Someone Tell the President the War Is Over

August 14, 2005 6:42 PM

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over. Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week).
posted by R. Mutt (27 comments total)

You know, I was just wondering what the New York Times Op/Ed page had to say about Iraq.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 6:54 PM on August 14, 2005

obviously, steve. what else could explain your ubiquity in a liberal stronghold? masochism?
posted by Hat Maui at 6:56 PM on August 14, 2005

You know, I was just wondering what the GOP talking points were re: The NYT Op/Ed page. Thanks, Steve@!
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:59 PM on August 14, 2005

The line between rationality and defeatism is ... interesting. Depends on the underlying truth of the assertions of the fpp.

While I believe us killing people isn't going to bring stability to Iraq, I don't really have any solution to "win" the war.

I reject the proposition that pulling out will "make things worse". Well, actually, that may be true but staying IS ALSO making things worse.

I think the fundamental reality to put one's head around is that the Iraq war is for the Iraqis to fight. We pissed away 60,000 soldiers' lives (hundreds of thousands if you count serious casualties) and $600B in today's money in SE Asia before we figure that one out.

There is something of a noble cause here, I just wish Bush had sold the country on that noble cause rather than cooking up bullshit "Saddam hasn't disarmed" justifications. If you've got to lie to the american people to get your war on, the war isn't going to go well IMV.

Over two years ago some bright person on dailykos was arguing that we should just get the hell out. I was going to argue for "staying the course" but I saw the logic of his position in light of our Vietnam experience; that there really was no good course to stay to, especially since that was the highpoint of all the night-time smash-n-grab raids on houses and general disrespecting of the Iraqi people.

And that was around 1500 KIA and thousands of serious casualties ago, not to mention a couple hundred billion dollars.

What a colossal fuckup.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 7:03 PM on August 14, 2005

I still am not convinced that just because the NYTimes Op Ed page and one congressional district in Ohio almost thinks the President has f'd up that anyone in the vast middle of this nation agrees. Which, really, is all that matters.
posted by spicynuts at 7:06 PM on August 14, 2005

Noble cause, ha ha ha ha.....
posted by nightchrome at 7:13 PM on August 14, 2005

The NYT can suck it. This is too, little too late. Most of the stuff cited in the article was known before the election, when something could have been done about it.

If newspapers worry about their future readership and declining circulation, they should stop writing about things I see on TV and start writing somewhere near the level of The Guardian. They should act like journalists instead of advertising spacers.

In summation; NYT, suck it. The fourth estate has a potato blight.
posted by 517 at 7:21 PM on August 14, 2005

the vast middle of this nation agrees. Which, really, is all that matters.

The "vast middle" of this nation (48%!) also believes that mankind and apes do not share a common ancestor. What the masses believe, or how much we want to win, is rather irrelevant at the moment.

What more can our troops do in Iraq to "win"? That is the 64 billion dollar question.

Perhaps STFUing here on the homefront will help the mission. Perhaps the Op Ed is overstating the case and stability via attrition and fatigue will come later rather than sooner.

Or perhaps not. I think it's a coin flip proposition. Either way the damage has largely been done, so I don't see an immense downside to letting the Iraqis resolve this themselves.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 7:27 PM on August 14, 2005

Noble cause, ha ha ha ha.....

Noble cause.

fwiw, I believe this "noble cause" was largely hijacked by Heritage Foundation ideologues looking to advance Corporate America into the heart of the mideast (parallel to our mission in SE Asia to secure the periphery against soviet-bloc expansion), the PNAC crew looking to secure strategic access to a couple hundred billion barrels of oil, the AIPAC folks looking to take down a longtime enemy of Israel, etc etc.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 7:36 PM on August 14, 2005

well stated, frank rich. too bad it's about a year or 3 too late.
posted by brandz at 7:40 PM on August 14, 2005

This clearly isn't what the NY Times Op-Ed page has to say about Iraq; it's what Frank Rich has to say. Tom Friedman and David Brooks have very different opinions about it and frequently share those views on those same two pages.

Personally, I think Frank Rich's weekly Op-Ed is the single most (only?) redeeming feature of the NY Times, but single-link FPP to an Op Ed? Are we still allowed to do this?
posted by psmealey at 7:42 PM on August 14, 2005

single-link FPP to an Op Ed? Are we still allowed to do this?

I've been watching the one link posts lately, and I'll have to judge that this meets the non-deletion standard.
posted by Balisong at 7:54 PM on August 14, 2005

The "vast middle" of this nation (48%!) also believes that mankind and apes do not share a common ancestor. What the masses believe, or how much we want to win, is rather irrelevant at the moment.

You think so? Why do you think we have GB in office still? Since these are the people that put him in office, and these are the people whose opinions he cares about, these are the people whose beliefs will dictate his actions and policies. As someone above said, the NYTimes can SUCK IT, because they are, or Frank Rich is, PREACHING TO THE CHOIR. You think those people in Ohio are sitting around going 'shit, the NY Times thinks we f'd up in Iraq, so they must be right!'. I doubt it.

