The W
June 7, 2009 - birthdaybritney.jpg
Views: 179007495
Main | FAQ | Search: Y! / G | Calendar | Color chart | Log in for more!
28.3.24 0931
The W - Current Events & Politics - Dems start eating their own
This thread has 15 referrals leading to it
Register and log in to post!
Thread rated: 6.07
Pages: 1 2 Next
(1669 newer) Next thread | Previous thread
User
Post (22 total)
Grimis
Scrapple








Since: 11.7.02
From: MD

Since last post: 4713 days
Last activity: 3168 days
#1 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.29
This is the problem that the Democrats have right now. The fact of the matter is that many in their own party are starting to turn against them because of the way that have conducted themselves.

This guy(who appranetly wrote a bunch of SciFi novels I've never heard of) hits it on the head. This is only going to accelarate if Dean is nominated.

* * * * * * * * *

The Campaign of Hate and Fear
Some of my fellow Democrats are unpatriotic.
BY ORSON SCOTT CARD
Tuesday, December 16, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

In one of Patrick O'Brian's novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic wars, he dismisses a particularly foolish politician by saying that his political platform was "death to the Whigs." Watching the primary campaigns among this year's pathetic crop of Democratic candidates, I can't help but think that their campaigns would be vastly improved if they would only rise to the level of "Death to the Republicans."

Instead, their platforms range from Howard Dean's "Bush is the devil" to everybody else's "I'll make you rich, and Bush is quite similar to the devil." Since President Bush is quite plainly not the devil, one wonders why anyone in the Democratic Party thinks this ploy will play with the general public.

There are Democrats, like me, who think it will not play, and should not play, and who are waiting in the wings until after the coming electoral debacle in order to try to remake the party into something more resembling America.

But then I watch the steady campaign of the national news media to try to win this for the Democrats, and I wonder. Could this insane, self-destructive, extremist-dominated party actually win the presidency? It might--because the media are trying as hard as they can to pound home the message that the Bush presidency is a failure--even though by every rational measure it is not.

And the most vile part of this campaign against Mr. Bush is that the terrorist war is being used as a tool to try to defeat him--which means that if Mr. Bush does not win, we will certainly lose the war. Indeed, the anti-Bush campaign threatens to undermine our war effort, give encouragement to our enemies, and cost American lives during the long year of campaigning that lies ahead of us.

Osama bin Laden's military strategy is: If you make a war cost enough, Americans will give up and go home. Now, bin Laden isn't actually all that bright; his campaign to make us go home is in fact what brought us into Afghanistan and Iraq. But he's still telling his followers: Keep killing Americans and eventually, antigovernment factions within the United States will choose to give up the struggle.

It's what happened in Somalia, isn't it? And it's what happened in Vietnam, too.

Reuters recently ran a feature that trumpeted the "fact" that U.S. casualties in Iraq have now surpassed U.S. casualties in the first three years of the Vietnam War. Never mind that this is a specious distortion of the facts, which depends on the ignorance of American readers. The fact is that during the first three years of the war in Vietnam, dating from the official "beginning" of the war in 1961, American casualties were low because (a) we had fewer than 20,000 soldiers there, (b) most of them were advisers, deliberately trying to avoid a direct combat role, (c) our few combat troops were special forces, who generally get to pick and choose the time and place of their combat, and (d) because our presence was so much smaller, there were fewer American targets than in Iraq today.

Compare our casualties in Iraq with our casualties in Vietnam when we had a comparable number of troops, and by every rational measure--casualties per thousand troops, casualties per year, or absolute number of casualties--you'll find that the Iraq campaign is far, far less costly than Vietnam. But the media want Americans to think that Iraq is like Vietnam--or rather, that Iraq is like the story that the Left likes to tell about Vietnam.

Vietnam was a quagmire only because we fought it that way. If we had closed North Vietnam's ports and carried the war to the enemy, victory could have been relatively quick. However, the risk of Chinese involvement was too great. Memories of Korea were fresh in everyone's minds, and so Vietnam was fought in such a way as to avoid "another Korea." That's why Vietnam became, well, Vietnam.

