Redstate

However, I do have a question.

Setting aside political fervor for a moment, I'm wondering what is the genesis of defeatism and self-loathing of the modern Left.  I don't ask the question lightly, nor do I doubt a word of what you've written - the truth is clear for all those who wish to find it.  However, I can't seem to wrap my mind around the constant kvetching....they can't all be tormented artists.

In particular, the sort of guilt that is innate in a philosophy that holds altruism as its highest ideal: Provide according to abilty, receive according to need. (I suppose demand according to need is more appropriate in this case.)

In fact, the Pew Research Center has determined that Democrats are unhappier than Republicans primarily beacuse of a feeling of guilt.

http://pewresearch.org/social/chart.php?ChartID=7

I belive the more to the left they are the worse they feel.

It stands to reason that if you think that living for others is the ideal that will pay off for you, the more you live in accordance with this philosophy the worse you will feel. If they would acknowledge that we live in a real world, start to take responsibility, and live life for themselves they may cheer up a bit.

Response from a left-leaning moderate:

DEFEATISM:

I am indeed a "defeatist" in regards to the war in Iraq. I think that, if you are going to judge whether we are winning the war - any war - you must consider our objectives from the outset. In this war, our objective was clear: to find Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

My defeatist attitude grows from the fact that this objective (and the additional objective of proving a link between Iraq and 9/11) have been not been achieved.

I would have no problem with our new objective, to spread democracy in the middle east, if that is the objective we were presented with in the first place.

SELF-LAOTHING:

Lefties no more self-loathing than were the Conservatives who rose to power in the past 12 years: they disagreed with the direction the country was going in and took political action. Did Newt and Trent and Tom DeLay loathe the US in 1994 when they proposed massive change? No. They had a different idea of how the country should be governed.

Using your reasoning, that Americans who disagree with current foreign policy loathe America, supporters of the Contract with America were self-loathing America haters.

There are loudmouth Lefties who would agree with this. I don't, mostly because I think this line of thinking is simplistic.

in her two novels "Atlas Schrugged" and "The Fountainhead"

The debasement of ability in favor equality. The left wants equality of outcome, regardless of ability or lack thereof. Anyone who pens a novel has the right to have it published, and has a right to have it sold, and to have it praised, regardless of how poorly written or incoherant it might be. Need proof? Try "Crashing the Gates"

Equaliity of outcome in business. IT is unfair, to the left, that one business be successful while others are not. Never mind that the one business provides a product that the public needs and wants, ie the oil companies. While a perfectly important product, like for instance, hybrid cars, which NOBODY wants to buy, go unsold. This is patently unfair to the left.

And of course there is art. WHY should art that is truly beautiful and inspirational be a commercial success, while "dung madonnas" and "crucifix in urine" is not? This injustice must be rectified...in the minds of the little people of the left.

Little minds, incapable of producing anything of value, will always envy the producers of this world!

This opinion of yours is nonsense based. First off, the strawman that is WMDs. The worlds' intellgence agencies were sure there were WMDs, etc ad nauseum, since it doesn't seem to sink into some folks' heads. If you want to find WMDs maybe we should invade Syria next?

The only quotes about direct links between 9/11 and Saddam have come from the lefty politicians and journalists that have repeatedly twisted this administrations words. What the Bush administration said repeatedly was that there were undeniable links between al-Queda and Iraq up to and including the days just before the invasion. You know what you can do with your 'Known Fact'.

Self-loathing Conservative? are you KIDDING me?! In the famous words of Inigo Montoya; 'You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.' You have never met a conservative or know ANYTHING about the Contract with America saying such dribble.

I seriously hope you don't give any speeches. If what comes out of your mouth is anything like what comes out of your keyboard, we'll all be drenched in phelm.

doesn't mean you are right.

Read the Congressional authorization  to use force. WMD is only one of a litany of reasons given.

But, hey, feel any way you want for any reason, just don't be upset when people laugh at you.

to see the utter inanity of the left so concisely explained; you have a real talent.

Barely worked last time, and lost them the WH in 1972 in huge numbers.

If Nixon had not pursued his tragic fate, the election of 1974 may have been very different as well.

The MSM/liberal complex is not getting away with it this time because their olilgopoly on communication has been broken.

And the fact that one of the two significant cases has already been shown to have notbeen as the lefties and terrorists claimed, should make them much more cautious.

We already know that even if there were killings in the Haditha case that were unlaful, that murtha lied about them when he claimed they were in 'cold blood'.

There was clearly a fire fight and US casualties and an on going escalation.

That is not 'cold blooded murder', or assisination, as much as the lefties and terrorists wish it were so.

More significantly, with all this it is becoming clear that one of the terrorist tactics is to make false claims against the US, even rearranging bodies for the BBC (by the BBC?) when opportune.

If I was a dem on the massacre means we must quit' delusion, I would be looking for the back door real fast, as this whole Haditha thing could turn to yet another pile of lefty/terrorist smoke any moment.

I have a very good frind who happens to be a Democrat. He does not like Bush; fair enough, that's what makes horseraces.

The other day I passed along a joke about how, out of millions of cows, we know precisely where one with mad-cow disease is located but we can't seem to find millions of illegal aliens; maybe we need to turn immigration over to the Department of Agriculture. His response: "I've passed this along to your president.

