Fred Kaplan in Slate
To put this in perspective: From December 1941 to August 1945, the U.S. government mobilized an entire nation; manufactured a mighty arsenal; played a huge role in defeating the armies, air forces, and navies of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan; and emerged from battle poised to shape the destiny of half the globe. By comparison, from September 2001 to December 2005, the U.S. government has advanced to the point of describing a path to victory in a country the size of California.
Another perspective. The Bush administration tried to occupy this country the size of California with fewer soldiers than there are police officers in New York City. Our troops were screwed from the get-go.
Another perspective: The Opposition Party, and its journalistic supporters, were committed to the same goals as everyone else from beginning to end. There was such a thing as a “Loyal Opposition”, which no longer exists. The “Disloyal Opposition” cared not if troops were put in harm’s way, as long as their domestic political goals were furthered.
This “Disloyal Opposition” held the mistaken belief that they could oppose the goals of the Armed Forces and their Commander - in - Chief while pretending to “support the troops.”
There was such a thing as a Loyal Opposition , which no longer exists.
There was also such a thing as responsible leadership in the Whitehouse, which no longer exists.
To have something akin to the current situation in WWII, we would have attacked Korea after Pearl Harbor.
Or Germany and Italy.
Or Germany and Italy.
Er, no.
1) Germany and Italy decalred war on us after we declared war on Japan and
2) Germany and Italy were allies of Japan; Iraq was not affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Try again.
Frank:
There is no opposition ot the war in Afghanistan. To have something akin to the current situation in WWII, we would have attacked Korea after Pearl Harbor.
Er, no.
1) Germany and Italy decalred war on us after we declared war on Japan and
Saddam was already at war with us by virtue of his violations of the 1991 cease-fire agrement.
2) Germany and Italy were allies of Japan; Iraq was not affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Among others:
Go read the 1998 Clinton Administration indictment of bin Laden.
Go read Richard Clarke’s statement that OBL “would boogie to Baghdad”.
Shorter Frank: But…..but….but…..JANE FONDA LOST US VIETNAM!!!!!
nudnik,
Nice red herrings. None of them justify the current debacle in Iraq.
1) Saddam was not an imminent threat, and there was no declaration of war. To use the violation of a Cease-fire agreement as reason to march into a urban ground war in central Baghdad is akin to a patrol officer pulling you over for a broken tail-light and then trying to arrest you for murder.
2) The onus wasn’t on Clinton and/or Clarke to prove the connection, they didn’t attack Iraq. It was on Bush and his administration…and they have yet to prove their reasoning valid.
But by all means, keep spinning.
Shorter Frank:
This war is all your fault because you don’t like Bush.
Frank,
All your silly “blame the opposition” rhetoric aside; as you so obviously support this war…can you honestly say that you feel there was sufficient pre-war planning and that the war, so far, has been conducted in a manner conducive to victory?
Do you honestly think that disbanding the Iraqi Army had no effect on the insurgency?
Do you honestly think that Rumsfeld decision to lower troop levels to an abysmal 140,000, was enough to carry out a country-wide policing operation?
I’m not asking you if you think the war is right or wrong, I’m asking you if, maybe, you can start laying the blame for some of the problems we’re facing in Iraq at the feet of the war planners themselves rather than at the feet of what you’ve so cleverly termed “the Disloyal Opposition” (Has a nice fascist ring to it! Don’t it?)
All you ever do is blame others for the folly of your leaders. Maybe it’s time to grow a pair and demand better from those you so blindly support?
THe real WWII comparison is, after entering the war, pouring troops into Britain to combat the Nazi threat, pushing into N. Africa and poised on the doorstep to Europe, George W. Roosevelt gathered an invasion force and on D-Day invaded ….. Turkey. Afterall, he and a thousand sycophantic suporters argue, that is a real threat, a country that has used chemical weapons, battled the US in the previous war and was filled with godless heathens.
Afterward, with large portions of our troops tied up there, they would have argued that Turkey is the leading front in WWII, because the Germans would be sending money, equipment andadvisors into the country to organize the resistance, all the while Nazis would be gathering their forces, strengthening their defenses and getting back on their feet now that the pressure is focused somewhere else.
Projection. Ever hear of it?
Not a mistake. One certainly may support our family members and neighbors by opposing the misuse of our country’s military power. In short, just because our people join the army doesn’t mean you can do anything you want with ‘em.
Quaker,
A-f*ckin-men!
