It is time to talk of a vote of no confidence in our President. We have an administration in disarray. They have spoken continually of progress in Iraq yet no progress is evident. They have changed enemies mid-war, first fighting Saddam Hussein’s army and now fighting to rebuild it.
Their track record is horrendous when it comes to Iraq. From “mission accomplished” onward this has been a litany of failures. There was the chaos immediately after the fall of Saddam. Their priorities were obvious when the protected the oil ministry while museums were looted and hospitals abandoned. There was the fiasco of Abu Ghraib. There was the constant rose-colored glasses — statements based on wishful thinking and now provably false: the “last throes”, “treated as liberators”, “progress”, “progress”, “progress”. What progress? Even after the surge Baghdad is in chaos. The government is impotent and the Iraq defense forces nowhere near adequate.
When he vetoed the recent bill that would continue funding of the war Bush said:
the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders.
The President, the Commander-in-Chief, is a politician. He is supposed to be providing clear and obtainable goals to the military. The judgment of the military is used to achieve these goals. The military does not set policy goals. You see, the President has it backwards. This is the problem when the goals shift under your feet without you realizing it. Bush is waiting for the military solution to work. With no evidence whatsoever that it is working, the military is doomed to slog through Bush’s inept vision.
American can do better. When you don’t get the job done in the U. S. of A. you get handed a pink slip. When your leadership is ineffective you get put on the bench. We do not and can not tolerate ineptitude in our nation’s highest office.
I know many of you believe that Bush has noble goals at heart: an independent, self-sufficient and Democratic Iraq. I agree, this is a fine ideal. However, what reason do we have to believe that we alone can impose this vision on the Iraqis? Democracy must be nurtured from within, not imposed by the bullets of Marines. Bush’s vision for Iraq is the problem. I wish I had a pony but wishing doesn’t make it so.
Bush also said:
It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing. All the terrorists would have to do is mark their calendars and gather their strength and begin plotting how to overthrow the government and take control of the country of Iraq.
With all due respect, Sir, what enemy? Are the Iraqi people our enemy? They want their country back. They are tired of the check points and the raids and the arrests. Are we fighting for one side of the other in the civil war? Are the Sunnis or the Shia our enemies? Who is our enemy? Al-Qaeda? They weren’t in Iraq until we destablized it. Do you really think that US Marines can force the Iraqi people to set aside their generational conflict?
The President wants to believe that we can achieve anything we set our minds to. He is willing to spend any amount of lives and money to prove that. We were defeated the very day that the President was made to believe that he could decide what the Iraqi people want.
The war in Iraq is already over. The terrorists didn’t win. They are simply feeding on the scraps of our occupation. The Iraqis didn’t win, they are devastated and destablized. The US didn’t win. Sorry, George, we didn’t. The military victory was easy, it’s the nation building that is hard. That’s why an earlier George W. Bush said “I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders“. He also said “I just don’t think it’s the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you.”
Too bad he didn’t listen to himself!
No American can sit by and claim that we are on the right path. It’s time to bench the quarterback.
lolife 
and if we expect others to be “fair” are we being fair with all of the articles of the Geneva Convention?
How about the Laws concerning Domestic wire tapping?
we seem to make anything work that we choose to make work…now we expect our enemy to fight fair?
yikes!
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Sad as it is, fewer dead under Saddam than now. Doesn’t make him right. It was all the things you say. His was a regime on the downslide. Hindsite again, but I watched the documentary I spoke of on a previous post and apparently he was very very close to collapse from within…but true that would be hindsite…and I also voted for us to go to war…so at one point I was where you are now.
Less connection to Iraq than to Saudi…
more of a direct threat in North Korea than Iraq
more bloodshed in north Africa than in Iraq
Similar human rights violations in many countries
as George Tennent has stated over the past week “The decision to go to war was not ‘based’ on intelligence alone”
According to material I have read and again the documentary, the statement “we are actually fixing it” I really can not grasp….I know that the media paints the sensational picture…and I know that we have had great success in parts of Iraq…so in that regaard I suppose we are “fixing it” but to believe that what we are doing was or is a good thing…I just don’t quite get…
Dumping Saddam, for sure good thing….but the whole shit storm has evolved so much from WMD’s to liberation to cival war…that “we are actually fixing it” is just not flying with the majority of the American people…
And my arguement is from someone who doesn’t want a timetable…I don’t think we should leave right now. I think we “can” do everything you stated. I just don’t think we will. I don’t believe this administration has the ability to do what needs to be done. I believe that is a sentiment that is making those on the right now move to the center and in some cases all the way accross the aisle on this conflict.