Five years, five #@%#@$#%# years.

However, you wrote:

It stands to reason that if you think that living for others is the ideal that will pay off for you, the more you live in accordance with this philosophy the worse you will feel

In my opinion, your reasoning in nonsensical.  The juxtaposition of "living for others" with how "you will feel" is a base contradiction.  Either you live for others, or for yourself.

Perhaps I would understand your position better were you to outline a cohesive answer to the threat of terrorism and the war with Iraq.  Instead, you propogate familiar talking points, all the while, no less, failing the easy-work of verifying the very falsehood of your comment.

Apparently, you are unable to set aside political bias in order to rationally demonstrate your opinion of America's betterment.

My bad for asking an honest question.

If you can utterly fail at something with all your self-respect and dignity intact, then you can also win big at something with the same self-respect and dignity intact. The Left's problem is (as a rule) they don't know how to fail with dignity, and with grace. Because dignity and grace come from an inner self-respect, and inner self-respect comes from self-control (dare I say, theologically-inspired self-control.) Now we're getting to the Left's main deficiency. They're short on self-control because they're too dismissive of the reasons, and the basis for self-control, which eventually leads to self-respect. Go to the average Abortion Rights rally. You'll find lots of leftists there, and lots of anger, but not much self-control, and certainly not much dignity.

I've not read Rand (that's the vampire lady, no?).  I'll have to pick up one of your suggestions for reading during travels this week.

I think I understand where you're coming from, and though I can understand the sentiment (or neurosis) you describe suffered by an individual, it is hard to imagine en masse.

Thanks again.

And I like your germanization of Ayn Rand novel's name ;)

You are right on the money about the left.

Ayn Rand is the patron saint of Libertarians.  You'll be looking for "Atlas Shrugged".  One point three bazillion pages, very fine print.  Cancel your cable company.

Ayn Rand despised Libertarians for various technical reasons, some having to do with the nature of our government (limited vs none).

I love her long novels. Though if you are religious be prepared to be slightly offended.

The leftists hate her with a passion.

Because dignity and grace come from an inner self-respect, and inner self-respect comes from self-control (dare I say, theologically-inspired self-control.

I have considered the theological vector, but have not investigated any further.  Are you suggesting, and if I read correctly, the failure of leftist ideology is its root of nihilism?

I read the entire book in three--maybe four days. Of course, I was younger then, and off school for the summer...admittedly it takes me longer now...but there are FAR better reasons to cancel the cable tv...

.....just saying.

one of the reasons the left supports outcome based education...there is no "right" or "wrong" answer, whatever you come up with is ok...is because the left cannot accept failure.

The greatest success stories in the world were abject failures, who failed so miserably, they picked themselves back up and tried again until they succeeded.

How many times did Edison FAIL before he got the light bulb to work?

Look at all the greatest home run hitters in baseball history. Do you know what you will find...they are all among the all-time strikeout leaders as well. You have to fail a ton of times to get that many opportunities to succeed!

The left has never gotten this...they envy success, but don't know HOW to succeed! Not knowing how, they instead attack success, tearing down the producers, being unable to produce themselves.

I expect he considers Martin Sheen the real president.

my friend is far, far smarter than that. The left just has this fixation; that somehow if they keep denying it it will not be true.

In cold blood! In a manner reminiscent of Chinngiss Khan!

He's not my President!!

clarified my premise better.

In general, I see the left as claiming ownership of the "fruits of the labor of others", so to say. They demand employment, living wages, social justice, wealth distribution etc., beacuse they believe that all citizens owe someting to each other by way of a social contract or otherwise. Therefore, as a leftie, you in fact have to live for others as the outcome of your work is to be enjoyed by others and not by you. You, in turn, have to depend on others for your needs. As such, your responsibility is of course to work, but also claim what's rightfully yours. That right is based on a need, and not on what you actually produce. I believe that the uncertainty of not knowing in fact what you will receive produces unhappiness. Add to this that there is probably a perceived inequity between what you receive and what you need as a leftist. If you don't get what you want, who's at fault? Everyone else - but probably the Administration in particular. I would think this perceived inequity is a source of unhappiness because it persists and will never go away.

A conservative, on the other hand knows that you are entitled to no more and no less than what you make yourself. There is quite a lot of certainty in this as you get what you put into life, so to say. In this respect I believe that conservatives can see themselves as happy because they know that it's up to them to make their own living. And most do this and do it very well. They live for themselves and enjoy the "fruits of their own labor", so to say. No worker exploitation required. Don't get me wrong - conservatives also want more than what they have (I hope), but in this case it's not a source of grief, but a positive drive in the open market causing conservatives to try even harder and producing more.

You can choose to give away everything you have to others - that's fine, but it's not fine when others take it because they claim to need it.

There could be other reasons for why conservatives are happier than democrats, though. I don't claim to have all the answers.

I have to agree wtih you that Either you live for others, or for yourself.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

That is not only the central premise of Communism, but the cardinal rule of the American left...although they use even more words than you did, and convoluted logic to very carefully NOT say it!

So SHORT-stories are not my strength

just giving the Cliff Notes version for you!

You wrote:  "all citizens owe something to each other by way of a social contract"  as a belief of a lefty.