What the masses believe is rarely irrelevant. Anyone remember Somalia? If the masses didn't believe they didn't want to see red American blood in some African backwater, maybe we would have done some good there.
posted by spicynuts at 7:56 PM on August 14, 2005

And by the way, Heywood, I'm not disagreeing with either you or Frank Rich, I'm merely pointing out that what the NY Times thinks matters little to a goodly portion of this nation.
posted by spicynuts at 7:59 PM on August 14, 2005

So mr_crash_davis, what are the GOP talking points re: The NYT Op/Ed page?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 8:10 PM on August 14, 2005

I'll take the second paragraph from the linked article and simply put it here, as anyone talking about percentages and the people that reelected the president should really RTFA. The whole point is that we're no longer talking about a "divided nation" when it comes to the war and almost when it comes to the Bush presidency.

The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.)
posted by VulcanMike at 8:23 PM on August 14, 2005

It's amazing to me that a President can go on vacation for an entire month, while over 1800 Americans have already died for him.

He could at least feign some fucking interest.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 8:26 PM on August 14, 2005

We're also applying the soft bigotry of low expectations to Iraq:

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

And in some cases things were better under Saddam Hussein:

"The most thoroughly dashed expectation was the ability to build a robust self-sustaining economy. We're nowhere near that. State industries, electricity are all below what they were before we got there," said Wayne White, former head of the State Department's Iraq intelligence team who is now at the Middle East Institute. "The administration says Saddam ran down the country. But most damage was from looting [after the invasion], which took down state industries, large private manufacturing, the national electric" system.

posted by kirkaracha at 8:31 PM on August 14, 2005

Bush is so insolated from reality that nothing can pierce his adamantine idiocy. Those waiting for him to sober up shouldn't really be surprised when he redoubles his efforts by blaming those pesky un-amurikan domestic agitators rather than his exquisitely inept neocon policies. It's a win-win for Chimpy McFlightsuit: the mouth-breathing rightwingers who ushered him into office on a platform of bigotry and hatred have NEVER demonstrated the ability to admit a mistake; continuing to make the exact same imperilistic mistakes they made in the mideast in the Mossadeq era (you know ... the policies we used to rape their resources and GAVE us rabid anti-West hatred in the first place?). Why expect them to change now?
posted by RavinDave at 8:31 PM on August 14, 2005

"So mr_crash_davis, what are the GOP talking points re: The NYT Op/Ed page?"

Apparently confusion and bemusement, much the same as its foreign policy.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:36 PM on August 14, 2005

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground,"

Wait a minute, weren't they supposed to be making history while the reality-based community stood in awe?
posted by c13 at 8:38 PM on August 14, 2005

During the severe recession of the late '70's and early '80's, the media painted gloomier and gloomier pictures. In the city in which I lived, a black mood had taken over and business spiralled downward relentlessly. There appeared to be no end in sight.

One day, while walking to work, I noticed a small crowd of several dozen people standing outside a shop window. They all seemed remarkably upbeat for a grey, drizzly day. I discovered that they were gathered in front of a hand painted sign pasted inside the glass reading "THAT WAS A NASTY RECESSION, WASN'T IT?"

Throughout the day, I received numerous phone calls from friends and acquaintances asking if I had "seen the sign?". It seemed to spread like wildfire. Within a week, all sorts of positive things started to happen and the mood palpably swung. Within a short space of time, other communities felt similar pivotal moments and soon the economists were all announcing that things were definitely getting better.

My point of this anecdote is that when people have had enough, it does not take much of a stimulus to turn the whole mood around. I cannot imagine that there are very many conservatives who feel good about the situation in Iraq. While 32% may approve of Bush's handling of the war, I doubt if many of that number have any idea about how to end it. When their sons and daughters in the Armed Forces are confronted with third tours and wildfires start to burn out of control for lack of National Guardsmen to help put them out, that starts to get too close to home. At such a point, it only needs someone to cry "The Emperor has no clothes!" to snap the trance. The pent up frustration does the rest.
posted by RMALCOLM at 8:40 PM on August 14, 2005

I really hope so.
posted by Balisong at 8:45 PM on August 14, 2005

But not so much as to have it happen in a way that Bush could spin it as a political win.
posted by Balisong at 8:47 PM on August 14, 2005

You think those people in Ohio are sitting around going 'shit, the NY Times thinks we f'd up in Iraq, so they must be right!'.

I still am not convinced that just because the NYTimes Op Ed page and one congressional district in Ohio almost thinks the President has f'd up that anyone in the vast middle of this nation agrees.

Ohio calling. Haven't had much time to read the NYT lately. So sorry if we missed the column. Every television report on local news is about the latest funeral. I'll summarize: (Twenty) Four Dead in Ohio.

You can practically feel the anger. If Vietnam ended because of the nightly news bringing the horror into the living room, Ohio may become a better brand of swing state and lead the way towards bringing this atrocity to an end. And these evil fucking bastards to their knees.
posted by hal9k at 9:14 PM on August 14, 2005

I still am not convinced that just because the NYTimes Op Ed page and one congressional district in Ohio almost thinks the President has f'd up that anyone in the vast middle of this nation agrees. Which, really, is all that matters.

well, this disagrees with you: Majority of Americans have lost confidence in the war, polls show (Kansas City Star)
...What’s new today is that frustrations about the war are being voiced by those who backed the mission at the outset. These Americans — as evidenced in interviews by reporters from Texas to New York City during the past week — are increasingly alarmed by the facts on the ground and confused about the best course of action in the future. ...
posted by amberglow at 9:19 PM on August 14, 2005

And the founder of USA Today says this: 'Support our troops' — bring them home alive
posted by amberglow at 9:22 PM on August 14, 2005