My major friend says..”do the surge the right way and if the military is allowed to do their thing, we will see significant change in less than six months”….I am all for that…
I think leaving as things are now, is more of a mistake than staying.
and off topic a bit but I am tired of the political statement (mccain) “they’ll follow us home”….that is such a pile of horseshit!! look at New Jersey!!!
They’ll follow us home is fear tactic….I live on the border of canada and the US…It is harder to get into mall of america than it is to get into the US….and our southern border?…yet we are supposed to send our sons?
sorry, I don’t get it….prove to me you want to win before you ask me to sacrifice my child.
Ask an Iraqi mother whose children are dead if things were better or worse under Saddam?
sorry I drifted topics considerably…
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Nope, not less American, just more wrong.
And you are wrong, wrong, wrong on your assessment of Saddam-era Iraq. Are you kidding me???
Govern itself – yeah, maybe, with an iron fist and no possibility of dissent without fear of death. If you want to call that governing, then I guess I’ll concede that point. Lots of dead Kurds, mass graves, one-handed men, and dead dissidents though. Oh, and Saddam did win every election by like 99%, so he had that going for him.
Defend itself – Hmmm, they did a great job defending themselves against us. Maybe they were insulated somewhat but they didn’t have any great defenses.
And dude, I know they had “no direct connection to 9/11” as you all so gleefully point out but they did have alliances with terrorists groups, Saddam himself paid the families of suicide bombers, and there were terrorist training camps in Iraq. There is no one that denies these facts.
So, one out of 3, maybe. Try again
And finally, Iraq was broken before we got there, unless you are a Baathist, I suppose. If you think it was some kind of paradise under Saddam, you are seriously deluded. Yeah, it’s broken, we are actually fixing it.
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An Iraq that can sustain itself, govern itself, defend itself and is not a safe harbor for terrorists.
I will wager that this will never happen. Ever. And no, that does not make me happy. Just my opinion.
Iraq was all those things prior to this mess…yes, we we had faulty intelligence, yes, hindsite, yes to all of that. We broke it, now we are trying to fix it and yes I agree we need to stay the course or at least give this course a chance to work (another spot where you and I agree) but there is a time when we need to account for actions taken….lots and lots and lots of people think that time is now. Just because you don’t like it or I don’t like it does not make it wrong or un-American…if anything it makes it the best part of what America is.
I do not think they fight fair. I think they fight the way they have always fought. And if you believe that we have not “bent the rules” on a regular basis you are missled and believe far more propaganda than you should. We have people all over the globe doing all kinds of nasty covert shit all the time. You can deny it, I, myself, can not prove that it occurs but the rest of the planet can not ALL be completely wrong.
I do not dissagree with your assesment of who or what the enemy is…on that we agree.
die for this country? sure….die for this conflict? no way. Send my sons to serve the country? sure…this conflict? no way.
and I do not say that in an “off-cuff” manner.
My father-Korea, His father WWII,
Three of my mothers uncles were West point Grads and were Col. during WWII….
lots of military friends (I mentioned my Delta force HS friend) A very close current friend is recently retired AF..a Major. Some of these are very much to the right others are very much left.
All very much American.
I do like debating with you, you are bright and obviously well read. I do feel, and correct me if I am wrong, that you feel those not in line with your thinking are somehow “less American”…
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Now that I’ve disproved your assertion that the American Revolutionary Army did not wear uniforms, let me also address your amusement with my statement that our current enemy does not fight fair.