I would refine that a bit.  They believe that the government should take from citizens and then redistribute to others based on a need - real, perceived, or political.  

The key difference being there are a whole lot of lefties (eg almost everyone in Hollywood) who don't give anything on their own but expect the government to freely tap into the great unwashed to give other members of the great unwashed.  

This being just a bit more grotesque.  

I am not a huge fan of the media - in the areas that I have some knowledge I find that they often do not.  The average reporter covering international trade seems to have no idea what the current and capital accounts are and what the fact they must equal means.

But ...

71 have now died covering this war.  Many more have taken risks to produce their reports.  At a minimum, you should bring more evidence to the table before launching such slurs, not just about the quality of their work but about their motivations.

If they were so against the war, why do so many Americans still believe we found the WMD we were looking for (not that one shell).

Tom

Put a lefty, by himself, in any situation and he can't cope because he has no self confidence because he has no core moral values to guide himself. Losers. Pure and simple.

While I must agree that bringing up the typical lefty "no WMD" and "no Iraq/9-11" talking points simply demonstrates that the left has no honest, truthful reasoning on this topic, I also have to take issue with some of the posts here that appear to be glorifying self-centeredness.

The problem with leftist philosophies is not that they are other-centered. Rather, it is that they operate from badly flawed understandings of the nature of humanity.

Contrary to leftist thinking, human beings need goals to strive towards and have to have the possibility of failure as part of that striving. These goals do not need to be self-centered, but the individual has to choose to pursue them. Also, success needs to bring rewards (material or otherwise) to the individual. The leftist mantra of "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" flies in the face of these basic facets of human nature.

Ask yourself why private charities achieve much better results than forced government redistribution of wealth. The reason is that the individuals involved have freely chosen to be other-centered and hence act on that choice themselves, rather than expecting someone else to be compelled to do it. This motivational difference leads to their wanting to excel in helping others (there's that human nature again) and so they try to find the best ways to do so. Because they have recognized the need in human beings for goals they tend to help people become self-sufficient, so they too can strive for greater things.

The other fact of human nature leftism tends not to understand is that people are imperfect creations. As a result, they cannot buils a perfect society. Most leftist thinking has a strong strain of utopianism in it. This belief in a manmade utopia allows the justification of horrors if they are committed in the utopian cause.

On the other hand, conservatives understand that human beings are not capable of creating utopia. As a result, the goals of conservatives tend to center more around allowing human beings to use the positive parts of human nature (like the need to strive for goals) and to try to restrain the negative parts of it (like the desire for lawlessness). It is understood that the perfect cannot be achieved in this, hence the results looked for are more realistic (relative freedom, relative stability, relative prosperity).

Just some thoughts.

My take on the Hollywood leftists has always been that they think, "Hey, I got mine, everyone else deserves the same. Let's get the government to help them."

The Far-left in this country and probably Britain and Canada, is utterly convinced that our way of life is horrible, evil and dangerous.

  Don't take my word for it, read anything by Chomsky, or the Nation magazine, or Daily Kos for that matter.

  They really do believe that we deserve to lose. They are happy when America is defeated, and embarrassed. They would like nothing better than to see major American companies go bankrupt and millions of unemployed Americans take to the streets in protests. That is the only hope they have of realizing their dream of a "progressive" Utopia.

I am not making this up.

Liberals getting angry in the morning, smells like,

GWBush.

Kurtz had it comming. the guy was overwieght and only mumbled when he spoke.

But, and here I am on dangerous ground, The left is not always wrong, or at least, not totally wrong.

  And we conservatives can sometimes make mistakes.

That is why I bemoan the current moonbat state of the Democratic party. The have NOTHING of value to add to the debate. I would wish them to be more centered and grounded in reality so that they could at least offer reasonable critiques of the right wing, because sometimes the Right does go too far.

  But they have left it up to us to police ourselves

since after 2000 they went completely bonkers.

not offended even though religious. Her lack of religion is understandable considering the failure of the church to stand up in Russia. Read her not often read "We the People" to get a picture. If I am lucky enough to see heaven I expect to see her there.

the great Mark Steyn knocks the wimp position on Iraq out of the park.

I think you mean "We the Living". I really enjoyed that book as well. Really gives you a great perspective on the reality of post-revolution Russia.

the leftist, guilt isn't one of them.  Although one can hide inner conflicts and I won't preclude the possibility in some, everything written and said as well as carried out in policy screams arrogance, blind vanity, and a selfishness that would make Ayn Rand blush.  

   Politics has always had an element of hate about it.  The Roman Senate occasionally boiled over with it.  But today, and for reasons I don't have time to get into, politics is the major outlet and venue for hate.  Explanations can be a bit, but not too, complicated.  The phenomenon itself, in it's expressions, is uncomplicated and crude.

in Iraq?  This will not be another Vietnam, we pull out,come home, and let hell break loose.  We won't be pulling out of America and the Islamic murderers will hardly be grateful.  Bloodlust doesn't subside quickly and we will make a renewed and inviting target as well as other areas of the world.  The enemy will correctly see this as a victory and accordingly be encouraged.

      The Dems/liberals may get short term what they wish for, and be dammed sorry for it.  And will the NY Times reprise it's post Vietnam refrain, "Let us have no recriminations"?  Your ass, Buddy

     

Compendia of media lies and distortions are all over the web. Go find one. Life is too short for me to build another one here for your convenience.

