nattering nabobs of negativity. The opposition party has acted shamefully in this war and no facts ever seem to dent the mendacity of the MSM and a good portion of the Democrats.
What humble pie should the repubs eat? The fact that when President Bush said in his mission accomplished speech taht the hard work is ahead of us? That before the war the democrats decried all the contracts to Halliburton, saying they are planning for war and its aftermath w/o giving inspections a chance. We are rushing to war then claiming after teh war there was no plan to win the peace. And saying this with a straight face. If the MSM was interested in setting a neutral agenda and reporting facts, then eating some humble pie would be good, reset the clock so to speak. But since any admission of mistake or miscalculation by the President would spend the next 20 news cycles spinning death for mistakes.
Here is the thing – I do not need WOC to cheerlead or keep restating what we are doing and why its important. I do not have ADHD. I wish more people could remember the anger and sorrow felt on 9/11 and the resolve felt on 9/12.
Kevin-
I suspect having this argument with you will end up with us running around in circles, because your language indicates that you already think the left’s responsible for the majority of the problems with Iraq. (And I just don’t buy that – it’s like saying that the game was lost because of a bitchy sports columnist, rather than placing the blame on the shoulders of the coach.) But that said:
– I’d step back and take a look at what you wrote – you’re essentially making an excuse as to why Bush can never admit mistakes, because doing so will give his enemies political ammunition. I say that if the Iraq war is as important as the right claims, he should be willing to take the hits so that we can move forward.
– Your language suggests that the left doesn’t remember 9/11. The majority of people I personally know who lost friends and family on 9/11 were and are lefties, and I guarantee they remember every little detail about that day, and that they were plenty resolved when it came to dealing with the Taliban and AQ; still are, for that matter.
But they didn’t agree with Iraq, haven’t agreed with how the war was prosecuted, and, yes, view almost every decision Bush has made since with increasing contempt and suspicion. But it’s Bush I blame for poisoning the well of goodwill that existed post-9/11, not the friends and relations of the victims.
Bottom line: blaming the left does _nothing_ to help Iraq, and that’s increasingly all I see from the right.
OK here we go..
Which well is it and what has Bush done to posion the it?
I’m a registered Democrat and I see Bush making a good faith effort to pursue his strategy. Many may disagree with that strategy; but, how many Democrats have actually acknowledged his good faith efforts? If there really is a well that has been poisoned, the Democrats are just as guilty as anyone.
lurker-
I lived in a liberal college town, and I remember lines of cars stretching for miles to give blood and financial donations the week after 9/11. I remember liberals and conservatives alike celebrating every victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan, and I remember friends of mine discussing how they’d eagerly join the expanded version of the Peace Corps they were sure Bush would create to help rebuild Afghanistan.
Long story short, I consider it a profoundly dishonest insult to pretend that the left was never a fan of the war on terror.
As for what Bush specifically has done to poison the well, I suspect it’s a cumulative thing, and that the breaking point was different for everyone. But you tell me: what has Bush done to reach out to the Democrats, domestically or foriegn policy-wise, post 9/11?
_As for what Bush specifically has done to poison the well, I suspect it’s a cumulative thing_
Such as . . .
Not spontaneously combusting, PD.
PD-
Are you seriously unaware of all the stuff the left’s been complaining about for the past three years?
Are you that unwilling to admit that, justified or not, the left has a _lot_ of grievances against GWB, and that there were probably more than a few ways he could have handled the situation better? Places where he really could have been a uniter, not a divider?
Or do you just want to get me to come up with a stock list of lefty talking points, counter them with a stock list of righty responses, reaffirm to yourself the conclusion that Bush did just about everything right, and the left is completely to blame for their own disaffected state?
Chris;
My reply would be two words: “Michael Moore”.
It’s not so much what Moore himself did, but how widely popular it was among the Modern American Left. The Right has its repellent wackos as well, but they don’t get seated in a place of honor at the Republican National Convention nor do they get millions of people to show up at their tenditious propaganda films and get showered with awards. Can you tell me one thing Bush has done to poison the well that is even in the same ballpark as Moore’s movie? How can one convince people who admire such a man and his work?
Chris
I am not interested in talking around in circles, I am not trying to say all the problems in Iraq are the fault of the left or the MSM. What I am saying is the left have been fundementally unserious in thier criticisms (trumpeted by thier friends in the MSM) that reasonable debate is not even possible. When I watch the MSNBC and CNN’s and the like I don’t even know where to begin. Its like they are not even dealing with same set of facts. Where is the intelligent left, offering ideas about what to do next. Instead you get nonsense like engage our allies, involve the UN, EU etc. And its like can you not read. Oil for Food – ring any bells. Corruption, payoffs???? What in the UN history suggests that they will be any good at this???? Same ith the EU. We have acted – we can not wave a magic wand and make it all go away. We can not turn our back on these people (did we learn nothing from Viet Nam). There are decent left/liberals who wrestle with these things but not in the democratic party and not in MSM for the most part. There have been problems and mistakes but when admitting them will feed a frenzy of Bush Lied/I can’t believe they effed it up/we were mislead/ and so on its just beggers belief that anyone would vote for these people for anything.