They don’t, I don’t back away from that statement one bit and frankly, this attempt by some on the left to somehow draw this moral equivalence between the Jihadi and our founding fathers absolutely sickens me. Yes, it is true that we used tactics such as taking cover behind trees and maybe ambushing our enemies instead of the traditional marching in columns into battle (which, BTW are entirely legal, acceptable tactics under todays rules of warfare), and some of our soldiers did not always have uniforms. But the only reason they didn’t have uniforms was because they didn’t have them, it took a while to outfit an army and get supplies to troops. It wasn’t like you could airlift supplies to the battle as you can now. The lack of uniforms in most cases was out of necessity (or maybe for covert actions), not out of an attempt to blend into the civilian population for the sole purpose of taking as many civilian lives as possible with a hidden bomb.
I also don’t think any revolutionary soldiers strapped bombs under the petticoats of little girls or pregnant women and sent them into a British camp or into pubs or markets to not only blow up the little girl, but any bystanders, and hopefully a few British troops. This is what our enemy does, not to mention not abiding by the Geneva conventions (which we are expected to abide by to the letter). They capture our people, or civilian contractors, force them to make propaganda films and then CUT THEIR FUCKING HEADS OFF!
There are rules of war that civilized nations and people abide by. We do (with admittedly a few notable exceptions that are exceptions, not the rule) and they don’t, ever, and they make no apologies for it. In fact, they celebrate it, they post videos to web sites glorifying it. What happens when our people do something wrong? They are usually tried, convicted, and sent to prison. And the last time I checked the Pentagon was not proudly displaying photos from Abu Grahib on their website or streaming any video of Jihadi with jumper cables on their gonads.
Please sir, we are better then them. They are evil, they represent a depraved, evil ideology, and they do not fight fair. If you think they do, or if you think we are somehow morally equivalent to them, then we have a difference of opinion that will never be bridged. We are not perfect, we have made huge mistakes, but we are the most benevolent super power that has ever existed and the greatest force for goodness and justice that has ever existed on the planet. You may now salute and mock me if you like but this is the truth, and in my opinion, undeniable.
Imagine for one minute our enemies, Al Q’aeda, Hammas, Hizbollah, unaffiliated terrorist cells, Islamo-Nazi-Fascists possessing the same weaponry and technology that we possess. Do you think they would be as restrained as we are? Do you think they would negotiate with us? Hell no, they would kill ’em all and quite literally, let God (or Allah) sort it out. That is what they do if you have not been paying attention.
And yes, I am willing to have my sons drafted into this conflict if need be. If I were a younger man, I would volunteer and go. I would die for what I believe is right and I would die for this country. If you would not, then there is another difference between you and I.
And that definition of victory that Bush has repeated over, and over, and over again… I’ll abbreviate it for you here so maybe you might remember it:
An Iraq that can sustain itself, govern itself, defend itself and is not a safe harbor for terrorists.
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I stand corrected…I thought we had guys dressed in buckskins, behind tree’s and stuff like in “the patriot”….
Mic-1 brad-0
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You are so wrong on so many points but let me start here, more to come:
Colors of the U.S. Continental Army
According to orders of June, 1780, general officers in the Continental Army were to wear blue coats with yellow buttons, lined and faced in buff with yellow buttons, two epaulets and white or buff underclothes (meaning waistcoat and breeches). Prior to this General Washington wore substantially the same uniform, which is why it was adopted later. The colors were chosen because they were the colors of the Whig party in England. The Tories wore blue coats with red collars and cuffs.
The coats worn by Army soldiers played a part in flag design. In May 1779 the Board of War passed a plan on uniform design, in which all soldiers would wear blue coats. However, the facing colors would be different, as follows:
White facings: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut
Buff facings: New York, New Jersey
Red facings: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia
Blue facings (white button holes): North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia
Source: Flags of The World – http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-cnarm.html
but you can find this information in many palces.
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I really do not agree that this is the greatest enemy we have ever fought, but then again that is not really an important argument.
“They don’t fight fair”
I actually laughed outloud when I read that, sorry. Should you become TNPOTUS you may want to avoid that particular comment.
True “give us an enemy with uniforms and borders” that would make it easier, but we knew this going in….we have dealt with this sort of military action in our history and we must have military leaders that are competent in what will work.