I am disgusted with the endless parade of lies, half-truths, and distortions. I am tired of watching them turn every sort of crank and critic into a celebrity who is covered with the diligence they reserve for runaway brides. They pump this bilge into society through every pore in the media. When things are this one-sided, it is barely poetic license to slur them all.

Why do Americans not believe them? Because people have learned the hard way that they cannot be trusted to report the truth.

precipitously, and Iraq falls to the terrorists.

  THEN, I would expect the following, America would be shown to be the paper tiger Osama said it was.

  Our allies would start to make their own accommodation with the terrorists.

  No one would believe us again for at least a full generation.

  At which time we might as well go back into neo-isolationism because we will nave no real effect on the world anymore for some time.

 Also, China would immediately begin to pressure Taiwan because they know we are just big wussies.

Some very good questions about Haditha

"All animals are equal but some are more equal than others"  

(my favorite Animal Farm quote)

The explanation earler in the book reads:

 "Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure.   On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility.  No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal.  He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves.    But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"

Same old show - just new actors.

to blame the war critics within america for the failures of our government and military.  Sure, if we squeeze our eyes real tight and just pretend things are hunky dory in Iraq, all the problems will go away.  Because after all, the only real problem is the naysayers in America!

I mean what transparent nonsense. Iraq is going to hell, and this war is a disaster.  And quite frankly, what I say doesn't matter at all.  I'm not causing things to go badly, and neither are other war critics.  We want things to improve as much as anyone else.  But cheerleading and fantasy don't magically make things better any more than realism or even pessimism make things worse.  

...we found the WMD's because we did find them, and it was more than that one shell.  Couple that with pre-war intel, plus proven usage of WMD by Saddam, and you will find that many Americans believe that the weapons did exist in some form, but Saddam was able spirit them out of Iraq before the invasion. When stories like the Iraqi Museum Looting, the Missing WMD at Al Qaa Qaa and the Holocaust at Abu Ghraib fizzle despite carpet-bomb delivery by the press, people are naturally going to be skeptical when the press presumptuously concludes that there were never any WMD in Iraq. Given that many of the dead reporters were more concerned with local stories and immediate threats than the Case of the Missing WMD, the failure of many Americans to toe the MSM line on WMD cannot be blamed on them.

I read an E&P article which references that same number of 71 fatalities and compares it unfavorably with journalist deaths in previous wars, with no mention of the changes in journalism's technology, the duration of the conflicts cited, the soldier/reporter ratios in each war, or the differing levels of risk that armies have allowed reporters to take. I also do not know if the number includes journalists from both sides of the conflict.  What I do know is that, if the the 71 is all-emcompassing, then a good portion of those dead journalists were killed while in the company of the enemy. This fact alone tells me that if some journalists are willing to risk death to promote the enemy POV, many more are willing to risk far less to promote it. It is these living journalists who are the  subject of this thread, and the fact that they sully the reputation of Journalism is irrelevant.

 

pretend things are hunky dory in Iraq

It's not suppsed to be hunky dory. There's a war going on. It's a big ugly mess, with lots of carnage. If you were expecting sweetness and light, then your head is screwed on backwards.

Iraq is going to hell, and this war is a disaster.

All wars are disasters. If you were expecting sweetness and light, then your head is screwed on backwards.

I'm not causing things to go badly, and neither are other war critics.

You probably aren't. But Jack Murtha is. The New York Times is. Dick Durbin is. They are giving our enemies hope. They are demoralizing our troops. They are making things worse. If you can't see that, consider the possibility that your head is screwed on backwards.

on this:

We want things to improve as much as anyone else.

It is painfully easy to demonstrate that many, many, many folks on your side of the grand gulch most certainly do not want things to improve in Iraq.  A brief perusal of the usual suspects will suffice as proof of that assertion.

But let me give you the benefit of the doubt, Gen. LiberalChris.  You say that you want things to improve, that the war is a disaster (as if any war is just as fine as flint, but anyway), and that it's all because of "the failures of our government and military".

So briefly - as you appear to have the answers that have heretofore eluded people with last names like Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush - what precisely should we be doing differently?

Any 2 or 3 things will do.

Take your time.

so wait, we would have crushed the insurgency by now, if not for negative comments by Jack Murtha and the New York Times?  I mean is our military and tactical strength so precarious and the enemy's morale so crucial that a few comments by semi-important americans brings our whole effort crashing down?

do the people actually in control of this war get any responsibility whatsoever?  i guess the bush administration just can't overcome the immensely damaging impact of comments by people on the sidelines.

to ask my views on how to fix Iraq.  My point is simply that blaming american war critics for the problems in Iraq is absurd.

we should adopt Senator Biden's plan, and come to grips with the fact that if there ever was hope of a unity government, that hope is gone now.  Our best chance is to pull out slowly, and try to establish a Dayton-accord style semi-break up of the country.

Oh shoot, I shouldn't have said that.  my mere voicing of the opinion that a unity government has failed has made it so.  Better to adopt the bush administration "pretend-away-the-problems" strategy which has worked so well for 3 years.

because you, like all the rest of your brethren, don't have a plan.  You never have and probably never will.  