But Iraq is not Vietnam. Nor is the Iraq campaign even the whole war. Of course there's still fighting going on. Our war is against terrorist-sponsoring states, and just because we toppled the governments of two of them doesn't mean that the others aren't still sponsoring terrorism. Also, there is a substantial region in Iraq where Saddam's forces are still finding support for a diehard guerrilla campaign.

In other words, the Iraq campaign isn't over--and President Bush has explicitly said so all along. So the continuation of combat and casualties isn't a "failure" or a "quagmire," it's a "war." And during a war, patriotic Americans don't blame the deaths on our government. We blame them on the enemy that persists in trying to kill our soldiers.

Am I saying that critics of the war aren't patriotic?
Not at all--I'm a critic of some aspects of the war. What I'm saying is that those who try to paint the bleakest, most anti-American, and most anti-Bush picture of the war, whose purpose is not criticism but deception in order to gain temporary political advantage, those people are indeed not patriotic. They have placed their own or their party's political gain ahead of the national struggle to destroy the power base of the terrorists who attacked Americans abroad and on American soil.

Patriots place their loyalty to their country in time of war ahead of their personal and party ambitions. And they can wrap themselves in the flag and say they "support our troops" all they like--but it doesn't change the fact that their program is to promote our defeat at the hands of our enemies for their temporary political advantage.

Think what it will mean if we elect a Democratic candidate who has committed himself to an antiwar posture in order to get his party's nomination.

Our enemies will be certain that they are winning the war on the battleground that matters--American public opinion. So they will continue to kill Americans wherever and whenever they can, because it works.

Our soldiers will lose heart, because they will know that their commander in chief is a man who is not committed to winning the war they have risked death in order to fight. When the commander in chief is willing to call victory defeat in order to win an election, his soldiers can only assume that their lives will be thrown away for nothing. That's when an army, filled with despair, becomes beatable even by inferior forces.

When did we lose the Vietnam War? Not in 1968, when we held an election that hinged on the war. None of the three candidates (Humphrey, Nixon, Wallace) were committed to unilateral withdrawal. Not during Nixon's "Vietnamization" program, in which more and more of the war effort was turned over to Vietnamese troops. In fact, Vietnamization, by all measures I know about, worked.

We lost the war when the Democrat-controlled Congress specifically banned all military aid to South Vietnam, and a beleaguered Republican president signed it into law. With Russia and China massively supplying North Vietnam, and Saigon forced to buy pathetic quantities of ammunition and spare parts on the open market because America had cut off all aid, the imbalance doomed them, and they knew it.

The South Vietnamese people were subjected to a murderous totalitarian government (and the Hmong people of the Vietnamese mountains were victims of near-genocide) because the U.S. Congress deliberately cut off military aid--even after almost all our soldiers were home and the Vietnamese were doing the fighting themselves.

That wasn't about "peace," that was about political posturing and an indecent lack of honor. Is that where we're headed again?


This time an enemy attacked civilian targets on our soil. The enemy--a conspiracy of terrorists sponsored by a dozen or so nations and unable to function without their aid--was hard to attack directly; so the only feasible strategy was to remove, by force if necessary, the governments that sheltered and sponsored terrorism.

I would not have chosen Afghanistan and Iraq to start with; Syria, Iran, Sudan and Libya were much more culpable and militarily more important to neutralize as sponsors of terror. (They say that Libya and Sudan have changed their tune lately, but I have my doubts.)

But once we chose Afghanistan and Iraq, once we began a serious campaign, we must continue the war until we achieve our objective, which is to remove all the governments that sponsor terror, or convince the remaining sponsors of terror to absolutely, thoroughly, and completely reverse their policy and actively seek out and destroy all terrorists that once had safe harbor within their borders. Anything less, and all our effort--all those American lives--were wasted.

And in the midst of this global struggle, when both parties should have united, disagreeing at times about methods and priorities, but never about the steadfast will of the American people to see the war through to a successful conclusion, we find that the candidates of the party out of power are attacking the president for fighting the war at all, and are calling the war itself a "failure" even though there is no rational measure by which it can be said to have failed--especially since we're still fighting it.