I believe we gained our independance by “not fighting fair, and not wearing a uniform”.
Micadelic says:
I think there is a military solution, maybe a more covert military solution to be sure. We do not know how to fight this enemy yet. We are figuring it out, not quickly enough to be sure but it is very difficult to retool an entire army (both with hardware and new ways of thinking) overnight, or even in 4 years. But I believe America has always figured out a way to rise to the challenge.
I agree that the solution is covert. Should have been covert from the getgo. I would also bet a million dollars that covert shit is happening. (my best friends brother is retired “Delta force”)
I have to say bullshit on the “re-tool and re-think” part. We have the best military on the planet…a person could rewind a lot of the traits of Vietnam and start there…as well as countless other conflicts worldwide since then.
I agree we rise to the challenge and could end this mess in 6 months. But now we are talking of a solution that our admin. is not willing to face.
The entire next paragraph is where I am absolutely opposite of Mic. If he views my opinion as “insane” as I view his we best move towards things we can logically argue about.
“Decades to win”? If I am not mistaken you have a small son? I have a 12 and 13yr old boy.
Are you willing to have your son drafted into this conflict? Michael also has a son….Are willing to see our sons die for this conflict? If the answer is No…and for me the answer is definitely NO…maybe we need to talk like fathers? and from that point of view…? just a thought.
We are the greatest country. It is the greatest system of Government ever invented. It is a very young system, but it is the best. We can agree, we can dissagree, we can call Bush or any other leader any name we want. We can print it, we can blog it, we can say it on the phone….oh, wait, that part is probably not a good idea. (sorry, had to take the cheap shot)
finally,
I hear the right getting mad about the left not understanding the definition of winning. I read Mic getting upset about constantly having to define winning??…maybe I am missing something because I have not absorbed what a “win” will mean or look like??
And you should site “Animal House” as a reference to your last few sentences.
“if you are going to sit here and bad mouth the United States of America….”
In fact after I read your last three sentences I saluted my laptop.
as always, agree with some, neutral on some and find some completely insane….but it is fun.
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Too busy to make a lengthy post but quickly, in response to omegaequals0ne:
Yes, the greatest enemy we’ve ever faced. They don’t fight fair, they don’t wear a uniform, they are willing to kill their own people and anybody else indiscriminately to instill fear and terror. Give me an army in a uniform from a country with borders any day rather than this type of enemy. I believe this enemy to be fierce, committed, and absolutely bent on our destruction.
And no, it’s not a group (i.e. Al Q’aeda, Hammas, Hizbollah) we are fighting per se. It is an ideology that seeks to impose a worldwide religious caliphate. Why this doesn’t especially scare the crap out of the left evades me. I think the only answer is they don’t believe it to be true. Well, it is true, just listen to what they say and witness what they do.
I think there is a military solution, maybe a more covert military solution to be sure. We do not know how to fight this enemy yet. We are figuring it out, not quickly enough to be sure but it is very difficult to retool an entire army (both with hardware and new ways of thinking) overnight, or even in 4 years. But I believe America has always figured out a way to rise to the challenge.
And yes, I believe believe the left is cheering us on to defeat. Now obviously they really don’t want the USA to be defeated and overrun by terrorists, but they certainly don’t want this war to be won by George Bush. This is why they are working against Bush at EVERY TURN and by default, aiding the enemy. This is not rhetoric on my part, I truly believe this. Their worst nightmare is for Mr. Bush to be successful. Why else would Harry Reid declare our defeat? Why else do they say the “surge” strategy (which is a misnomer actually, it’s more about ROEs and tactics) has failed before it is implemented. There is no other explanation.
And yes, I do believe we can win. It might take a while, decades even, but we can win. We can win hearts and minds, we can win economically, we just need to figure out how to do it (and we are figuring it out). I believe the USA is the greatest country ever, and our system of government is the greatest ever invented, and we a re the most successful country on earth. We can figure it out. Plus, I am so tired of repeating over and over the definition of winning this conflict that the administration has said over and over. For some reason the left keeps spouting “we don’t even know what the definition of winning is.” Well, it’s only because you are not listening.
