The absurd Bush speech

Exactly.

What a choice; pick one: our President is either (a) deeply dishonest; or (b) utterly moronic.

No wait -- I guess he could be both.

The catalog of past speeches is priceless. It's worse than Johnson/Nixon during Vietnam.

Funny how the President didn't mention anything about epidemic ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, as reported in Sunday's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/world/middleeast/09surge.html

It reminds me of the company meetings we used to have every 9-12 months at work. They say everything is great now (revenue up,advertising picking up,look how well placed we are in the market) , things were sucky last year or 6 months ago but everything is great now. Then a year latter the same line. After you work for the company for 3 or 4 years it becomes kinda obvious and easy to spot.

"Oh, and to my fellow Republicans who voted for this moron:

You should burn your voter registration card and publicly vow never to vote again."

Oh really? What about the "morons" who voted for Lyndon Johnson and got Vietnam? Or the morons (no quotes needed) who voted for Clinton and got the illegal bombing of Serbia (and Waco, TX)?

Politics is zero-sum game. If you're going to pull the lever, you just have to say a prayer and hope you picked the lesser evil. I'm glad Al Gore lost 2000 election because Al Gore is insane. There's something wrong with the guy.

I voted for Bush over Kerry in 2004. Virtually every bad thing I was supposedly protecting the U.S. from by denying Kerry the office has happened with Bush, often to a horrifying degree (the one exception is the pro-life court). Would Kerry have been better? It's hard to imagine he would've been worse. But hindsight is the cheapest form of wisdom.

What follows I originally posted to another thread but I stand by it. I post it here mainly because the other thread died off but its also on topic and I'd rather not try to reconstitute the same basic idea. The main point is it seems no real discussion is possible with regards to Iraq. One is either for or against and the other side is irredeemably stupid, traitorous, arrogant, foolish, dishonest, etc. For example, Our Working Boy's own posts have become both absolutist (Huckabee is wrong on the war)and ad hominem (Bush is dishonest or stupid).

Shortly after I wrote the following paragraphs I received an email forwarded from a co-worker who is an army captain in Iraq. As is often the case, this email containing first-hand information from a soldier was more or less at odds with the usual media narrative. Obviously their are as many viewpoints as observers in Iraq but given that this guy's life is literally in the balance it seems unlikely that he would be kidding himself about what he sees. What I get from it is that it's neither all sunshine nor all doom and gloom.

Here's what I wrote the other day...

I've never felt comfortable opposing the war although I vastly
preferred no military action whatsoever after 9/11. In 2003 opposition
to the war was limited to anti-Bush cranks, a few dedicated pacifists
like Stanley Hauerwas, and Wendell Berry. One couldn't help but get
the impression, then as now, that the anti-Bush cranks where more
bothered by who was in charge than the war itself. I remain
unpersuaded of the case against Bush though I might well have voted
against him in 2004 if the Democrats had offered a pro-life candidate.
That said, I'm not exactly a blood and guts supporter of the war
either.

I think that's about right. One shouldn't be so comfortable and
reflexive for or against war. After all, who really gets these folks
who seem almost gleeful whenever America is laid low. Several of my
co-workers chortle with unrestrained delight with every casualty, so
certain are they that it will lead to Bush's eventual undoing. I don't
think I can ever be comfortable in that camp.

On the other hand, was there ever a more unfortunate choice of words
than "kicking ass?" War should properly make us all uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable that we can't defend our country without it, apparently.
Uncomfortable, with the loss of life and destruction of property and
livelihoods. One writhes between the discomfort of allowing an enemy
to carry on unchecked and the hapless waste of combat. It seems many
are too comfortable at either end of the spectrum, content to let the
enemy rage while maintaining some abstract purity or content to rain
destruction upon the just and unjust alike.

I think it's best to stay the uncomfortable course. The best hope, it
seems to me, is to provide security until a civil society has time to
emerge. In other words: an open-ended, multi-year (decade?)
commitment. It would probably be better as a UN project but our
national distrust of it and its own internal corruption probably makes
that impossible. So it falls to us to give the Iraqis time to forgive,
forget, and prosper. It may never happen but then again maybe if a few
more presidential candidates had voted their conscience rather than
political calculation in 2003 we wouldn't be in this predicament. This
is also the least likely course for a variety of reasons.