In a war, the enemy probes for weaknesses, and always finds some. When they find a weakness in your positions, they teach you where it is by attacking there; then you learn, and strengthen that point or avoid that mistake. Meanwhile, you constantly probe the enemy for weakness. The result is that even when you are overwhelmingly victorious, the enemy still finds ways to inflict damage along the way.
The goal of our troops in Iraq is not to protect themselves so completely that none of our soldiers die. The goal of our troops is to destroy the enemy, some of whom you do not find except when they emerge to attack our forces and, yes, sometimes inflict casualties.

Our national media are covering this war as if we were "losing the peace"--even though we are not at peace and we are not losing. Why are they doing this? Because they are desperate to spin the world situation in such a way as to bring down President Bush.

It's not just the war, of course. Notice that even though our recent recession began under President Clinton, the media invariably refer to it as if Mr. Bush had caused it; and even though by every measure, the recession is over, they still cover it as if the American economy were in desperate shape.

This is the same trick they played on the first President Bush, for his recession was also over before the election--but the media worked very hard to conceal it from the American public. They did it as they're doing it now, with yes-but coverage: Yes, the economy is growing again, but there aren't any new jobs. Yes, there are new jobs now, but they're not good jobs.

And that's how they're covering the war. Yes, the Taliban were toppled, but there are still guerrillas fighting against us in various regions of Afghanistan. (As if anyone ever expected anything else.) Yes, Saddam was driven out of power incredibly quickly and with scant loss of life on either side, but our forces were not adequately prepared to do all the nonmilitary jobs that devolved on them as an occupying army.

Ultimately, the outcome of this war is going to depend more on the American people than anything that happens on the battlefield. Are we going to be suckered again the way we were in 1992, when we allowed ourselves to be deceived about our own recent history and current events?

We are being lied to and "spun," and not in a trivial way. The kind of dishonest vitriolic hate campaign that in 2000 was conducted only before black audiences is now being played on the national stage; and the national media, instead of holding the liars' and haters' feet to the fire (as they do when the liars and haters are Republicans or conservatives), are cooperating in building up a false image of a failing economy and a lost war, when the truth is more nearly the exact opposite.

And in all the campaign rhetoric, I keep looking, as a Democrat, for a single candidate who is actually offering a significant improvement over the Republican policies that in fact don't work, while supporting or improving upon the American policies that will help make us and our children secure against terrorists.

We have enemies that have earned our hatred, and whom we should fear. They are fanatical terrorists who seek opportunities to kill American civilians here and Israeli civilians in Israel. But right now, our national media and the Democratic Party are trying to get us to believe that the people we should hate and fear are George W. Bush and the Republicans.

I can think of many, many reasons why the Republicans should not control both houses of Congress and the White House. But right now, if the alternative is the Democratic Party as led in Congress and as exemplified by the current candidates for the Democratic nomination, then I can't be the only Democrat who will, with great reluctance, vote not just for George W. Bush, but also for every other candidate of the only party that seems committed to fighting abroad to destroy the enemies that seek to kill us and our friends at home.

And if we elect a government that subverts or weakens or ends our war against terrorism, we can count on this: We will soon face enemies that will make 9/11 look like stubbing our toe, and they will attack us with the confidence and determination that come from knowing that we don't have the will to sustain a war all the way to the end.


(edited by Grimis on 16.12.03 1340)


Promote this thread!
Leroy
Boudin blanc








Since: 7.2.02

Since last post: 12 days
Last activity: 6 days
#2 Posted on | Instant Rating: 3.80
Am always puzzled as to why these "Democrats" don't just join to the Republican party. Why bother pulling the Democrats to the right - there is a already a party there for them. It's the left they should worry about alienating...

The article was misses the entire point of why those comparisons are being made - we went to Vietnam for bunk reasons (Cold war - Gulf of Tonken), and we are in Iraq for bunk reasons (war on terror - WMDs). That's pretty much it in a nutshell - he doesn't even remotely address.

And the "I'm partriotic and they're not" spin is, as usual, just absurd.

Every time I think maybe we should reform the Democractic party, I hear something from Zell Miller, Lieberman, or Kerry, who should simply become Republicans.





"It's hard to be a prophet and still make a profit."
- Da Bush Babees

"Finally, a candidate who can explain the current administration's position on civil liberties in the original German."
- Bill Maher on Arnold Schwarzenneger

"You know, I'm a follower of American politics."
- President George W. Bush, 8 Aug 2003
Jaguar
Knackwurst








Since: 23.1.02
From: In a Blue State finally

Since last post: 1903 days
Last activity: 1903 days
#3 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.94
Utterly unbelievable. First, the fact that you've never heard of Card, and second that he wrote that. Not quite the opinion I would've guessed at from the writing of his books. Hmmm... I think I'll reread that article in a couple hours and come up with a more detailed response.