My main problem with the Pelosis and Reids at the moment is that they have approved a general to do a job, and then they are declaring his failure before he even implements his plan. Why can’t we all say, “look, we’re skeptical, it’s been a mess and we’ve made mistakes, but if you (Petraeus) think this plan will work, lets all stand behind you, give it a shot, and if it is apparent that it’s not going to work, then we can work on an intelligent way to redeploy.”
We are winning, and we can win outright. If the left wants to sit on the bench, and in the stands, and believe that their team cannot win, you go right ahead. I’ll be on the other side cheering us on.
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Bush pulled another global “boner” today by verbally jumping in to soon to support World Bank Chair Paul Wolfowitz (sp?)..meanwhile other world leaders are asking for his dismissal.
I liked omegaequalsone analogy. I agree that the chance of “growing an imagination” is damn slim.
All things being said, Bush is backing himself into a corner…rather he is backing the US into a corner where the shitstorm is going to get significantly worse before it is just real shitty for a long time.
Maybe if the peoples voice is heard, (and I’m not sure how much louder it needs to be…) either personally or through political representation the rest of the free world will hope, like many of us, that 1/20/09 comes soon.
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re; not negotiating with terrorist states — *someone* is gonna have to do *something*… someone is gonna have to make the first move toward a solution and toward a long term understanding, and i firmly believe that should fall on us. i think a good analogy is that this situation (the obvious need to sit down & talk with representatives of the “axis of evil”), to some degree, is like a parent dealing with an unruly 4 year old. you may have to lure them in with a “charlie & the chocolate factory” video or be real nice & smiley & playful to get them to listen to you. the alternative (continuing with the same analogy) is to say “i am the parent. i say how things work. if you don’t like it, that’s just tough.” in my experience, the results of going that route are not only poor (not to mention completely disrespectful of the child) but very, very noisy 😉 (as a side note, my feeling is that somewhere in the middle is the best approach; firm but respectful… but i digress)
the typical stance taken by the bush administration has been more along the lines of the latter; it’s our way or the highway. great way to not only ensure that NO progress is made, but to continue to raise the ire of people who are already not very trusting of us.
so, to bsherwood’s point, i agree that talks need to take place, but i’m afraid that just won’t happen until after 1/20/09; given all the posturing and bumbling and fucking up of the last 7 years (but mostly the last 4 of the war), i cannot imagine the bush team all of a sudden growing an imagination and adopting a different style of ‘parenting’.1/20/09; i’m counting down the days!.
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I don’t like putting a timeline into effect. I believe that is non-productive and would be a “last-ditch” idea. It might come to that, but not right now.
It is time that we suck it up and start talks with Syria and Jordan. We probably already are doing so in private. I do not see a stabilization of any kind possible without having Syria and possibly even Iran. Yes, I know we don’t negotiate with terrorist nations…at least not publically. In private we talk,trade, barter, buy, you name it…
Omegaequalsone states
if we never preemptively attacked a sovereign nation under false
pretenses, i’d be far more apt to subscribe to that “us against them” stuff.
That comment is difficult to disspute. We fucked up. We need to try to “un-fuck-up” and that may mean talks with people we don’t want to talk to…
lots of issues on the table by all three of you..I find the discussion enlightening, interesting and challenging. I wish I had the time to comment more….
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ack, fellas. sorry for the messed up formatting. i type my replies in notepad the cut & paste. that’s obviously not the way to go. sorry.
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i completely agree with you that this is not a conservative vs liberal argument, but i’m interested to know what your definition of
“the greatest enemy this country has perhaps ever seen” is. do you mean al qaeda? do you believe that this enemy is akin
to, say, the japanese in WWII?! it seems to me the solutions, whatever they may be, lie more within the realm of maverick socio
-religious and economic thinking & reform, not endless military action. we’ve gone that route for more than 4 years now; it just
plain doesn’t work. anyway, i’m curious to know what your defininition of “enemy” is within the context of this particular conflict.
