Do y'all feel fooled yet? I mean, when you hear the newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates saying "we're not winning in Iraq" do y'all feel that maybe you've been a little misled.
And when I say y'all, I mean all of you Bush loyalists. If you're managing to cling to "job done" and "we're winning" even now - I got to hand it to you. But I'm guessing that maybe you might feel just a little bit silly after your vehement denials of civil war, quagmire, incompetence, or the lack of strategy, vision, plan and execution.
I'm not gloating. I don't think very many people in America really wanted to see us fail to achieve altruistic or even patriotic objectives in Iraq and the region. I think this has damaged America. I don't think any American really wants that - even though we might disagree about what's in America's best interest from time to time. And I do believe that there's a threat of Islamism rising in the Middle East - and I hoped our actions in Iraq would help - but I think it's probably obvious now that we've only made things worse with Bush's Iraqscapade.
I'm not gloating. I believed Bush, too. I believed Tony Blair. Even for stuff I wasn't too sure about (ability to deliver WMD to UK in 30 minutes - I didn't believe that), I gave them the benefit of the doubt on. I just haven't believed them in a while. (And just so you know, it wasn't after the WMD didn't turn up - 'cause I admit - I believed that Saddam Hussein had them and I still wonder if maybe Saddam believed he had them).
It was easier for me, I admit, to shake off my belief in what Bush and Blair were saying and doing. After all, I vote Democrat in the US and support the Conservatives in the UK - so I didn't have any party loyalty to blind me in this case. But when I realised it was a passle of lies, incompetence and self-delusion, I felt fooled. I felt pretty angry with myself. Even worse, I felt angry with Bush and Blair for making me look stupid for believing them in the eyes of the Marxists and Islamists and woolly-headed leftists.
So, all you Bush loyalists, you neo-cons and true believers, I'm just wondering. Do y'all feel fooled?
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5 comments:
You can never fight ideas with guns, only with better ideas. That is a much, much harder project because you must dialogue with those with whom you disagree. It is much easier to preach to the choir.
Bush never liked diversity of opinion and wanted to block admission to those who disagreed with him (Remember in his presidential election campaign, they screened the persons who would attend his speaking engagements?) One cannot win the idea war if one is afraid to be exposed to other opinions.
The neocons apparently believed that might makes right. Money and guns cannot buy happiness and security at the personal or the national or international level. (Money does help.)
To me Bush did exactly what I expected he would do, but Tony Blair was a mystery to me. What in the world drove his behavior?
Was he really afraid of Islam? Do people in the west have no confiedence in our ideals?
VolMom
I work at the Texas Senate and had an opportunity to watch the man work as governor. Maybe it was that experience that convinced me that from the minute he opened his mouth about Iraq, every word was a lie. I knew with every fiber of my being that the wmd meme was a lie, the yellowcake was a lie, the the aluminum tubes were a lie, the entire UN presentation by Powell was a lie. There was plenty of rational, mainstream refutation of every argument the Administration made about Iraq if one was willing to look hard enough for it and was willing to be skeptical of those White House weasels. Hans Blix, the guy that was actually doing the looking, begged us to believe him when he said the scary stuff just wasn't there. He begged us, but instead Americans believed a pissy, petulant, serial failure whose only foreign policy experience was fajita parties with the President of Mexico.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little vindicated. And I'm grateful for the bureaucratic snafu that kept me from being shipped out to that Dantesque deathpit that is the front line in the War on Terror. But that said, I'd gladly buy in to the party line, and fly my flag all the higher, paint my car with "support the troops" ribbons, yank off my "Veterans for Kerry" sticker, and vote Republican if I thought for a moment it would get even one of our soldiers home with body and soul intact.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Frankly, I guess you should feel stupid.
I'm neither a neo-con or a "Bush loyalist" but I supported the decision pretty much knowing the risks and the costs, and knowing that it might not perpetually be the popular thing to do. You'll also someday feel fooled again if you buy hook, line and sinker the line that we're not cruising to victory due to "a passle of lies, incompetence and self-delusion."
Sam - feel free to vent any time. And if you have any views on the increasing proportion of foreign ownership in the Premiership - you can share that, too.
Ned, I'm sure I'll be fooled again. But not by these guys!
I also feel stupid that I didn't say
"passle of lies, incompetence, corruption and self-delusion"
I'm glad you know what the risks and costs were - but can you tell me what the objective was - what it really was? And why it was necessary to present a different set of objectives (eradicating the WMD, the yellow-cake, the links with al qaeda, etc)when those all turned out to be lies of varying sizes.
Now, don't get me started on foreign ownership. It was bad enough when Roman showed up with his dirty Russian mob money and got him the best team money could buy. That was pretty crummy. But when know-nothing Malcom Glazer showed up with his know-nothing sons, well, that takes the cake. Clearly, the international flavor of the Premiership and English football in general should be allowed to extend to club ownership, I just wish it didn't. As much as I loathe and despise Manchester United and anyone and anything associated with it in any professional capacity, I still wouldn't wish Malcom Glazer on my worst enemy.
Still, arms dealers owning clubs is just..well..wrong! Portsmouth deserves better...as does Villa.
Foreign owndership is, of course, a matter for the supporters and the FA to sort out, but it doesn't look like the FA could give a flying flip who owns what as long as they have the cash. And Man U supporters, the ones who burned their season tickets, haven't managed to keep those seats empty. That's too bad. I have no illusions about the fact my outrage is fuelled almost exclusively by a brand of delusional Anglophilia, but I'd like to see some aspect of British cultural life remain relatively unsullied by the crass form of capitalism practiced by the Abramoviches and Glazers of the world.
In spite of that, I still think Sepp Blatter is a bigger danger to English football than Roman's billions.
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