-Jag



"I'm going to go now and demand beer money from my representative. We simply must deal with the problem of my sobriety." - PalpatineW
redsoxnation
Scrapple








Since: 24.7.02

Since last post: 3923 days
Last activity: 3923 days
#4 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.48
    Originally posted by Leroy
    Every time I think maybe we should reform the Democractic party, I hear something from Zell Miller, Lieberman, or Kerry, who should simply become Republicans.









I'll give you Lieberman and Zell in this comparison, but John 'Fucking' Kerry should become a Republican? By that standard, Teddy Kennedy will be giving the keynote speech at the Republican Convention.
Grimis
Scrapple








Since: 11.7.02
From: MD

Since last post: 4713 days
Last activity: 3168 days
#5 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.29
    Originally posted by Leroy
    Every time I think maybe we should reform the Democractic party, I hear something from Zell Miller, Lieberman, or Kerry, who should simply become Republicans.
By including Kerry in there, you surmise that every Democrat who supported the war should be a Republican. I'll call Dick Gephardt and let him know. Of course, if supporting a war means you're not a Democrat, that makes the Democrats quite the minority party.

    Originally posted by Jaguar
    Utterly unbelievable. First, the fact that you've never heard of Card
Sorry, I don't read too much SciFi. Of course, he must not be too ubiquitous. At least it wasn't L. Neil Smith....



The Vile1
Lap cheong








Since: 4.9.02
From: California

Since last post: 5456 days
Last activity: 5188 days
#6 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.67
Orson Scott Card is the writer of the Ender's Game series. I think he's also responsible for the Monkey Island video games. He's actually written quite a few articles like the one above this year, especially when the war started. To those saying Card should just become a republican, I think you're missing the point.

Registered and liberal democrats like Orson Scott Card or Phil Hendrie (one of the few successful liberal talk radio pundits) don't support the military and the war in Iraq b/c they really want to be Republican. They support it because they believe its just and that its counterproductive to want us to "lose the war" or want the administration and the military to fail in Iraq in order to further campaign goals of the democratic party. Guys like Card and Hendrie simply believe that we should win the war and support it even though they are democrats. That doesn't make them "Republican". I've heard Hendrie claim on a number of occassions that guys like Howard Dean and John Kerry have screwed up the Democratic party, and they don't represent HIS Democratic party. So Card and Hendrie still believe in the goals and aims of the Democratic party, but they don't fall in line with the views of people like Dean, Daschle, or Kerry.

(edited by The Vile1 on 16.12.03 1308)



"Just a humble bounty hunter, ma'am."
-Spike Spiegel
Leroy
Boudin blanc








Since: 7.2.02

Since last post: 12 days
Last activity: 6 days
#7 Posted on | Instant Rating: 3.80
    Originally posted by Grimis
    By including Kerry in there, you surmise that every Democrat who supported the war should be a Republican. I'll call Dick Gephardt and let him know. Of course, if supporting a war means you're not a Democrat, that makes the Democrats quite the minority party.


Admittedly, I might have been a little hard on Kerry by including him that group - quite honestly, he has waffled enough that it's hard to tell what his stance is on the war. But I do think the Democrats made a grave mistake in allowing this war to happen... and it could very well cost them in the long run.

Personally, I think Kerry would go a Lieberman route if it would get him elected. But that's just my opinion...

    Originally posted by The Vile 1

    I've heard Hendrie claim on a number of occassions that guys like Howard Dean and John Kerry have screwed up the Democratic party, and they don't represent HIS Democratic party. So Card and Hendrie still believe in the goals and aims of the Democratic party, but they don't fall in line with the views of people like Dean, Daschle, or Kerry.


Hendrie is a tough one - you never know what's part of his schtick and what isn't. His program is pretty funny, though...

But back to the point...

Card and Hendrie's vision is of a more conservative Democratic party, which at this point, isn't much different than the views of moderate Republicans. I really wonder what about the Democratic party makes them stay - when I got fed up with the Democrats I registered independent and started voting Green. I didn't expect them to shift for me....