In the first place, the anti-Bush cranks are no less vociferous, if
anything more, than in 2001. Nothing less than his public humiliation
(and perhaps incarceration) will satisfy these folks. I think it's
fair to say that the anti-Bush faithful see any success in Iraq as
unacceptable because it would also be success for Bush (an ironic
by-product of their incessant linkage of the former with the latter).
In their view, Bush cannot be successful because he is a stupid,
arrogant, liar, etc. To have refrained from the action in the first
place would have been admirable. Upending a nation and leaving once
boredom sets in and to hell those silly enough to live there is, well,
arrogant. I'm no less uncomfortable with the blood and guts war
supporters than I am with these folks but their star is apparently
ascendant.

More importantly, our great mushy center cannot hold. Ours is a nation
with a short attention span and Iraq is well past its 15 minutes of
fame. We are long past the point were much genuine discussion is
possible. The media narrative is now received wisdom. To suggest that
things in Iraq are better than they appear is to invite ridicule. The
whole thing is very messy and we are busy and need to get the kids to
soccer practice. We did not achieve victory in 100 hours, all is lost.
On and on.

That it is a foregone conclusion that the project is doomed is a
source of amazement. Absent the very short-term and fleeting good of
giving a hated president his come-uppance, does even the most ardent
anti-Bush crank really believe an immediate exit is the best option?
Commentators regularly assure us that this policy or that action has
doomed the enterprise as if all other wars in history were executed
with some sort of flawless acumen. We are told we cannot win but are
rarely told why: as if this is somehow self-evident. It's time to cut
our losses and end this fool's errand is the refrain. What, one
wonders, would we do right now if this were day one? Few victorious
commanders in history would have inherited a battlefield with such an
obvious head start. Do we really believe that the situation can't
improve with 18 months, 5 years, 10 years of serious military and
diplomatic effort?

Of course we don't. We mean there is no neat, tidy, immediate, and
convenient solution. It's simply another way of saying the small cost
on our our part is too great. By small cost I mean that this war has
inconvenienced perhaps the least number of Americans of any war in
history. There are no war bonds or scrap metal drives. No blackouts or
fuel rationing. American life goes on as it has all along. Here I do
not imply anything about the very real and terrible cost of human
life, although that too is low by the standards of modern warfare, at
least on the American side (the Iraqis themselves have considerably
more to complain about).

We are, apparently, in the process of giving ourselves permission to
leave Iraq in the manner of the faithless husband seeking a new
mistress. I think it is certain that we shall leave too soon for Iraq
to do anything but descend into a chaos perhaps even darker than
Saddam's. Short-term conventional wisdom will lay the blame squarely
on Bush's doorstep and at least some of it will not be undeserved. He
made a good number of mistakes though probably not more than Lincoln
did during the civil war. The void left behind will likely metastasize
into something ugly (almost everyone agrees on this) but we won't see
it for years. In fact, we will soon have a new president who, in all
likelihood, will be a Democrat and America can get back to its
previous obsessions of celebrity worship, money-making, fad diets,
sex, and self-help and we won't think at all about the poor, wretched,
people we left to their fates in Baghdad. At least for a while...

"This is why America can't win in Iraq. The idea at this late date that he would even bother to invoke the prospect of a "free Iraq," and "freedom" in Iraq, is either utterly moronic or disgracefully cynical."

This is what millions of people around the world have been saying since 2002. These are the same people Rod Dreher, the Dallas Morning News, Fox, et al were ridiculing in the run-up to the war.

Next time, be more careful what you wish for. PLease?

The 30,000 or so troops that are coming home would have come home anyway, because the present level of deployment is unsustainable. The military commanders say this. The only way to maintain present troop levels would be to reinstate the draft or extend deployments ... again.

Bush is being disengenous when he says that he's bringing troops home because we've been successful. He's bowing to military reality, but refusing to admit it. I voted for the man twice, but man I hate a liar.