My point is simply that blaming american war critics for the problems in Iraq is absurd.

It's not nearly as absurd as blaming the "failures" of the Bush Administration - something you and many of your fellow travelers do with annoying frequency and shrillness.  It is precisely these "failures" that have led to the Iraq War being the least costly military exercise, in terms of dollars, lives and injuries, of any major combat operation in the last 75-years. Look it up.

If Clinton were running this show your side would be touting Iraq as a great success - just like you did with the disaster that is now Kosovo.

But if you want support for our premises, take-in an hour of the al-Jihadistan network.  Check the frequency that Murtha, the Times, Durbin etc. are quoted, and then tell me with a straight face that they are not providing aid and comfort to our enemies.

That said, we agree on a tangential point - I fail to see the need to keep Iraq whole.  Let the Kurds turn the north into the Middle East's version of Ohio, let the Shia duke it our with their spiritual brothers to the East, and let the rest get merged-in with Syria - as that's essentially what's happening anyway.

we would have crushed the insurgency by now, if not for negative comments by Jack Murtha and the New York Times?

No one said any such thing. I said that they are making things worse. Comparing our troops to Nazis, convicting them before they are even charged, and making up Atrocities!™ that never happened are acts that make things worse. All these things have been done by either elected officials of the Democratic Party, or by "journalists."

is our military and tactical strength so precarious and the enemy's morale so crucial that a few comments by semi-important americans brings our whole effort crashing down?

This will be the second time in one note that you have made something up out of whole cloth so that you could shoot it down. What, are you arguing with yourself?
What part of "making things worse" eludes you?

the fact that if there ever was hope of a unity government, that hope is gone now.

Ah, a man who knows the future in advance. How handy. Would you happen to have Microsoft's closing price on December 31 handy?

The big lie technique of re-framing the war as a war against WMDs has defeated you.

The war was always about much more. Unfortunately, people for reasons I have trouble thinking were due to patriotism, have sold the lie that the war is only about WMDs.

I am sorry to see that you have lost to that assault on reality.

The title of this thread is "Democrats, Media Begin Final Drive to Secure Defeat in Iraq."  The clear implication is that democrats and the media, merely by saying negative things, actually have the ability "to secure defeat."  Not just "make things worse."

It's funny how the GOP talks all about responsibility but refuses to take any itself.  Your party controls all levers of power in our country, and you persuade the nation to start a war.  And then, when things cost vastly more than you predicted, take terribly longer than you predicted, and generally go all to hell, who's at fault?  Why it's those of us with virtually no power at all and our inconvenient criticism.

So maybe the war critics decrease morale and in that sense make things worse.  So what?  I'll tell you what really makes things worse:  roadside bombs, assassination of government officials, daily carnage, sectarian torture squads, billions of dollars in reconstruction down the drain or laundered.  spend your time getting mad at Jack Murtha if you want, but don't try to persuade rational people that war critics are at fault.

you're right, my plan sucks.  It's certainly not as brilliant as  "stay the course" and  "we'll stand down when they stand up."  i mean, that is some seriously awesome planning you guys have set in motion.  the insurgency has been in its last throes for nearly three years thanks to your wonderful plans.

if we're trying to figure out who to blame for the failures in Iraq, it is more reasonable to blame Democratic war critics than the administration that initiated and manages the war?  Do you realize how preposterous a statement that is?

is your unstated but clearly implied assumption that I agree in any way shape or form with your premise that Iraq Is A Disaster™.

I do not.

As such, I don't seek to "blame" anyone for "failures" because, honestly, I don't see "failures".

What I see is war.

War is messy.

War is nasty.

People get hurt.

It is not, to use your word, managable because the other side of the management equation gets a say in how the job should be done.

So no, I don't see how "preposterous" my statement is precisely because it is not my side that is providing, on a daily basis, spiritual food for the enemy and giving them, with each passing week, more and more reasons they should think they can win and should therefore hang-in to a battle they otherwise cannot.

Yours is.

I think the clear implication of the post is that defeat will come from the actions taken as a result of the leftist defeat push. You know, cutting funding, cutting and running, all the other cut options.

Let's not be silly. No one said merely vocalizing disagreement will cause magical collapse.

Good to see you! Been away or just under the radar?

-sorry for the thread jack-

The clear implication is that democrats and the media, merely by saying negative things, actually have the ability "to secure defeat."

I watched them do exactly that in the 1970's. They certainly had that ability then. I'm not sure they do anymore, but they certainly are going through the same steps.

To those old enough to remember, it is obvious that this whole Democrat-Media screed has nothing to do with Iraq, or with conditions in Iraq. We heard all these same things — the exact same things — about another war, in another place, at another time... but from these same people.

This is a script they are following. It is a script for defeat. They know it is a script for defeat because the last time they used it, it produced defeat... which is what they then openly sought. It is what they openly seek now if you watch their actions. The only difference now is that this time they are lying about what they expect their efforts to produce. This is why you will hear so many here refer to them as "treasonous liars." We don't think very highly of them.