And sure, support of the war may be a bit of a broad brush - but most folks who are displeased with the current conservative direction of the Democratic party are also against the war. Does it define a left-wing Democrat - no. But there is a consistency there.



"It's hard to be a prophet and still make a profit."
- Da Bush Babees

"Finally, a candidate who can explain the current administration's position on civil liberties in the original German."
- Bill Maher on Arnold Schwarzenneger

"You know, I'm a follower of American politics."
- President George W. Bush, 8 Aug 2003
The Vile1
Lap cheong








Since: 4.9.02
From: California

Since last post: 5456 days
Last activity: 5188 days
#8 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.67
You can't really judge their partisan-ship just by looking at their views on the military and war support. IE I listen to Phil Hendrie regularly, and even though he supports the war and military defense he's 100% anti-Republican and conservatism, and thinks Republican domestic policy sucks.

(edited by The Vile1 on 16.12.03 2014)



"Just a humble bounty hunter, ma'am."
-Spike Spiegel
DrDirt
Banger








Since: 8.10.03
From: flyover country

Since last post: 2346 days
Last activity: 2248 days
#9 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.59
    Originally posted by The Vile1
    You can't really judge their party partisan-ship just by looking at their views on the military and war support. IE I listen to Phil Hendrie regularly, and even though he supports the war and military defense he's 100% anti-Republican and conservatism, and thinks Republican domestic policy sucks.


Since the Dems have been out of power, they have fallen into the trap the Rep's were in for many years. What made the Dem's so formidable in Congress for so long was their ability to see the goal and work together. the put aside differences to win. The Rep's finally learned that lesson and have worked together for a decade. The dem's are busy infighting.

Personally, I hope that the Dem's move towards a bigger tent approach and find room to keep people like Card. How can your stance on any one issue qualify you as a Dem or Rep?



Perception is reality
Pool-Boy
Lap cheong








Since: 1.8.02
From: Huntington Beach, CA

Since last post: 206 days
Last activity: 163 days
#10 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.56
    Originally posted by DrDirt
    Personally, I hope that the Dem's move towards a bigger tent approach and find room to keep people like Card. How can your stance on any one issue qualify you as a Dem or Rep?


See... I have to agree completely there. People like Card are something of a necessity in politics. If there is no one who is even willing to meet me halfway on the other side of the aisle, what could ever be accomplished? So Card (quite realistically, I might add) has criticized the way that Democrats are behaving lately. You can't say his opinion is unfounded- but that opinion alone makes you want to toss him out of the party?!?!

Good luck with that. Shove out all of the moderates from your party and you become the Green Party- irrelavant and impotent. People like this on both sides of the aisle make compromise possible.



Still on the Shelf- Every Tuesday
rockdotcom_2.0
Frankfurter








Since: 9.1.02
From: Virginia Beach Va

Since last post: 4025 days
Last activity: 10 days
#11 Posted on | Instant Rating: 8.00
I want to know what "war" is everyone speaking about? The War on Terror? or the War in Iraq? Becuase to me they are seperate things. And thats the way alot of Dems are looking at it. I dont think any of the Demeocratic candidates are against the "War on Terror." No one is against hunting terrorists around the globe, not even Dean. But alot of Dems believe that invading Iraq was not a wise choice of action. And that administration mislead the public by saying that Iraq was an imminent danger to the US. And even after they got the war they wanted, the Dems believe that the war planning (post combat,mostly) was poorly done and executed.


But everyone wants to hunt terrorists. If Dean or Kerry were to win, hes not going to bring all the troops home and pretend 9/11 never happened. But the Republicans want you to believe that. Thats where the "spin" comes in. Theyve got people believing that the Dems just dont care about the security of the country. But does anyone honestly believe that the Democrats dont care? Thats what makes me angry with the GOP, to me its easy to be pro-defense, as log as they can push that issue they think they can get away with almost anything.
PalpatineW
Lap cheong