Totally unrelated, but did you see the latest that came out of the AMish school shootings a while back http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20761374/?gt1=10357

Why do we care? Because people are being killed in our name and pursuant to someone's (not mine) agenda.

That's why I care.

You know, that culture thang.

Heifer.

Whether we win or lose, your lives won't change one whit. Why do you even care?

That's not true. My brother-in-law has been in training most of the summer, and deploys to Iraq next week. Even if that weren't the case, I have sons, and they might be called to war one day.

"Coming up in the next speech: "A free Iraq will make your teeth whiter, and you will lose 30 pounds in six weeks or less""

:::wiping involuntary projectile snot away:::

I'm down with that, then. Why didn't they say that before? Where do I sign?

I can't believe the attitudes of the people on this board. I suspect you root harder for your favorite sports team to win than for your own country.

"I can't believe the attitudes of the people on this board. I suspect you root harder for your favorite sports team to win than for your own country."

Jeff, are you a fur-real troll? :-)

Bush is pathetic, and his vp is even worse. The war is a black hole, the Republican party is in a shambles and will suffer the reverberations of this administration for years to come. I pray for our soldiers safety, who suffer while the decadent Bush family lives off the fat of the land. Lord help us.

Nobody's drafting anybody.

From your lips to God's ears.

But have you read a newspaper or listened to the radio or television in the past 2 months or so? Every other commentator is talking up how we're running out of soldiers and how badly we need a draft. (I heard Jim Bohannan say so less than 12 hours ago.)

I favor a draft. Tomorrow. Male and female, gay and straight, the only excuse being debilitating medical condition. No favoritism on economic or any other grounds.

The war in Iraq would be over by Christmas, if not sooner.

fbc,

I'm with you all the way. My son is 10 and I do not want him drafted in 8 years. And Jeff, as for your foolish comments, I will just say that I believe in fighting for country when it is a just, legal, and necessary war of self defense. But, I will not fight for (nor allow my children to fight for) an illegal, immoral war that was entered into under false pretexts for sinister reasons.

Hey Rod,

Long time reader first time commenter. You used to work for National Review, so maybe you can shed some light on my confusion. This war is going terribly, and yet the right blogosphere, talk radio, and Republican Presidential candidates (Ron Paul excluded) all seem to think that Iraq is getting better and better, and have been saying the same thing for the duration of the war no matter what is happening on the ground there, and never seem to snap out of their delusions. Is it deliberate, cynical, or are they just so convinced they are correct that facts won't dissuade them anymore? How is Rudy Giuliani able to go on Fox News after Bush's speech, and say it was a great speech, and not get laughed out of the Presidential race? What am I missing about the conservative mind that seems to swallow every bad argument in sight when it comes to the War on Terror, and also disregards every piece of evidence refuting their positions?

Jeff, I'm a Repubican and a libertarian one at that..Bush is neither, the one bright spot of his administration are those 2 men sitting on the supreme court...so save your hannity-style rhetoric for someone else. Questioning the administration of this war and worrying about our troops is NOT unpatriotic. Conservative Republicans got into this spot by calling anyone including fellow conservatives unpatriotic for questioning this silly "lets democratize the world" foreign policy.

Despite the continued inane blather from the President about "democracy" and "liberation," I will say that there's a case for keeping a substantial presence in Iraq for a while longer.

If -- and only if -- the country is truly evolving toward a de facto 3-way partition (Sunni Arab, Shia Arab, Kurd) while remaining de jure united, then we have the realistic prospect of a decent outcome in sight.

Not at all the outcome the President and the neocons wanted, of course, but probably a better one than their dream palace of Iraqi Democracy.

I agree with your posts, Simon. Thank you.

You...want to send...the kids of the poor?

This may have been true years ago, but not now.

Jeff Feagles is right. The military today is not made up of poor people and losers. It is 100% volunteer. It is made up of some pretty bright folk, who have other options. It is a skill job. This blog seems stuck in the Vietnam era when the military was low-tech and they took anybody.

Some facts:

98% of the military have graduated from high school (or better), while much less of general population does (~75%). And just graduating is not enough - you have to score well on the ASVAB to get in. To see how selective they are, only half of African-Americans qualify to get in.

