--- David Hobby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "War efforts"? What war efforts? There was a > quick > war which drove Hussein out of power. Now there is > an aimless > occupation. I imagine that I support continuing the > occupation > more than the Bush Administration does--the > impression I get > is that they would just as soon claim a victory and > get out. > I see occupying Iraq until it gets back on its feet > as an > American responsibility. (And that of our short > list of > allies in the war.) If you start something, you > need to carry > it through. > So where do you get off claiming that politics must > > stop? Is it then unpatriotic to criticize Bush, for > the next > few years of the occupation?
I don't claim that politics stop. That claim is nothing more than an attempt to defend the indefensible - to create a smokescreen behind which to hide arguments that have no valid basis whatsoever. It is unpatriotic to falsely attack the rationale for the war when it is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts that the Administration was telling the truth. Period. Everyone in the Democratic Party claiming that Bush tricked us into war _knows_ that this is a lie. Doing that in wartime is not normal politics. There were no Republicans in 1942 claiming that FDR made up Pearl Harbor. The argument that I am claiming that politics must stop because of war is nothing more than an attempt to make it impossible to _defend_ the Administration at this critical moment in time. It's not the Bush Administration that is asking for an exit strategy in Iraq, btw. That would be Howard Dean and EJ Dionne, and neither of them is a Bush supporter. As for what war - Al Qaeda and its various allies are not still out there, trying to reconstitute themselves and launch further, and worse, attacks on us. The war is over when that isn't true any more. Iraq wasn't a war any more than Operation Torch was in 1942. Iraq was a campaign - and even the campaign isn't over yet. The war has barely begun. We are, at most, at the end of the beginning. Finally, an aimless occupation? Less than half a year after the end of the war, more than two thirds of Iraq enthusiastically welcomes American soldiers every day. In the middle third most of the population is still in our favor. Attacks continue on a daily basis, of course. We haven't killed everyone in that country who needed killing. Yet. Until that's done, the attacks probably will continue. Given where Iraq was six months ago, where it is _now_ is pretty impressive. Berlin wasn't in as good a shape in 1946 as Baghdad is right now, that's for sure. > I agree. They have not articulated a clear vision > of > what they propose, leaving a vacuum for the > Republicans to > fill with their policies. > > ---David Why not is the question, though? With the striking exception of the quite extraordianry Joe Lieberman, no one in the Democratic field appears to have any idea other than attacking the President. That's it. They don't tell us what they would have done. They don't tell us what they're going to do. They just engage in mendacious attacks on the President. It's not even as if there aren't real grounds to criticize him. Financial mismanagement, failures in the Homeland Security Department, any number of other areas where real criticism would not only be politically productive, but actually good for the national interest. Are those happening? No. Instead they've invented something out of whole cloth. It's not just morally indefensible, it's politically stupid - not exactly a combination designed to garner votes from any but the fanatics. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