I’m tired of people like Frank standing on the corpses of our men and women, hoisting the bloody shirts and screaming “traitor!”, simply because we believe (through deduction based on the reality surrounding this horrid war) that Bush’s War of Choice is nothing but a series of mistakes wrapped in a failed Neo-conservative ideology.
Then he has the gall to accuse others of “not caring about putting troops in harms way”…as if - instead of wanting them home because the war is wrong and their deaths are unnecessary - we want them home to help fight the battle for Universal Health Care and Abortion Rights, or to simply make Bush look bad. (”as long as their domestic political goals were furthered”)
What kind of asinine logic is that? Is that what he needs to tell himself every time he hears about another young man being blowing to pieces on some dusty road in the desert?
There’s only one person hear who appears to “not care” about our troops, and it’s the one who refuses to let them come home because it’ll hurt his pride.
No, disagreeing is fine. It’s declaring that she’s an insane traitor who hates the troops that steps over the line.
Wrong. Cindy Sheehan opposes our efforts in Afghanistan.
And remember she’s a Gold Star Mother so you aren’t allowed to disagree with her.
Has Cindy Sheehan hit a nerve with these guys or what? Pretty soon she’s going to be more popular with them than Michael Moore.
What I can’t help but wonder about is how the crucifixion of Cindy Sheehan is playing with our troops in Iraq right now. Because I know my mother, for example, if something happened to me she is perfectly capable of going all Sheehan. Whose mother wouldn’t?
So I think about the soldiers, it’s not enough that the neocons are happy to leave them in Iraq until they die, now they have to worry about what if their mothers protest their deaths. Now they know what kind of treatment they can expect for their mothers after they are gone.
So right you are, Sadie.
Golly seems like only last year that the righties were all up in arms about an anti-war rally in Dallas because the mother of Chad Drake, a soldier killed in Iraq was:
Of course, it turned out that it didn’t really happen that way, but nevertheless, the righties were outraged, outraged that anyone would do or say anything to upset the mother of a service member who had been killed.
Times change, I guess.
Let’s look at the World War II comparison again. First, we didn’t Germany or Europe, when we started. We attacked North Africa.
We first engaged Japan in the summer of 1942 — at sea!
Why didn’t we charge right into Japan?
Why didn’t we invade Germany?
In 1944, Eisenhower decided to cross the English Channel and invade the relatively vulnerable beaches of France.
What if Congress wanted to liberate the concentration camps first?
What if the press beat the drum for an attack from northeastern Italy?
Curmudgeon, despite your stupendously stupid and insensitive Jane Fonda remark, I am going to respond to your other witless comments.
When the day comes that someone from ANSWER or MoveOn; or, for that matter, a Democrat or left wing blogger, comes up with an alternative, other than withdrawal, to Bush’s plan, i will review that plan and decide whether or not I want to support it. But, for now, since no one has an alternative plan besides “This way to the egress,” I see no reason to change my mind.
Secondly, I challenge you to provide with what passes for a motive in the minds of Democrats? If every man and women in Iraq and Afghanistan camne home tomorrow, how would that help America? Would terrorist acts come to an end? Another, more important question: Wouldn’t the Democrats benefit, in the short run, if they could take credit for pressuring George Bush into “bringing the boys home”? Yes or no?
And, Quaker, this statement: “Just because our people join the army doesn t mean you can do anything you want with em,” is, unfortunately, wrong.
The first thing one learns about when one joins the Army is about the Chain of Command. It is taught in a seriocomic way: First, you’re a civilian who becomes a private. Then you take orders from everybody. Then over time, you get rank and seniority, and get to give orders to more and more people. Finally, you get to be a General and give orders to everybody. And then, you take orders from a civilian.
According to the Constitution, the United States Armed Forces have only one Commander - in - Chief, and that is the President of the United States, not you, not Oliver, not the Democrats, not the Republicans.
That’s right, George W. Bush, that “shallow husk of a man.” You may not be fit to hold his coat, but you can call him stupid and heartless and willing to let men die because of his own pride. You can go to sleep at night cursing his name, while he can’t sleep until his days’ work, looking over the security of 280 million people, is done.
Yet you are somehow convinced that an endless daily fusillade of defecation on this man and his goals has no effect on the morale of our troops, or the schemes of Congress, or his own determination.
How could you be so short - sighted and sophomoric?
I don’t follow, Frank.
If 35 is the minimum, I’m…um, overqualified!
Then look again. Go to Amendment 1 and check out all that jabber of “redress of grievances.”
Aw. Sadie beat me to it.