To accuse a profession of treason (at length) and then skip the part of backing it up.

here's my 2cents:

ban all militias: this should have been done years ago- I don't care if some militias were "helping". now we will leave it up to the Iraqi government to integrate the militas or disband them or whatever- they should not have been allowed to form in the first place.

let's train all of our soliders in the arabic language and culture.  maybe this has been done, but none of my friends or relatives who were in Iraq said there was much training. I think this could really help mitigate the inevitable communication problems-

lastly I would like to see more troops- I know this isn't popular (and probably foolish), but if it can't be done by the iraqis- why wait until it can?- if we have pourous borders and pipelines that are unguarded, then let's guard them.  can we in America even imagine what it would be like to our economy if we had 6 hours of electricity a day (if you're lucky)-

let's also work to resolve the ongoing tensions between the PKK/ Kurds and the Turks.

let's stop constructing buildings in Iraq that cannot be repaired once we leave-  I saw the Army corps of Engineers building a school or something along that line with 2x4 framing and sheetrock- what happens when this stuff needs to be repaired?

I'm all for the rebuilding, but let's at least pretend we are doing it in a way that is sustainable- I mean where did they even get the 2x4's- did we really ship them from the U.S.?

Along that line- why have the army or private contractors building schools or hospitals at all?  I understand there is a goodwill component to this, but shouldn't the iraqis be doing the rebuilding? I'm really thinking of this in terms of unemployment- I know that there are iraqi contractors building in iraq, but I would like to see the U.S. push this more-

Such incidents are sufficiently numerous and well documented that satisfying a latecomer who happens to be ignorant of them is not worth our time or space. You'll have to catch up on your own; we're not going to stop and wait for you.

blaming war critics for a failed war never gets old.  You really believe that we could see the "light at the end of the tunnel" in vietnam and that we would have won, but for jane fonda.  

and you are paving the way to make the same argument regarding this war, because the writing is on the wall. when (inevitably) we pull out of Iraq with our tails between our legs and that country in shambles, you will again blame this on war critics.  Does it matter that nearly every one of your predictions have failed to materialize - WMD, "welcomed as liberators," "mission accomplished," "insurgency in its last throes," etc.  Nope.

The Bush administration controls all levers of government, including our foreign policy apparatus and our military. But it will be the war critics who will be to blame, because they demoralized our army and convinced us to leave just minutes before everything magically got fixed.

From Christopher S. Carson in Frontpagemag.com:

"...a great deal of information in Duelfer's own Report contradicts his tidy model of a disarmed-but-coyly-pretending dictator. Take the little matter of the secret biological laboratories hidden throughout Baghdad and under the control of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). UNSCOM had spent years roaming Iraq and never so much as heard a whiff about them. Hans Blix and his successor agency, UNMOVIC, found Iraq in non-compliance in 2002 without stumbling over a single white lab coat. These labs were unknown to any intelligence agency in the world until after the Iraq War, when ISG uncovered their existence. They were all in egregious violation of the UN resolutions on disclosure and disarmament..."

"...There was no doubt that as America and Britain pushed harder for Iraqi compliance in 2002, Saddam became alarmed enough to re-admit the inspectors. He tried to hide the evidence on a massive scale. The US satellite intercepts re-played by Colin Powell in February 2003 refer to officers getting rid of the "nerve agents" before the inspectors got there. Saddam told his surprised generals shortly before the war that he had no WMD, and ordered the scientists to "cooperate completely" with the inspectors. He agreed to destroy his al-Samoud missiles, and suspended work on the Jinin cruise missile. As part of his effort to vacuum up all the evidence, his men resorted to tactics like dumping mustard gas barrels and cyanide in the Euphrates, never minding that the local people use this river for their drinking water. The US Marines found "significant quantities" of the poisons in the river near Nasiriyah in June of 2003. Duelfer never mentions this find..."

And there's this:

 "...Shortly before the war, Hans Blix's UNMOVIC teams found and destroyed at Al-Muthanna 10 155-millimeter artillery shells and four plastic containers filled with mustard gas. Duelfer mostly denies Blix's find here has any significance, because it doesn't fit his model. He writes off the 58-plus chemical weapons shells found all over Iraq after the War as being "residual" shells left over from before the 1991 Gulf War. I somehow doubt that the Marine unit that was targeted by terrorists with one of these shells was interested in the date of its construction. I also doubt that if Saddam wanted to send over the next Ramzi Yousef to dump one of these shells in the Sears Tower HEVAC system, the thousands of victims' families would much care, either. Duelfer also doesn't pay much attention to how the Polish Army actually purchased cyclosarin (five times deadlier than sarin) rockets from the black market in Iraq to keep them out of the hands of Zarqawi's terrorists. So clearly Saddam didn't have time to bury all the evidence..."

Here's the link to the full article:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18497

Duelfer didn't exactly toe the MSM line, but they certainly cherry-picked his report.

You've had your opportunity to vent, now behave yourself. We are not here to entertain liberal kibbitzers.

but hardly atypical for the liberal left. Aside from p*ssing off a lot of people, Jane Fonda sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi had virtually no impact on the Vietnam War. Walter Cronkite and his fellow travelers in the press however are a horse of a different color.

Many people, me among them, believe that the "Tet Offensive" was the turning point in the war. Widely reported in the American press as a stunning victory for the enemy it was, by any objective measure, an unmitigated disaster for them. The great lie began at Tet and continued unabated thereafter. And it proved to the press, beyond a doubt, that if they told a lie often enough they could change Americans' perception of reality. Even General Giap, the supposed "architect" of North Vietnam's "great victory" admits they had lost and, absent the "support" provided by the American press and the anti-war liberals, would have had to sue for peace --- and on not very favorable terms.

