Breaking News: Doonsesbury Announces War is Lost…

Are you telling me the soliders don’t have a general sense of how *the war is going*? Man, you don’t give them nearly enough credit. And even if that were true, many, many more of them would turn against the Bush administration when they got home. Which has hardly happened on any large scale.

I’m sure the soldiers in Viet Nam got a lot less info about that war while they were fighting (I don’t think many of them had Internet connections or cell phones), but they still knew the war was going badly. These guys know what’s going on, and they still want to see the mission through.

Yes, we do have a better military now. But if the war were “lost”, they’d be the first ones to know it. And that’s the basis of their support for Bush; they know he won’t pull them before the job is done.

As for the other stuff, they’d probably find your points a) either as exaggerated as I find them to be, or b) know that the Democrats aren’t going to field anybody any better.

“The average citizen does not think about these things and their consequences. The average citizen doesn’t(or at least doesn’t think) they have time to think about them and they don’t think the effort is worth it. I doubt the average soldier is any different. If they did, they would realize they’re backing the wrong(read ‘highly corrupt’) horse.”

Wow. That’s all I can say. You really might want to read that over again and see how it sounds. Because you’re not doing your side any favors with stuff like that.

There are any number of Republicans I’d rather have in office than Bush. Nobody in the present Democratic field comes close, if only on the sole issue of the war. And, of course, Joe Lieberman isn’t a Democrat anymore. By the way, if you wanted Bush out last time, any Democrat who credibly could have convinced us he’d run the war better, rather than just pulling out, would have won in a landslide. There were millions of us looking for such a person. We got John Kerry.

The whole “Bush lied” thing is ridiculous. There’s been years to hash this out, and I’m not getting into it again, but let’s just stipulate that many of us have examined this charge and find it unconvincing.

Conservatives don’t give enough thought to Rolling Stone to hate it. It’s yesterday’s news, and written for teenagers (of all ages) and so it gets ignored. I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I ever saw RS mentioned on a conservative blog, even if being so broad as to call Instapundit conservative (instead of libertarian, which is it). I will say the idea that Republicans are more corrupt than Democrats is laughable. I live in Chicago, remember.

The anti-war side is a side, as is the pro-war side. And saying people back either because they are “ignorant”, instead of assuming they are equally as intelligent and of good will as yourself but have come to different conclusions, indeed doesn’t help your side.

“Go ahead, give me that ‘ivory tower’ BS, but I’d rather be a type of person that likes to gather information about the world around me and think about it critically than choose to walk around with the belief that nothing other than my immediate surroundings has an effect on my life, and that what authority tells me is automatically good and true.”

That’s the same crap! Guess what, the people who disagree with you *are just like that too*. That’s the point. Thanks for the laugh, though. Yes, I’m a real “ivory tower” sort of guy. (Or am I supposed to have accused you of being in an ivory tower? I didn’t, so pardon my confusion on this point.)

Seriously, Rolling Stone? That’s like hating Mad Magazine, or any other relic of a bygone year. It’s the Readers Digest of the hippie generation.

I’d be glad to have a better string-puller, but since he was the only one at the time who didn’t want to put the strings back in the box, we were kind of stuck with him. I could vote for Rudy or Fred pretty comfortably, though. (And we won’t know *their* faults for a while yet.)

The thing with Bush is that he hasn’t done much to please Republicans, much less conservatives, and has done lots to piss us off. (Entitlements, immigration, etc.) If it wasn’t for the war, a lot of us would have been looking elsewhere last time, or sitting things out.

It does depress me that I can’t think of any Democrat, save Lieberman (and he payed the price) who at any point said, “And here’s a better way we could be running the war.” There are plenty of Republican ‘mavericks’, but I can’t think of a single Democrat, six years into this thing, that has at any point chastized Bush from the standpoint of “That’s not how we win, *this* is how we win.” There are plenty of people looking for a guy like that, including me, if it comes down to it.

Best indication of the Atlantic’s worth? They publish articles that piss off both sides. There’s a role for partison publications, but we could use a few more like that.

My eyes! They are blighted!

If only I had trusted the judgement of those editors, my sight might have been spared.

I would *much* rather vote for Fred, but I’m not even sure he’s getting into the race. Rudy I’d vote for over any of the current Democrats, which is more than I would say for some of the other Republican candidates (*cough*McCain*cough). Fred by a mile in terms of my preference, though. I hope he does in fact toss his hat in.

Chris, I would love to see Condi run (been hoping for that for years, actually), but I seriously think she believes the job isn’t worth the hassle. Seeing the Democrats trying to run against a black woman Republican would be hilarious, though. And unlike Obama, I actually thing she is seasoned enough for the gig.

I completely agree about Bush barely being a Republican, but then, he really is a centrist at heart. I note that nearly everyone I’ve ever heard calling him a conservative is themselves a liberal.

Again, though, for me continuing the war effort overrode all other considerations, and there was *nobody* on the Democratic side smart enough to run on a “I can do it better” platform. Probably because it would have gotten them ushered out of the party. Which isn’t good for Democrats, Republicans or the country at large.
And while Bush may not have been fighting the war well, he was committed to fighting it. Otherwise…well, Harriet Myers. That’s all I’ll say.