Allright, then, straight and minus the snark: Frank, your “chain of command” rant is pointless. Regardless of the hierarchy of command, political power does not prove that any and every use of military force is just and right.
My point stands: just because people are good enough to join the military doesn’t mean that everything they’re asked to do is right.
Since you’re in charge of today’s civics lesson, I have a question:
…and who does he answer to?
(And congrats on those last three grafs. They’re freaking hilarious. George Bush doesn’t sleep until he finishes his superdaddy job of tucking in his 280 million kids? Haw!)
ps — I forgot to add, there’s no doubt in my mind that criticism of George Bush has an effect on the morale of our troops. I think it is a big help for them to know they are not alone, that there are some Americans who care what happens to them.
It is lucky for them that we live in the internet age, where they can read blogs and websites for themselves and see who really supports them and who doesn’t.
You forgot the last link in your chain of command, Frank.
It’s only in a military dictatorship that the citizenry takes orders from a president. In a representative democracy, presidents take orders from the citizenry, or find themselves replaced by someone who can.
The real story here is the Right’s baldfaced attempt to turn our country into dictatorship. In the minds of so many people like yourself, the transition is already complete.
The rest of us aren’t giving up on democracy so easy.
In terms of being in charge of the military, read the Constitution and see if it says who he answers to. Last time I looked, it was no one.
Sadie, I didn’t say the citizenry takes orders from the President. I said the citizenry doesn’t get up every day and decide what the Army’s going to do.
When was the last time you voted on the new rate for a postage stamp?
Or the fee for a Passport?
The United States is not a Democracy. it never was, nor will it ever be, God willing.
By the way, Quaker, you and you confreres give me evidence, daily, as to why the Founding Fathers wanted the President to be 35 years of age. In those days, that was thought of as mature. Times change, eh?
It certainly means I’m at liberty to say so when I think he’s using them improperly.
Personal insults kinda lose some of their bite when you screw ‘em up like that. Better luck next time.
Yes, Quaker, I see you’ve boned up on your Constitutional Law
You were referring to this: “Congress shall make no law… abridging… the right of the people… to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
I suppose you think that’s the same thing as telling the President what he can do with his troops?
I’ll explain the little jibe about being 35, too, even thought that always take the fun out of it.
I meant to say that the Founding Fathers thought the President should be at least 35 years old because they thought of that age as mature. But you and your confreres provide me with daily evidence that times have changed. Get it, Quaker?
Oh, and Sadie, point me to a anti - Bush milblog. If you even know what a milblog is.
You might want to start here, and go through the blogroll:
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/
Yes Frank, I knew you didn’t believe in democracy, isn’t that what I said to begin with?
Reminds me of that old story, Thomas Jefferson is coming out of the Constitutional Congress and someone asks him what sort of government the new country will have. He says, “a democracy, if you can keep it.”
Jefferson knew there would be people like you around, there were people like you in his day, too. But he also knew there would be people like us, like me and Quaker here. As he said it himself, the signers of the Declaration of Independence put themselves, their lives and their fortunes at risk so that “government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”
But there is something I wish you could clear up. You said:
“The United States is not a Democracy. it never was, nor will it ever be, God willing.”
Yet your president is running around, telling Those Who Are About to Die that the reason for their sacrifice is Democracy. Meanwhile the yahoos in Congress are braying and waving purple fingers in the air, going on about “democracy democracy, this proves we are for democracy.”
So someone is out of step here. Is it you, or the Republican leadership?
Oh, and Sadie, point me to a anti - Bush milblog. If you even know what a milblog is.
Um Frank, if you go through the blogroll on a pro-war blog you’re likely to find…. more pro-war blogs. Whoda thunkit?
Get your head out of the echo chamber and educate yourself…
http://www.ivaw.net/
http://www.ftssoldier.blogspot.com/
http://spaces.msn.com/members/tipofthespear/
http://www.traveling-soldier.org/
a) I’m a conservative — of course I don’t believe in democracy. I believe in a representative republic, which is what America is, was, and always will be.
b) The “old story” has the quote properly attributed to Benjamoin Franklin as A Republic, if you can keep it
c) Funny how you hear exactly what you want to hear of the President’s speeches. Let me know when you “hear” the rest.
Quaker, i never said you couldn’t complain, I just said it can be demoralizing (not to mention the fact that that clause you refer to doesn’t mean petitioning the government when the President pisses you off.
Finally, you have confused your failure to comprehend with my failure to communicate.
p.s. Curmudgeon, read here for a nice story about Jane Fonda.
