Say Anything Blog

Here’s praying that the truce holds.  I would love to see the US and the Sunnis and Shiites start rebuilding that Mosque ASAP to show the country that they can all work together.  Rebuilding that mosque would send a huge message to the country and to the terrorists. 

While few observers can resist speculating about why the current violence in Iraq might or might not spiral into full-blown civil war, the determining factor may simply be whether the violence acquires a "critical mass." At that point the logic of vengeance will overshadow everything else. (more…)

William F. Buckley Jr.  on Iraq

One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.

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Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven’t proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

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The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren’t on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.

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A problem for American policymakers — for President Bush, ultimately — is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed.

One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom.

The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on violence.

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This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do not prevail — in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn’t work. The alternative would be to abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism.

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Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

Thank you Mr. Buckley for saying what us conservatives have been feeling for quite some time.

Dustin, you may want to read this response to Mr. Buckley (for whom I have the deepest respect, though I think he is being overly negative in this instance) before you go parroting this line of thought too much further.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php?/weblog/entry/it_didnt_work/

Under the conditions of Greenwald Unified Theory of Bush Kulthood, the following bits of argument, excerpted from my post, purportedly betray my desire to hang Bill Buckley—or, at the very least, excommunicate him from the ranks of the true conservatives:"

 This guy thinks that Buckley should be hanged; and I’m the reactionary?

 This guy is no better than Michael Moore.

I was listening to the talking heads this morning and I can’t remember which show it was but one of the guests was talking about government changes in other countries like South Africa et al.  What he/she was saying was that there hasn’t been a true leader to come out of Iraq and make the case for unity in the country.  He/she compared it to Mandela who came out of prison and instead of going after the white regime he forgave and moved on for the sake of the country and that change occurred there with very little bloodshed (if I remember correctly) after Mandela took over. The point was that no one Iraqi has shown the leadership qualities needed to bring all the sects together for the sake of the country. 

I’m just not sure how you  fix that when the sides are so divided.  There have been elections, a constituition but yet no movement towards democracy and towards forming a democratic operating government.  Where are the leaders of Iraq and when are they going to stand up for all Iraqis?

Dustin, obviously you didn’t read the whole thing.  Goldstein is…a unique writer.  Uses a lot of humor and satire.  Try reading the entire post once and get back to me.

Also, I just noticed that he’s added a number of updates and such which make the point of his post confusing.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

I understand what he is trying to do without reading all his non-sense.

He is attempting to spark a Civil War between PaleoCons and NeoCons.

As one that would side with the PaleoCons in that war, I don’t need to try to figure out "where he’s coming from." 

I do not need to be tolerant of his views anymore than I am untolerant of an abortionist’s views. 

So…you read a couple of sentences of one of his posts, and now you think you know all about what he’s trying to do?

That seems pretty arrogant to me.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

LoL.

Rush is pretty arrogant too, doesn’t mean he’s not right a majority of the time. 

Free: I have listened to Rush for years, and believe me, you’re no Rush Limbaugh.  In fact, I don’t consider you a conservative, either.

Free: I have listened to Rush for years, and believe me, you’re no Rush Limbaugh.  In fact, I don’t consider you a conservative, either.

Not surprising.   

Free: I have listened to Rush for years, and believe me, you’re no Rush Limbaugh.  In fact, I don’t consider you a conservative, either.

You’ve made my blog.

http://freerepublicans.blogspot.com/2006/02/breaking-news-robert108-chimes-in-on.html 

Why I read blogs, reason #417: snarky comments:

Elements of the MSM seem to await a civil war in Iraq with the same breathlessness that Marxists used to await the final crisis of capitalism. [...] Elements of the MSM make these two claims about the Bush administration—that it failed to anticipate the very real prospect of a civil war in Iraq and that it has been incompetent in its management of post-invasion affairs. But there’s a tension between these claims. If a civil war was likely, then the fact that we don’t have one at this point (by any intelligent definition of the term) suggests that the administration has dealt skillfully with the politics of post-invasion Iraq.

Carrick: You have pointed out just one of the many logical inconsistencies of the lefties.  Here’s another one:  We shouldn’t have gone into Iraq, but since we did, we should have sent more troops.  Huh???

We shouldn’t have gone into Iraq, but since we did, we should have sent more troops.  Huh???

You really can’t figure that out? That’s pretty sad.

Dave: I’ll make it simple for you:

If we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq, the right number of troops there=0

It’s inconsistent to pose as an expert on something you think shouldn’t exist.  The reality here is: disagree with the President, no matter what he does.  Why would you value the opinion as to troop strength from someone who thinks the right amount of troops is zero?  Their rationalization is that we need more troops to win, but who believes that they want us to win?  This is reflex disagreement by playing both sides.