The remaining 2% who don't graduate are only let in if they test much higher on g-loaded tests (ASVAB), and thus demonsrate a higher IQ than those who graduate.

Since 2001, enlistments of the top 2/5 of income have increased, while the lowest 1/5 have dropped. Not because the poor don't want in - because the military doesn't want them.

From what I've read on some other threads, the military doesn't really want most of the children of the poor, anyway. The army doesn't have time or the expertise to provide remedial upbringings.

Simon do you have any ideas on point 2? (Agree with your assessment, BTW.)

Simon do you have any ideas on point 2?

Ha, if I did, I'd run for Congress.

As noted above, I do think there's a case to be made for staying awhile in Iraq if -- and only if -- as many have recently asserted, the country is on its way to a de facto 3-way division while remaining de jure one entity. That's a better outcome than anything else I can imagine, and it would probably require some continued US military presence for another couple of years.

Staying around in hopes of eventually creating a strong, unified, democratic Iraq is a fool's mission, IMHO. But we can recognize the sheer stupidity of launching the Iraq War without automatically concluding that the proper response now is to pull all U.S. troops out immediately. Emotionally, I'd like the US to be done with Iraq right away. But that's probably not practical and might have consequences far worse than staying there on a limited basis.

The problem, Jeff Feagles, is that the military cannot ever hope to solve the pathology of a Muslim/tribal society. Unless you're willing to committ to turning Iraq into a police state. And let's face it-the bad guys are waiting us out, and would do as much even if we made it a police state.Bush was never serious in this war.He wanted a kinder gentler war in hopes of leaving Iraq intact for the oil industry, You either fight a war(which I and many others initially supported), or don't fight a war.He chose instead to put 130,000 American targets on the ground and handcuff them with absurd ROE.

As has been documented,pre-invasion anyone in the military like Eric Shineski who said they would need far more troops was ignored, marginalized or fired. And this is why Petraeus has to be taken with a grain of salt; this Adminsitration only deals with and promotes those men who will do their bidding. Did anyone think Petreaus would be anything but gung ho? Nonetheless the Left's "Betray Us" campaign essentially prolongs the war because it becomes a name-calling contest instead of a serious discussion.Way to go Soros And DailyKos!Now Petraeus can no longer be questioned serioulsy withoy yahoos pointing out that ad. Utimate outcome-Bin Laden and Sadr are still alive, and Fallujah goes unavenged. We cannot go into Pakistan or read the riot act to Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia. And we cannot take the silly death-inducing ROE off. But at least the Bushes and their oil indsutry stooges can make deals with the sheiks, and that's what they really care about.

Let's get out and kill some serious bad guys with ill will on the way out-kinda like the last 20 minutes of either "Godfather" movie(III kinda sucked and doesn't count). And crazy idea-make it more difficult for people from Islamic and Arab countries to enter here. Why is the Arab population growing in America? Why do we allow them to stay? Are we freaking crazy or have a death wish? I no longer get it.

I can't believe the attitudes of the people on this board. I suspect you root harder for your favorite sports team to win than for your own country.

My favorite sports team (the Sooners) never invaded a country on false-pretenses, and despite beating the crap outta Miami last weekend, killed no one.

War is not a football game. Real people die. Real Americans are dying in Iraq today. For a lie. For a freakin' pack of lies.

And George W. Bush, who to this day is still falsely insinuating the war in Iraq has something to do with 9-11 and al Quaeda, is directly responsible for their deaths. Like King David and Uriah, he's as responsible for their deaths as the terrorists who are killing them.

How anyone can still defend the man is beyond me. It makes me sick just to see it happening.

When everyone make's Iraq all about how evil Bush is, y'all muddy the water and make a logical point an ideological one. Heck, when I read all this stuff about how Bush is so nasty I almost become in favor of the war I opposed from the beginning.

Let's say Bush is a hero and has all our best in mind. So what? Nothing changes. We still should get out of Iraq. So the anti-Bush rants do not further the discussion, and merely harden the opposition.