Since: 2.1.02
From: Getting Rowdy

Since last post: 6274 days
Last activity: 6116 days
#12 Posted on | Instant Rating: 9.00
Just to split hairs here, I don't think we can know for certain what any of the Dem. candidates (except possibly Lieberman) would do with our troops. Dean and Kerry have both made noise that this isn't a war, per se. One of them (I forget which) said the war on terror should be a "police action." Minus the invasion of sovereign nations, what else are we going to do? To me, the Democrat approach seems to be one of hoping the local authorities round up all of their Qaeda cells. How they're going to get other nations to cooperate with us, that I don't know.



rockdotcom_2.0
Frankfurter








Since: 9.1.02
From: Virginia Beach Va

Since last post: 4025 days
Last activity: 10 days
#13 Posted on | Instant Rating: 8.00
    Originally posted by PalpatineW
    How they're going to get other nations to cooperate with us, that I don't know.


Diplomacy could work. All I know is invading a new nation every year isnt going to work.
vsp
Andouille








Since: 3.1.02
From: Philly

Since last post: 6477 days
Last activity: 2732 days
#14 Posted on | Instant Rating: 0.00
    Originally posted by Pool-Boy
    People like Card are something of a necessity in politics. If there is no one who is even willing to meet me halfway on the other side of the aisle, what could ever be accomplished?


Could you please send a copy of this statement to Tom DeLay? He could use the reminder.

Shorter Orson Scott Card: If you're not wholeheartedly for the war in Iraq, you're not a real American, patriot or Democrat, and we'll all be murdered in our beds by terrorists.

    Originally posted by Mork calling Orson -- Come in, Orson
    But once we chose Afghanistan and Iraq, once we began a serious campaign, we must continue the war until we achieve our objective, which is to remove all the governments that sponsor terror, or convince the remaining sponsors of terror to absolutely, thoroughly, and completely reverse their policy and actively seek out and destroy all terrorists that once had safe harbor within their borders. Anything less, and all our effort--all those American lives--were wasted.



What scares me is that he actually considers this objective to be _coherent_, much less feasible. I do agree with his last six words, however.






"There were times when I intensely wanted to walk out of the theater and into the fresh air and look at the sky and buy an apple and sigh for our civilization, but I stuck it out." -- Roger Ebert
DrDirt
Banger








Since: 8.10.03
From: flyover country

Since last post: 2346 days
Last activity: 2248 days
#15 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.59
    Originally posted by rockdotcom_2.0
      Originally posted by PalpatineW
      How they're going to get other nations to cooperate with us, that I don't know.


    Diplomacy could work. All I know is invading a new nation every year isnt going to work.


In Afghanistan, i think diplomacy would have been worthless. War may have been inevitable in Iraq, but I think we were too quick in pulling the trigger. The problem I have with this administration is their we are right, you MUST agree with us. I think we could have built a coalition to go after Saddam. It would have taken time and a different, less bullying approach but it could have been done. What Bush the Elder accomplished in '90-'91 was brilliant in accomplishing that. Now we must work very hard to repair all the damage. Like it or not we need the France's and Russia's of the world cooperation in the long-term if we will ever hope to get a handle on terror and such. We may not like it and it may be an infuriating process but necessary.



Perception is reality
bash91
Merguez








Since: 2.1.02
From: Bossier City, LA

Since last post: 4242 days
Last activity: 2100 days
#16 Posted on
    Originally posted by vsp
    Shorter Orson Scott Card: If you're not wholeheartedly for the war in Iraq, you're not a real American, patriot or Democrat, and we'll all be murdered in our beds by terrorists. What scares me is that he actually considers this objective to be _coherent_, much less feasible. I do agree with his last six words, however.


What really scares me is that you were able to "read" Card's piece and that's the way you would summarize it.

One of the criteria that I often apply when reading or listening to anything legal or political is what one of my wife's law professors called "the giggle test". In other words, if I can't read something that is meant to be serious without laughing at the silliness or stupidity of the claims, then I don't need to worry about that argument. What the giggle test doesn't exempt me from is a responsibility to fairly and accurately read or listen to what is presented. I may disagree and think the author or speaker is a blithering idiot, but at least I've reached that conclusion out of some form of rational examination rather than a knee-jerk reaction or what I think of as "criticism by caricature". For goodness sake, I even read and listen to Noam Chomsky, the ultimate in caricaturable idiots, with an open mind because he sometimes says things that are worth hearing or reading.