Chris,
As far as I know, It’s legal for anyone to go to Afgahistan to help that wants to. If you want to help, go! Why aren’t these noble people there helping already? Oh yeah. That’s right. It’s Bush’s fault!
OMG! That’s the craziest arguement ever. “Like, I really wanted to help, but Bush didn’t, like, personally ask me. My well has been poisoned! He’s a bastard. We must’ve only went into Afghanistan to build an oil pipeline. But dude! At least they are growing poppies there again!”
Kevin & AOG-
I think you’re both missing my point. It _doesn’t matter_ whether you dislike the left because of Micheal Moore, or CNN, or whatever. These people represent half the country, and you’ve failed to engage them in the Iraq war.
You won’t be able to win all of them, but *90 percent* of the country supported the invasion of Afghanistan. Get just half of those people back in the fold, and Bush has the mandate to do almost anything to win the war on terror. Dismiss anybody who paid money to go see a particular film, and you’re stuck where you are now: eroding public support, and an increasingly difficult situation in Iraq.
(And, for the record, most lefties I know dismiss just about all cable news as either conservative or just plain incompetent – if you want to dump on liberal media, “NPR” is the term you should be using.)
They represent half the country?
That’s funny. Whenever anyone points to the sign that said “We support our troops when they shoot their officers,” or Cynthia McKinney’s inane “Bush knew about 9-11 in advance,” or Michael Moore and company, the Left immediately throws out its hands and shrieks, “That’s not us!”
But when they want to be heard, all of a sudden it doesn’t matter whether Moore or McKinney or the rest are inane, b/c they represent half the country.
Frankly, I think that Democrats represent around half the country (especially when many independents are simply Republicans or Democrats who don’t want to register as such).
But that includes Zell Miller and Ed Koch, Joe Lieberman and Roger Simon, before ranging leftwards to Joe Biden through Ted Kennedy to Barbara Lee (who voted, lest you’ve forgotten, against going to war in Afghanistan).
The Left? Not even close (although you have a point—not everyone who went to see Mikey Moore necessarily agreed w/ him, or was of the Left). The Left, the ones who believe the press is biased conservative, probably represents less than a third of the electorate (and quite possibly only a third of the Democrats).
Where the Left is overrepresented however, is the 10% that even you recognize opposed the war in Afghanistan. The ones who believed it was over Unocal pipelines and that the Taliban would’ve handed bin Laden over, had we merely provided them with the intelligence sources and methods they were demanding. I’d venture that they’re almost entirely of the Left (leavened w/ a few Pat Buchananites, interesting bedfellows, eh?).
So, the Left (and many liberal Democrats) complain that because Bush hasn’t done what they would have done, therefore it’s Bush’s fault the nation isn’t more united.
I’m not much of one for those who argue that Bush is the new Lincoln, but Honest Abe’s observation about pleasing all of the people all the time comes to mind, and is still quite apropos.
Lurker-
Don’t be a jerk. You wanted to know what goodwill the left had for the WoT, I pointed out some examples. The examples I cited were totally different from the stuff that poisoned the well – which I’ve generally tried to avoid getting into, because it’d just degenerate into a conversation on the merits of each individual reason.
But fine, go ahead and prove my point – let all the conservative commenters on this thread dogpile on and come up with a thousand reasons why the left really shouldn’t have been upset about: phantom WMDs, kicking out UN inspectors, the Patriot Act, massive tax cuts combined with massive increases in spending, torture scandals, Maher Arar, Jose Padillia (or Abdullah al-Muhajir if you prefer), political games played with stuff like unions and whistleblower protections in the Department of Homeland security, ignoring loose nukes and port security, and the perception of general incompetence in persecuting the Iraq war… not to mention the left’s obvious and probably intractable antagonism towards Bush on the domestic side.
I’m sure many people can and prove to a moral certitude that Bush was on the side of the angels on every single one of these issues, or that the issues really didn’t matter in the first place. And I sincerely hope that moral certitude helps keep them warm at night as Iraq slowly continues to destabilize.
Lurking Observer-
Given the rampant blurring of the lines all over this site between “Democrats” and “the left”, and given that *I specifically said* you wouldn’t be able to get that last ten percent… what exactly is the point of post #17?
Chris,
I didn’t mean to be an unproked jerk. Perhaps i misunderstood your meaning WRT your aquanitances, bush, and this new peace corp thing.