Simon's argument is dead on,

The way forward is to (1) acknowledge the strategic misjudgment, and then (2) consider -- i.e., use reason, not just emotion -- what we need to do now to make the best of this debacle.

And M_David emphasizes an important point: do the rational analysis, and come up with a rational list of next steps. I want to add, though, that acknowledging the anger over Bush and company's mistakes is one of those important next steps.

I know, there are plenty of people who want to crow about being right. I don't have any problem dismissing them and their attitude. However, passing on being right does not make Bush admitting he was wrong a trivial thing. I am angry, and my anger grows with each time Bush or a spokesperson perpetuates a misrepresentation of the situation in Iraq.

Drop the spin, I want to shout at them, and just tell it like it is. Americans are grown ups; we've seen it all. We can handle it; and, if it means slapping you (Bush et al) on the wrist or something even more than that, then step up and take it like adults. You can handle it.

I just want his Presidency to be over and am living for 1-20-09, BUSH'S LAST DAY. I don't care who replaces him, I don't even believe Hillary could be as bad.

While I am in full agreement with that sentiment, I am forced to pause when I remember that toward the end of the Clinton Administration, I thought precisely the same thing -- i.e., "at least its over -- whatever comes next will be an improvement."

Boy, was I wrong.

***
In other matters, let me apologize for the strident and sometimes harsh tone of my posts on this thread. I really do believe that Bush Derangement Syndrome has taken hold of me, I do despise that man so. He is easily the worst president in American history, hands down.

The truly ironic thing about Cleveland's post is that by supporting the war in Iraq, he is diverting our attention, efforts and manpower from killing bin Laden.

So I agree that bin Laden is smiling in his cave. No one is happier about the U.S. being in Iraq than bin Laden. He couldn't have wished a better outcome to his efforts.

Somewhere in his cave, Osama Bin Laden is thanking the strategy experts who supported the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq before accomplishing all the priorities in Afghanistan. He quite likely owes his life, and at least his freedom, to that decision.

Call me whatever else you like, dear reader, but I have a pretty good idea that two half-assed jobs do not add up to one "mission accomplished".

Cleveland, my friend, if you bought that hill of beans, then I hope you enjoy the rest of the intestinal gas being produced by it.

I'm rather disappointed in you, sir. Buying the word of a politician, especially in the face of overwhelming dissent of military experts, not to mention the mission failure in Afghanistan represented by the Taliban resurgence and the fact that Osama bin Laden is still at-large.

In the coming months, as Afghanistan descends towards civil war (and I hope you will pray with me that I am wrong about that), the decision to invade Iraq while engaged in a major operation will top the list of reasons for it.

In the general sense, no one "lets" others kill Americans. It is a part of the price we pay for having a free and open society. Homicide is the 15th leading cause of death in the US. Who would you like to blame for "letting" that happen?

Back off just a bit, Cleveland. You don't know what my "idea" is; to accuse me of agreeing 100% with any politician with whom I happen to agree on one issue is, if you'll forgive me, a schoolyard tactic.

Are you sitting down?

I agree with you about Clinton. He allowed political expediency guide his decisions.

Clinton's "legacy" is that Bush allowed political expediency guide his decision to invade Iraq.

You will note, as well, and as I've written numerous times, I believe what we did to Afghanistan (until dropping that ball) was precisely what we should have been doing, and should have completed up to and likely including the death or capture of bin Laden.

Bush's mistakes include that invasion, at least at the time and before ensuring the mission in Afghanistan; insisting on attacking the moral principles of our open society in the name of "protection" that is essentially impossible to deliver; and using deception to sell it all or resell it after it began to fall apart.

I can and have forgiven political expediency as a motivation when it coincided with a moral outcome. I suggest you think long and hard whether suspension of habeus corpus, unrestrained surveilance on US citizens, the bending of the rule of law and the arrogant disregard for the Constitution constitute moral outcomes.

Finally, please note that I have not used any party label in this post. If nothing else, perhaps you can show some respect for my willingness to criticize both sides.

Attack me on what I say and believe, good sir, not on what I look like after you lump me in with your favorite targets. I can take it, and from you I'll even welcome it.

As you wish. And thanks for fixing the typo. :-)