And the press and their fellow travelers on the left are embarked on the same campaign in Iraq, Afghanistan, indeed anywhere in the world, including here at home, where we confront the enemy.

you assume that we are are trying to find someone to blame.

I want to know why you consider Iraq a failure.  The process isn't done yet.  Their government hasn't even been completely seated yet.

Are you forgetting the history of your own country?  After we won the revolution we had our own insurgencies in this country.  It was Adams who was finally able to convince Washington that these insurgents such as Shays were a threat to our new country and persuaded Washington to come back into public life and push for a new, stronger central government.  The result was the Constitution and Washington served as the first President.

Do you have any idea how long it took to get our Constution ratified and our first government seated?  Rhode Island was probably the state most dead set against the Constitution and it failed state referendum.

You say Iraq is a failure but they are progressing much faster than we did in making our first constitutional government.

Militarilly, Iraq has been an AMAZING success.  Ask someone at the end of the first Gulf War if we could take the entire country of Iraq with as many troops as we did, then hold it for three years with the lost of a total of 2700 troops (about 2100 so far due to "hostile" action) and they would have told you that you were nuts.  They would tell you that we would lose more than that in one day in Baghdad alone.

Militarilly Iraq has been a simply amazing success.  Politically, it has moved along faster than our government did and is moving along at about the same pace as post-war Germany.  People forget all the political killings that went on in Germany after the war as various factions jockied for power.  

That you say Iraq is a failure speaks loud and clear that you have no perspective on the issue and that you have no idea what you are talking about.  It has been a media failure and that is about it.

I've been in and out of town with work mostly. Am back out to Europe in two weeks again. I do peek in here from my hotels, but I can't let myself "engage" or I'll get too distracted and won't work. Doh!

Good to be recollected, as we say in the south.

Mr. Hahn suspended Liberal Chris's posting privileges.  I'm curious as to why.   i didn't use profanity or talk about anything off topic.  Is it a prerequisite to posting here that I agree with you?

On the upside, by keeping me from talking, Mr. Hahn may have saved the Iraqi war effort.  Because, as he so cogently explains in this thread, I am one of the sinister democrats on a "final drive to secure defeat in iraq."  By limiting my blog comments, Mr. Hahn has heroically thwarted my efforts to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

Thank you for making it easy to ban your new account, by the way: it saves us trouble all around.

Moe

PS: Why, yes, that's right, I'm not answering his question.  Funny, that.

Rather than mere condemnation and wild speculation, Peter Beinart in his new book lays out what Democrats think and put it pretty eloquently:

It says it is precisely because we recognize that America is fallible, because we recognize our capacity for injustice and struggle to overcome it, that we defeat our enemies. Because we know greatness must be earned, not just asserted, we avoid moral complacency. We don't build prison camps like Guantanamo Bay. And it is our ability to fight our enemies without becoming like them that inspires the world.

The full idea is here

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/2/105025/7716

That is why there is the criticism about Haditha and Abu Gharib, not any sort of sinister design.

"Revocation of posting privileges (banning) will take place after a warning of behavior which violates the intent and spirit of these rules."

1.  Where was my warning?
   
2.  How did I violate the intent or spirit of your rules?

Of course, if you just want an echo chamber, yeah it's your site.  But I'm a patriotic liberal, and I find it outrageous that you have the compunction to call me and others like me traitors for opposing the Iraq war and <gasp> suggesting that it is in our nation's interest to pull out.  So sure, go around spewing nasty insults and then banning anyone who bothers to disagree, even though they didn't violate your own (apparently falsely stated) posting policies.

Here ya go.  The resolution has 23 'whereas' clauses.  By my count, three of them have to do with Saddam's oppression of the Iraqi people, one has to do with the claimed attempt to assassinate Bush 41 in 1993, and the others are pretty much all about "Saddam has WMDs, is in league with terrorists, and we've got to stop Saddam before he gives them the WMDs to use against us."

The UN resolution is pretty much the same.  Ditto Bush's speech on the eve of war.

Look, blowing steam out here in the open is only likely to inflame the rest of us.  How about emailing the editors instead and asking what you do, alright pal?

You're a fool.  You are the one who was insulting trying to stir the pot.  There are plenty of liberals here capable of having civilized discussions.  You should learn from them. You either A) Can't grasp the premise of the diary you are commenting on, or B) simply want to get people to call you names so you can go back to Kos with evidence of "intolerance" or what have you.  i personally think it's A after listening to your tired, ignorent arguments.  Get out of your mom's basement and go outside.  Experience the real world...Embrace it...love it.

...past the name.  Here's the scoop: if you come back again, we take this to the next level.  Trust me, you're better off quitting while you're behind.

Go home, dude.

things to come out of the Senate in a long time.  Imagine...23 for 23.  Not bad.

Here's where you went wrong.  Just look at your tone in this entire thread.  You're a great big horse's dooty.  Be nice.  