I don't agree with quite a bit of what Card has to say in that piece, but to summarize it as "If you're not wholeheartedly for the war in Iraq, you're not a real American, patriot or Democrat, and we'll all be murdered in our beds by terrorists" is roughly akin to me summarizing vsp's post as "War bad. People like war bad. People like war bad and stupid. Him stupid bad. Bush badder and stupider." Neither one is remotely close to a fair read of what the author is saying although, if I was feeling really sarcastic, I'd be tempted to argue that my read of vsp's argument is more accurate than his read of Card's argument. You may disagree with what the author is saying, but at least give him the courtesy of trying to read what he said rather than caricaturing it.

Tim



"Verhoeven's _Starship Troopers_: Based on the back cover of the book by Robert Heinlein."
vsp
Andouille








Since: 3.1.02
From: Philly

Since last post: 6477 days
Last activity: 2732 days
#17 Posted on | Instant Rating: 0.00
Oh, horseshit. Orson makes the following "points" in his rant:

* The Democratic candidates, particularly Howard Dean, are Bush-haters and extremists.

* If Bush does not win another term, America will lose the War On Terror. (He stops just short of calling it treason with his "encouraging our enemies" and "undermining the war effort" claptrap.)

* Iraq is not Vietnam Part Two because we're using different tactics, and it's part of a Bigger Picture targeted at terrorism in general. (Replace "terrorism" with "communism" and see what that does to the analogy.)

* Those who seek to replace Dubya "promote our defeat at the hands of our enemies for their temporary political advantage."

* If the Democrats nominate an anti-war candidate, our enemies will be directly encouraged and will kill more Americans in response.

* Our national objective should be to remove all the governments that sponsor terror, kill all the terrorists, or force "terror-sponsoring nations" to do it themselves.

* The Democratic Party should unite with the Republican Party to see the war through to its successful conclusion (see previous bullet point as to what that conclusion should be).

* That DURNED LIB'RUL MEDIA is bound and determined to bring the President down.

* I can't find a Democratic candidate who will improve upon the Republicans' domestic policies and simultaneously make America safer from terrorists.

* If Americans vote for candidates that would "subvert or weaken or end our war against terrorism," we'll all be murdered in our beds because the terrorists will think that we can't "finish a war."

The next-to-last point is about the only one that makes sense from a Democrat-criticizing-Democrats perspective, even if I don't agree with it myself. The rest are straight out of the Free Republic quote factory: if you don't support Dubya and the ongoing "war on terror" (both in Iraq and in whatever nation's next on Dubya's list), you're directly encouraging the enemy, who will then renew their efforts to come kill us. There's an alternative one-sentence summary, since you didn't approve of the last one, though I stand firmly behind my caricature.

If someone like Charles Krauthammer or Jonah Goldberg or Sean Hannity was saying what Card said, it wouldn't have been at all surprising. A self-identifying Democrat saying "Support Dubya's war as-is or the terrorists will win," on the other hand, _is_ rather surprising, and disappointing as well.




"There were times when I intensely wanted to walk out of the theater and into the fresh air and look at the sky and buy an apple and sigh for our civilization, but I stuck it out." -- Roger Ebert
Grimis
Scrapple








Since: 11.7.02
From: MD

Since last post: 4713 days
Last activity: 3168 days
#18 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.29
    Originally posted by vsp
    * The Democratic candidates, particularly Howard Dean, are Bush-haters and extremists
They are, at least to the former. Extremists is harsy. But Dean and his people are Bush haters.
    Originally posted by vsp
    * If Bush does not win another term, America will lose the War On Terror. (He stops just short of calling it treason with his "encouraging our enemies" and "undermining the war effort" claptrap.)

More likely than not, this will happen,
    Originally posted by vsp
    * Iraq is not Vietnam Part Two because we're using different tactics, and it's part of a Bigger Picture targeted at terrorism in general. (Replace "terrorism" with "communism" and see what that does to the analogy.)
You are right regarding the Connunism aspect. But it's not Vietnam 2 because we are committed to the effort(remember, at the beginning of this I opposed it because I figured it would be Vietnam 2)
    Originally posted by vsp
    * Those who seek to replace Dubya "promote our defeat at the hands of our enemies for their temporary political advantage."
Listen to Kucinich(probably a bad example)
    Originally posted by vsp
    * If the Democrats nominate an anti-war candidate, our enemies will be directly encouraged and will kill more Americans in response.
True. It means that the anti-war rhetoric is working, and that more attacks will break our will.