The problem is that after Afghanistan, all these people would have preferred to return to the status quo before 9-11, i.e. terrorism as criminal investigation and prosecution. This has been proved not to be adequate. Other than the Bush plan of spreading freedom and this, there are no ideas being offered. Excuse us if we think Bush’s approach is better.
It’s even worse than that. The list of examples that you give of Bush poisoning the well, are at best irrelevant and at worst gotchas. They are not serious policy differences WRT to the fight against Islamism.
We agree that bush hasn’t done enough to sell his plan. It very likely has to do with political calculations. The Democrats with their unserious approach to ANYTHING, make it easy for him to do this. When the next election rolls around, it will be easy for Bush to highlight his positive actions against Democrtaic nitpicking. Do you remember Conyers parade trying to gig bush over that Downing Street memo. How exactly is that NOT posioning the well?
So, when judging Bush’s performance on breeching the political divide, perhaps it would be best to see if he actually shows a political setback instead of the continuous increases that he’s achieved so far. And with Dean in charge at the DNC, I suspect it will be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Chris,
Your laundry list contains no examples of “poisoning the well”. Rather it contains a few areas of simple disagreement and a lot of examples of outright misrepresentation by you of the facts.
The reality is that it has been the irrational opposition that has poisoned the well. The political opposition to the Bush administration long ago decided to deliberately and intentionally poison the debate on national security policy by focusing on alleged “gotcha” moments, reckless exaggeration ( such as the PATRIOT Act ) and deliberately avoiding being a rational partner in forming policy.
Far from rebuting that, you’ve provided fresh examples here.
lurker – “Is there one person visiting here that has changed their mind about the Iraq War after the invasion?”
Yeah, me. Steven Den Beste, Tom Barnett and Dan Darling were the ones who convinced me. But then I’m young and probably atypical. Just sayin’, ’cause you asked.
I sympathize with Chris. I’m incredibly fatigued, not over Iraq but over political discourse in general. Even when those on both sides of the argument seem reasonable, they still have difficulty talking to one another without it devolving into a game of personality darts — pick your favourite target(s) on the right left and toss away. (“Bush did…” “Michael Moore said..” “the Democrats are not…” “the Republicans have…” “the Left continues to…” “the Right is…” blah blah blabity blah.) And it gets much, much worse when both sides aren’t willing to be reasonable and argue in good faith. I feel like Jon Stewart begging the guys on Crossfire to please, please just stop.
The only commentors who don’t send me running for asprin on a regular basis anymore are people like Dave Schuler, AMac, Dan Darling, Nadezhda, Mark Safranski, or Daniel Starr (to name a few off the top of my head), people for whom personalities and coalitional politics are clearly a secondary concern, when that stuff is even on their radar at all. I know it’s probably too much to ask that people make an effort to focus on important issues and not get tangled up in accusations and whatnot, but the aforementioned commentators and others like them demonstrate that it is clearly possible.
This is not a plea for everyone to just get along; it’s a plea for everyone to just keep their eyes on the ball and don’t get sucked into attacking people rather than their ideas. It’s not always easy and the best of us are occaisionally guilty, but I’m sure I can’t be alone in finding the discourse much more gratifying when stays above the petty stuff. And let’s all try to take a lesson from Ben Franklin:
Lurker-
bq. It’s even worse than that. The list of examples that you give of Bush poisoning the well, are at best irrelevant and at worst gotchas. They are not serious policy differences WRT to the fight against Islamism.
_You_ don’t believe the examples I cited are serious policy differences, but if you spend any time at all actually reading or listening to the left, it’s abundantly clear that _they do_. And merely telling the left “well, those aren’t real problems and you’re not being serious about the war on terror” is, in and of itself, an example of poisoning the well. (I mean, come on, at least _try_ to understand how a bunch of easily excitable (but otherwise quite worthwhile) liberals would be at least a _little_ preturbed when the president’s lawyers keep insisting that he has the power to indefinately detain almost anyone without charges if it’s related to the WoT… and a _lot more_ upset when it seems like nobody on the right seems to think it’s even an issue.)
Returning to Lurking Observer’s post above – no, you’re never gonna be able to convince a lot of the left that Bush is acting in good faith. But blowing off the concerns of a lot of the remaining Democrats and independants – _regardless of how trivial you think those concerns are_ – means you’re hobbling yourself in the War on Terror, as I’ve said many times before.
And yes, you can hang your hat on Republican success in the last two elections, but there are a lot of other factors involved with that (Kerry’s unlikability, redistricting changes in Texas, etc.). I’d tend to look at it from another perspective: that a sitting president, in the midst of what we’re constantly told is the greatest ideological struggle of our time, came within a few hundred thousand votes of getting kicked out of office suggests to me that the war is _not_ proceeding all that well. But if you’re happy with the way things are going… well, your call.
And Robin… well, you’ve clearly written me off as a misrepresenter of the facts, so I hope you’ll excuse me if I do the same to you.