When our frontline troops would liberate prospective WMD sites from the Iraqi army, what did they do?  Did they stay around to guard them, so that terrorists couldn't grab any WMDs there for themselves?  No, they drove on towards Baghdad, and left the sites unguarded.

Later, when Task Force 75 (which was supposed to check these sites to see if WMDs were really there) would arrive, they'd find the sites looted to the ground.

You know what this means?  We're damned lucky that there really WEREN'T any WMDs in Iraq, because if there had been, our invasion would have been the means of transferring them to terrorists.

This has been known for over three years, since the time of the invasion itself.  Who has gotten their asses fired as a result?

You can't tell me the Bush Administration regarded Iraqi WMDs as a credible threat, or heads would have rolled.

This war was not about WMDs.

UN Resolution 1441

I linked to the Congressional Resolution above that authorized Bush to use force against Iraq.  It was overwhelmingly about the WMDs.

The UN resolution is even more so.  It's got one clause deploring Iraq's failure "to end repression of its civilian population and to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq...[and] to return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwaiti and third country nationals wrongfully detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized by Iraq," but other than that, it's all WMDs, all the time.

That was the issue on which Bush & Co. sold Congress, America, and the world on the Iraqi war.  To attempt to wiggle out of it now is revisionist history at its worst.

Fortunately, due to the magic of hyperlinks, such nonsense can be exposed as nonsense in real time.

But it's still the same old ad hominem claptrap: attacking the man (or, in this case, a whole big chunk of the population) as a substitute for dealing with their arguments.

This war was not about WMDs.

Can we quote you on that?

The question is not whether you will do this for me.  

The question is really about you.  Are you someone willing to accuse others of treason without providing any evidence?

And the answer is yes.

substitute for dealing with their arguments.

We don't care about dealing with their arguments. We've heard them; they are unconvincing. We reject them. The way we "deal" with them is to out-organize and out-vote the people who believe them, so as to prevent such people from having any serious impact on events. This way, we don't have to convince them of anything. They can go on screaming their heads off for all we care.

republicans proselytizing on dkos?

So you believe that the men the US government appointed to do the investigation, men who had access to far more data than any of us have, were wrong.  

To be fair, I have no experience with FrontPage magazine or Chris Carson (an attorney in private practice in Milwaukee).

But it seems unlikely to me that he figured out what our military and intelligence teams in Iraq could not.

Tom

Do you know what our military and intelligence teams found? Or do you just know what the Associated Press decided to tell you about that?

You don't know what evidence I've provided. Or where. Like I said, the fact that you came in late does not obligate me to clutter up every thread with the Same Old Stuff.

That the advancing units did not secure areas does not prove they left WMD unguarded. If they had found anything that smelled like WMD they would have secured the area while disposal units arrived.

Not to worry, the Dems have this covered:

1. Of course, there were no WMD in Iraq,
   
   
2. And, of course, if there were, they were stolen due to the proven negligence of the Bush Admin.

I don't see it as proselytizing, I see it as presenting another view.  Yes, I do read and post on Kos and some of the other liberal blogs, but I also read Andrew Sullivan, Red State, The American Scene, The Club for Growth Blog, and The Corner every day.  I seek honest debate and all of the posts and diaries that I have posted on here show that.  You may disagree with the points presented, but in order to have effective debate or even to make your case more persuasive, you need to be able to refute and understand the opposite side.

...your question why "so many Americans still believe we found the WMD we were looking for (not that one shell)."

Most Americans believe it because they know that Saddam's shell game had more than one shell.  

It does in fact prove that.  It wasn't the job of the frontline troops to determine whether WMDs were present; they had neither the equipment nor the knowledge to do so.  That's what specially equipped units like Task Force 75 were supposed to do.

Feel free to read the article.

...when you can quote Paul Wolfowitz?

...time for people to tone back their responses a touch.

in your previous post you apparently missed the 36-pt warning about profanity. Fine, reading isn't your cup of tea. See a lot of that here.

Now you are insulting someone for pointing out the immense hole in your rather illogical argument. [As a note, yes the maneuver units did have the expertise and the equipment to determine if WMD were located in the various sites. While they did not have the exploitation expertise of TF 75, they did have the ability to detect either chemical or nuclear weapons.]

As you can't conduct yourself in even a semi-civilized fashion, take a hike.

had the equipment and training to detect the presence of materials that "behave" like CBR* to test equipment. These troops were advancing into an area believed to have CBR present and were equipped to do basic detection if for nothing other than their won protection. It is true that they were not in the business of handling or disposal but they were certainly equipped to detect potential CBR materials.

You may recall that during the advance there were a number of false alarms that caused various units to don their protective gear; what do you suppose triggered those alerts, canaries in cages?

--------------

* I say "behave" like CBR because there are a nunber of materials, such as agricultural chemicals, that are not technically weapons that elicit a response from basic test gear as if they might be. "Might be" is sufficient cause to alert the unit to take precautions.

Doesn't surprise me. Unlike the droning propagandists on the left who have falsely and loudly contended that WMDs! were the only reason ever offered for invading Iraq, most Americans understood from the beginning that there was more to it than that. For you to imagine that you have discovered some "gotcha" here simply demonstrates that you succumbed to your own BS. That's what happens when the media is inside the echo chamber with you. You start to think that stuff you made up yourself is true, because it keeps getting fed back to you.