    Originally posted by vsp
    * That DURNED LIB'RUL MEDIA is bound and determined to bring the President down.
If the shoe fits...*



vsp
Andouille








Since: 3.1.02
From: Philly

Since last post: 6477 days
Last activity: 2732 days
#19 Posted on | Instant Rating: 0.00
    Originally posted by Grimis
    But Dean and his people are Bush haters.

Just don't confuse hating Bush (as a person and an icon) with hating what Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, DeLay & Co. are _doing_.

    Originally posted by Grimis
    If Bush does not win another term, America will lose the War On Terror.

    More likely than not, this will happen,

If the objective is as Card described it (preemptively destroy all "terror-supporting" governments and terrorists), the war is already lost, because that objective is inherently unreachable, and it's ridiculous for Card to pretend otherwise.

"America will END the War on Terror" might happen, if the "War on Terror" is Bush's current preemptive-strikes-regardless-of-what-anyone-else-thinks policy. That I do support, because it's very different from "America will no longer stand on guard against terrorism." If the Bush Doctrine goes away, terrorists won't blow up Disneyland three days later.

    Originally posted by Grimis
    Listen to Kucinich(probably a bad example)

Does anyone listen to Kucinich?

    Originally posted by Grimis
    If the Democrats nominate an anti-war candidate, our enemies will be directly encouraged and will kill more Americans in response.

    True. It means that the anti-war rhetoric is working, and that more attacks will break our will.

Not at all. It means that we will have a Presidential candidate who does not view Bush's chosen method (i.e. "Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out") as a productive way of guarding against terrorism.

Most war objectors are not against the war specifically because of the increasing body count; they're against the war because they don't agree that our troops should be there in the first place. Even Card agreed that we chose the wrong initial targets, which is refreshing, as it means he doesn't buy into the "9/11 == Saddam" fallacy.

Claiming that changing policies is equivalent to "losing the War" is disingenuous, as it suggests that there are no other possible methods of dealing with terrorism beyond open warfare. Not only is that suspect, but the effectiveness of the open-warfare method itself is questionable.

    Originally posted by Grimis
    That DURNED LIB'RUL MEDIA is bound and determined to bring the President down.

    If the shoe fits...*

...but since it doesn't...

Self-hating Democrats are popping up here and there these days -- the "I used to be liberal, but 9/11 Changed Everything[tm]" brigade. If Card wants to join their ranks, he's welcome to do so, but if he really thinks that doing so will make him "safer," I feel sorry for him.


(edited by vsp on 17.12.03 0937)

"There were times when I intensely wanted to walk out of the theater and into the fresh air and look at the sky and buy an apple and sigh for our civilization, but I stuck it out." -- Roger Ebert
Jaguar
Knackwurst








Since: 23.1.02
From: In a Blue State finally

Since last post: 1903 days
Last activity: 1903 days
#20 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.94
Grimis, how the hell can we LOSE the War on Terror? It has no stated goals or objectives. There is no point at which we can say, "We've killed all the terrorists, we win!" The only way I can think that we lose the War on Terror, is if the president comes out and says, "We give up. We lose. No more War on Terror."

Strangely, I don't see that happening. I have a feeling that 'The War On Terror' will last a lot longer than 'No Child Left Behind' does. It may start to lose a lot of its funding, the Patriot Act might finally go away, and we may change our tactics from playing a game of RISK to some kind of 'Food for Terrorists' program, but the War on Terror isn't going away.

-Jag



"I'm going to go now and demand beer money from my representative. We simply must deal with the problem of my sobriety." - PalpatineW
Pages: 1 2 Next
Thread rated: 6.07
Pages: 1 2 Next
Thread ahead: Guess nothing else is happening....
Next thread: Primary Polls Update
Previous thread: Powell Has Cancer Surgery
(1669 newer) Next thread | Previous thread
The W - Current Events & Politics - Dems start eating their ownRegister and log in to post!

The W™ message board

ZimBoard
©2001-2024 Brothers Zim

This old hunk of junk rendered your page in 0.18 seconds.