Good post, Matt.
Chris,
It is very possible that much of our angst is only because of to much time spent in the Internet house of mirrors. And I personally don’t hang my hat on Bush’s electoral success. I’m a registered Democrat, remember?
Apparently, Bush has reached out well enough to rope me in for now. My support isn’t anything close to wholehearted. WHY isn’t the left reaching out to me?
Matt, I agree with Chris. Thanks for posting.
Thanks guys.
Lurker-
bq. Apparently, Bush has reached out well enough to rope me in for now. My support isn’t anything close to wholehearted. WHY isn’t the left reaching out to me?
It’s a reasonable question. I suspect that, given the relative sizes of the pool of moderates and the pool of disaffected Democrats, it made sense for them to try and go after the moderates by offering a clear alternative to Bush, rather than going with a Bush-lite approach. Obviously didn’t work too well, tho…
But I think it’s also worth pointing out that the burden of coming up with ideas and reaching out falls more on the party in power than the opposition party – hard to see how it could be otherwise, really.
Lastly, I’m honestly curious – post 9/11, did you feel Bush actually reached out to you, a la Reagan, or did you feel Bush was the only responsible choice based on his national security stance, as your comments up top would seem to suggest?
Chris,
Immediately after 9-11, I never thought about it in those terms. Bush was just doing what had to be done.
WRT to Iraq, Bush didn’t need to convince me of anything. 9-11 changed my perspectives on everything. Given this new paradigm, the threat posed by Saddam could no longer be tolerated. It’s turely a case of Bush being an instrument of MY foreign policy.
It’s been a real eye opener watching Democratic Senator’s try to oppose Bush on Iraq, after authorizing it! It’s obvious now that many Senators do not read the resolutions that they vote for. It’s either that or they’re way bigger liars then Bush is supposed to be. I’m almost embarrased to admit that I’m almost sorta glad that both of my senators are Republican now, (Small shudder) and happy that it’s not Conyers. (Big grin).
There were many who opposed the war on principal. I respect that. But not a single one of them offered anything in the way of new policy, other than returning to the Clinton ones that had failed so dramatically. That’s why Kerry NEVER had a chance of winning my vote. Even being a registered Democrat, the only one I could have voted for was Lieberman.
And as things have evolved in Iraq, I see many mistakes and many successes. Such is life. Anyone who watched the elections and STILL says it’s about the oil, or haliburton, or empire, or blah, blah, blah… is nuts. The idea of pulling out is crazy too. Anyone who suggests it gets immediately consigned to my virtual looney bin.
They bring up the same list that you did, but all of them relating to Iraq can be and have been refuted with facts. And I really, really get tired of seeing these falsehoods repeated ad nauseum.
As a result of alllll this, my understanding of the Vietnam War has changed greatly. Our pulling out led directly to the deaths of 2 million people, triggered a huge refuge crisis, and consigned the whole place to a communist dictatorship. This is evidence that we CANNOT leave Iraq unitl the effort is done.
I’ll continue to swallow all my distaste for Bush as long as he remains steadfast in Iraq. As soon as it appears he is faltering here, then my support for him will be gone. So he better watch it!
My eyes have also been opened to the UN. I used to think the people that warned about it were political hacks or worse. Well, you can count me amoung them now. The UN is far from worthless. It is downright dangerous! Any future candidate in any election, local, state, or federal, that expresses support for the UN will find it very difficult indeed to win my vote.
It is like moral relativism writ large. In what other universe, except a morally relativist one, could an organization be taken seriously when a brutal dictator has as much a voice as a freely elected president? It’s even worse. The dictators get to chair things like the Human Rights and Nuclear Disarmament Commissions. This is the place that many would have us disolve our national sovereignty into. NO THANKS!
So, Chris, this is probably more of a response than you bargained for. I hope it helps you see my thought processes and maybe understand a little why I am tired.
So, short answer is, yes, you feel Bush is the only responsible alternative, to an extent that from a foriegn policy standpoint you’re now more like a Republican than a Democrat. That’s fine.
Two things I did want to point out, however, and we’ll leave it at that. First is, of all the stuff on my “laundry list”, only three of them directly involve Iraq. Even assuming you’re correct about how all of them can be refuted (and I suspect the argument’s a little more complex than that) that still leaves a fairly substantial divide.
Second, I suspect relatively few people see the UN as a model of the democratic process in action – at best (from the US standpoint) it provides PR cover for getting people to go along with our agenda. But whatever problems you have with the UN, the fact remains that we couldn’t sell NATO on Iraq, even though NATO’s comprised entirely of western democracies. Even taking into account the argument that some NATO members were covering up for Saddam, it tends to suggest to me that the “self-defense” argument for Iraq isn’t as clear-cut as some are making it out to be.