also,
man, do you really believe that?! that’s crazy talk. the left doesn’t want us to lose this war! they just want to find another way
to “win” it. again, military solutions have *all* failed miserably. end of story. no troop surge or expanded offensive is ever
going to change that (history bears that fact out; look at vietnam, or take your pick of any number of african or central american
conflicts). which brings me to the subject of victory & defeat in iraq. a concept that i feel the right needs a huge reality check
on; again, i have to ask — do you believe that we can “win” this war in any conventional sense of the word? do you believe
“winning” equates to militarily quelling the enemy once and for all? do you believe that this war can and will be won in any conventional
sense (i.e., we blast ’em to hell, then we both sit down and sign a treaty)?!
unless we completely redefine the meaning of ‘win’ & ‘lose’ in the context of this war, we most definitely will lose–
but again, not in any conventional sense: we’ll lose thousands more lives (possibly tens of thousands more iraqi lives will be lost),
and we’ll probably witness a complete destabilization of that region, possible conflicts with iran & syria (with our already
over-extended military)…. the list goes on.
i most definitely do not want us to lose the war. i want us to win. not by continuing to fight a losing military battle in iraq, but by
(for example) finding ways to help the region improve economically, by instigating grass-roots social programs (via the UN and
moderate muslim groups?) that point young muslim men toward alternative purposes in life besides blowing themselves up in a
crowded marketplace, by becoming less dependent on oil, and by opening our collective ears and trying like fuck to comprehend
the fact that the stuff that turns us (as americans) on, does not necessarily have the same effect on the rest of the world.
on a side note, as far as this war goes i believe pretty firmly that we’re fighting the wrong enemy (i.e., NOT the fuckers
who ran planes into the WTC)… but that’s another rant. if we never preemptively attacked a sovereign nation under false
pretenses, i’d be far more apt to subscribe to that “us against them” stuff.
anyway, back to the previous point: with all due respect, the whole “left wants us to lose the war” thing sounds like the same old
shite i keep hearing from the current bush admin and syncophantic shitstirrers like bill o’reilly and his shallow ilk. i personally have
never, ever met anyone on the left who thinks victory for america means the defeat of their views! damn, i could give a shit
about whether or not my “side” does or doesn’t get their way! i just want us to do the right thing in iraq. to be a bit more
creative in our solution to healing this massive wound we opened and continue to rub sand into (i.e., troop surges)… to stop
deluding ourselves that anything other than a decisive military victory is tantamount to failure or “cutting & running”. my
goodness, history itself shows that twars like this one will have a slim chance of being won with guns, tanks & RPGs.
just because the left seems to believe that it’s ok to question the motives of the current administration, to throw down the yellow
“bullshit” flag on the field and try to make the other team answer for their actions, doesn’t mean they want to lose the frickin’
war! sheesh.
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There is progress in Iraq. Most of the country is pacified. The people are now working with our troops more than ever providing intelligence on weapons caches, insurgent locations and movements, etc. There is no denying this. To say no progress is evident is not accurate and I’m confused as to why the left wants to not admit it when we do make progress.
Also, to say we are now “fighting to rebuild†Saddam’s army is rhetorical and ridiculous. We are fighting to rebuild the Iraqi army, for sure, but it is hardly Saddam’s army made up primarily of Sunnis/Baathists. We are rebuilding an Army consisting of Baathists, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds which would be an army for all of Iraq, not just one faction.
I agree mostly with all of the above, but what kills me is the left has declared the so called “surge†a failure, even before it is implemented, which IMHO is a sure sign of their desire for it not to work. All of the troops for “the surge†are not even in place yet. How about let’s see if it’s going to work or not before you declare it a failure. You guys want to give the guy the keys to the car and then not put any gas in it and not buy him insurance! This is a political calculation by the left that I think they will live to regret. The coach is calling a new offense here and the “fans†are leaving the stadium before the team is out of the huddle, to borrow from your analogy.
Another disingenuous argument and I’ll kill two birds with one stone here. The senate approved General Petraeus UNANIMOUSLY and the so called “surge†is Petraeus’ recommended course of action. Bush is taking the advice of his generals, he always has. Now you can make an argument that he’s taken the advice of the wrong generals but to say or suggest that that every military move was dictated purely by Bush against all advice is not an intellectually honest argument.