As usual, you prove the rule by the exception
Sort of like you harping on Democratic corruption and misdeeds.
Except my “exceptions” are more exceptional.
Three of those four blogs are clearinghouses for the opinions of multiple anti-war servicepeople and vets, and what’s amazing is that even that many are willing to speak out.
If they are currently serving, they risk official reprisal. If they are vets, they risk the scorn and swiftboating of the right-wing smear machine.
Most of us on the left honor our servicepeople and respect their opinions even if we disagree with them. I wish I could say the same for my brothers and sisters on the right. Check out the comments on those two sets of blogs (pro-war and anti-war) and see if I’m not right.
Thank you Wilbur for pointing out 4 (count ‘em, 4) anti - Bush military blogs, amidst a landslide of hundreds that are pro - Bush and pro - Iraq.
Show me the lengthy “anti - war” blogroll from those blogs.
As usual, you prove the rule by the exception.
Frank is headed for a falafel breakdown if he doesn’t chill out. His Bill O’Reilly imitation is too close to home. Get help, man.
Uh, yes it does.
That’s what “grievance” means. You can look it up.
Doh! Frank got me with that Franklin quote. Well it was bound to happen sooner or later.
But you’re so handy with the google, Frank, can you point me to somewhere where George Bush said “Republicanism is on the move,” or “we will establish a Republic in the Middle East” or even “they hate us for our Republicanism?” Because somehow I’ve been missing those speeches.
On my TV all BUsh ever talks about is democracy, at least after he got caught out on the WMD 9/11 fibs.
If you go here, they’ve looked it up for you;
Redress
redress v. 1. To set right, remedy or rectify. 2. To make amends for. n. 1. Satisfaction for wrong done; reparation. 2. Correction. [harmrd, not made upset or angry. Give it up, Quaker.
Quaker: I left something out above: That should read “The meaning is clear — harmed, not made upset or angry.” Give it up, Quaker.
buma: Calling people crazy who disagree with you is a trick that’s almost older than I am. It didn’t work then, either. It got Soviet psychiatrists tossed out of all the reputable Psychiatric Societies, until 1989.
Wilbur: Sort of like you harping on Democratic corruption and misdeeds.
Except I don’t. First of all, I believe that most politicians are corrupt, no matter what their ideology might be. Unlike you, I don’t believe that “My guys” don’t do bad stuff.
Secondly, I usually find myself in the position of pointing out one of two things: a) That what Republicans and / or conservatives are accused of by guys like Oliver and you is not true, and b) That what guys like you and Oliver praise in Democrats and / or liberals is not true.
I don’t need or want to harp on Democratic corruption and misdeeds.
overqualified! = old fart
Dugger, I oughtta know
Frank, are you trying to parse away the meaning of “grievance”?
OK, then. I will give it up. If you’re so desperate to make your point that you’re defining away the plain meaning of the words of the Constitution, you win.
But never, ever try to give me an “originalist” argument unless you’re ready to play this game some more.
It’s quite simple: The issue is who overrules the President in his role as Commander - in - Chief. The answer is “Nobody.” Thanks to the War Powers Act of 1973, the President may “as Commander-in-Chief … introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities… pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States [emphasis mine], its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
And that’s pretty much it. You cam set up camp in Crawford, TX; take over the library at Columbia U., or throw your medals over the White House — don’t mean a thing.
And your confusing the difference between filing a petition for redress of grievances, and overseeing the President.
You have the right to tell the commander-in-chief when you think he has misused our military, and you may oppose his goals. But I have the right to say that it is demoralizing our troops, and I have the right to speculate as to your motives.
Why in the heck do liberals think that the Constitution was written to protect only their rights?
Now let’s look back up this rabbit hole to see how far we’ve come.
Your initial entry:
My reply:
Yours:
Mine:
Yours:
Mine:
And so on.
To bring it all to a point, this “Disloyal Opposition” is not mistaken. We certainly can tell the commander-in-chief when we think he has misused our military, and we may oppose his goals. (And we’re not “pretending” to support our families, friends, and neighbors as we do so.)
It’s you who is mistaken if you don’t think this is exactly the kind of circumstance envisioned by the framers in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The confusion is yours.
Recall, it was your opening gambit that read: “This ‘Disloyal Opposition’ held the mistaken belief that they could oppose the goals of the Armed Forces and their Commander - in - Chief while pretending to support the troops.
You promptly confused this with something about the military chain of command.
What are you playing, three card monte? If you can’t at least point to what you think I was confused about, don’t even bother to try and tell me I was confused.
Crimenently.