I really hope (and I may be an optimistic fool) that this earmark thing finally brings about a viable, centrist third party. The Republicans should be fighting earmarks, but damn, except for a few they are the same corrupt bastards that the other side has (and at least they’re openly about giving away other people’s money). The Internet is really allowing for info and effort to be directed to issues like this in a sustained way, and lots of people on either side of the issue view earmarks as obviously corrupt. Sooner or later somebody–Reps, Dems or third party–is going to get smart enough to say, “Look, we REALLY will do something about earmarks and open government,” and then watch out, baby.

You know, it’s funny. There are a lot of notes here arguing over the war, but none pertaining to the essential point of this blog post: That Garry Trudeau is a dick for being presumptuous enough to pretend he’s qualified to speak for our troops rather than just for himself.

Other than that, the wisest statement goes to Chris. Whatever I believe, and whatever others believe about the worth of the war, only time will ultimately tell who’s right. But this does seem the worst and weirdest time to be talking about just pulling out.

I don’t think Godwin pertains here (others may disagree). I wasn’t comparing an American politician over some policy dispute to Hitler, but a (admittedly somewhat smaller scale) brute. Hussein did kill half a million to a million of his own people, and did start a war of agression — by which I mean his aim was to take over that other country — that drew in quite a few foreign nations, so I think the reference is, in this exact case, fairly apt.

As to your other point, here’s mine: I think this war means, when a successful conclusion is reached, that such atrocities will finally cease to occur, whereas they would have been locked in for many decades to come under the regime of Hussein’s sons. Surely we both agree that this would be good. The real difference in our positions, surely, is that I think the war can be won and this affected, and you don’t believe that.

As for your other point, I really don’t care if Iraq becomes a democracy (although I don’t necessarily think Iraq couldn’t become a successful one), so much as that the main population be allowed to discover that you can, in fact, live with different people without killing each other. And maybe I’m wrong about that, but I believe it in my bones. I apologize for my progressive instincts on this if I am wrong. On the other hand, if there is literally no way these people can live near each other — or across an ocean from such others, for that matter — without feeling the need to kill those who believe differently from them, then frankly we aren’t really making the situation any worse, and we are at least keeping them from killing us. Again, though, I don’t believe that to be the case.

Finally, nobody under Hussein was allowed to choose anything. That’s pretty much my point. Now at least there’s a chance that will come to pass.

See, I think the opposite. I think Iran’s demographic pressures are going to bring that regime down, and that our presence next door, and the example we’re making, in likely to speed that process up.

And you’re right, a glowing future can be cold comfort to those paying the price right now. But we still get surgery to fix long-term medical problems, despite the pain they cause.

Actually, I’ve seen strips before where Trudeau actually puts his words into the mouths of oversea troops. You can read a ‘some’ in there, but I don’t see any evidence of it, certainly not based on the history of the strip.

When I called Bush centrist, it was inexact. For every ‘conservative’ thing he does–and that includes persuing the war, which I don’t see as really necessarily being conservative–he does or supports three or four flat out liberal things (immigration, education, entitlements, etc.) So he isn’t really a centrist, in terms of persuing middle of the road policies. It would be more accurate to call him more often liberal-leaning than conservative, I guess.

I guess I should again state, and I’ve been saying this since before the war started, that I don’t think this is a situation where we should ever plan on ‘pulling out’ of the middle east, at least for the foreseeable. Obviously after Iraq settles down and establishes a workable government, we’ll draw down, but we should expect to have stationed troops over there for decades to come, just as we have in Europe and Asia since WWII.

Our ultimate goal in Iraq? I’d say a stable government that doesn’t threaten us or it’s neighbors would pretty much sum up the basic idea, and I think that’s always been the bottom line for war supporters. (Which is why the “We haven’t caught Osama!” thing doesn’t get much traction with us. It’s not like he’s been actively committing terrorism during this period, either.)

Time will tell if we achieve that, but we certainly won’t by fleeing the country in the immediate future. And we’ll just have to go back later if we do. This whole radical Islam thing isn’t going away until that swamp is drained.

I pray it works, too, and not because it would prove me right. Like you, there are plenty of issues I’m pessimistic on, and yet hope I’m wrong. However, I believe people everywhere don’t want to live under somebody’s boot, and that we’re doing stuff in Iraq that is both self-interested and humanitarian. Given the necessary moral compromises of the Cold War, I find that refreshing.

I think a democracy is still considered the best option for that sort of goal (and I don’t believe that people there are incapable of having such a thing), but any government that is stable and peaceful would be fine. Egypt can be pretty autocratic, but it’s not a threat to anybody.

And I don’t think there’s really been much goal post moving. Remember, disarming Saddam was but one stated reason for the war. (Although as the most legalistic, it was the main one presented to the UN under the fantasia of some that we needed their ‘legitimacy’–of course, they punted their obligations anyway.) And I think the region’s secular dictatorships have clearly aided and abetted the radical Islamic groups. Saddam certainly did.

Again, I think we want to show people there’s a better way. If people really didn’t want that sort of life, neither Saddam or Al Queada, etc. would have had to rely on terror tactics with their own people so much. Iran is on the brink of reform, due to demographic pressures, and I think there’s a very good chance that positive chance in the region could just erupt at some juncture, just as it did with the Soviet Union, when that caught all the “experts” off guard.

One of the real successes of the surge is that radical Islam is losing popularity in Iraq, again reflected in how much violence against the population the terrorists must use to keep the people under their thumbs. (Plus they are shooting themselves in the shoot with stuff like their announcement that they will kill people who use tobacco, etc.) Time is on our side, if we tough it out.