And the second bird… If the senate approves a general, that is openly advocating the so-called “surge†strategy, unanimously, at least give the guy a chance to see if his plan is going to work. Let him implement the plan, and stand behind him, until it either works, or it fails. If it fails, then I’m with y’all 100%, I would then agree that Iraq is a total failure and let’s get the hell out and let them fight it out between themselves. Please understand here that I’m not even saying whether I think, or know, if this new strategy is a good idea, or if it’s going to work. What I’m saying is you approved a general, who advocated a certain plan of action, give him a chance to see if it’s going to work. Don’t declare it a failure before it’s even fully put into action. This is why I am with Bush in vetoing the war funding bill.
Is there massive bloodshed in Iraq now? Is it a total mess, absolutely, I can’t disagree. But I firmly believe the insurgents, dead-enders, Islamo-Nazis-Fascists, etc. are giving it their all to wear down our will to fight and frankly, the let in this country is giving them the biggest hope to hang on just a little longer.
Here is where I am most in agreement with you. Bush has disappointed me greatly as a leader. A good leader, by definition, is able to build bridges, “sell” his vision, and communicate the reasons for his actions. Bush has sucked at this and I think if you look a little harder, you will find that this is where most of the right is unhappy with Mr. Bush, not so much because of his actions or policies, but because of his inability to get the nation behind him. But remember, Abraham Lincoln was extremely unpopular when the north was losing the civil war, if he would have listened to public opinion, he would have given up and we would be living in a much different country today. Thank god he had the courage of his convictions. I would say this with the exception on some of his social spending, and his stance on immigration, this is where the right mostly parts ways with Bush on policy.
Thank you for that. I think that if more folks on the left would realize that Bush is just a man, that he is not evil incarnate, and he actually may, just may, have noble goals, that would go a long way in healing this massive divide. Many people do honestly believe that Mr. Bush is a good man, and that he is doing what he thinks is best for the country. It is perfectly justifiable to not agree with his methods, or to think he is not a good leader, or to think he is downright ignorant, but all this pure white-hot hatred of the man is in my opinion, a little much and a huge obstacle to any “uniting” that needs to be done in this country. Don’t get me wrong, I lay a lot of the blame at Bush’s feet for not being a better communicator, but I get the feeling that a large part of the left believe that Bush & Co. is a greater threat to this country than Islamo-Nazi-Fascism and that is patently ridiculous.
C’mon, this is a really weak argument Michael. The enemy is those that oppose our goals in Iraq. The vast MAJORITY of the Iraqi people actually are with us, they want peace and stability. Sectarian violence has been steadily decreasing actually, it’s the Al Q’aeda type violence that’s been on the rise and so horrendous. The car and truck bombings specifically. These are designed to cause chaos and kill as many people as possible, regardless of their flavor of Islam. And it doesn’t make sense to tell them when we’re pulling out, they mark that date on their calendar and they just wait to hang on until that day comes. And it’s Pelosio and Reid and company that give them hope.
The war is not over, it’s still going on and we can win it. I am equally outraged over the behavior of the Democratic leadership as you are over Bush. You guys deny there is a new strategy in Iraq, there is. We have changed the ROEs and we are actively employing a counter-insurgency strategy. There is improvement in the situation and most of the Iraqi people stand with us. They want us out but they do not ant us to leave now, because that will; leave the good people of Iraq to be slaughtered.
Admit it, the left wants us to lose in Iraq, it is their desperate hope, because a victory for America is a defeat for the left. I would never, ever want to be on your side of that kind of political calculation.
And this is not a conservative vs. liberal argument, it has nothing to do with that. This is all about how we fight, and defeat, the greatest enemy this country has perhaps ever seen.
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Now this is an excellent post. I actually agree with you on some of this and I think you’re pretty far off base on the rest. I’m working on a rather lengthy response which I’ll be posting soon. But I think this is the kind of thoughtful argument that actually can help to move the debate along.
You cannot win an argument, or persuade your opposition, if you constantly make them feel stupid, berate them for their positions, and make ad hominem attacks on their leaders. If I want to get a someone to respect me and work with me, I don’t do it by walking up to them and punching them in the nose!
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