Jul 11 2007
Deadly Arrogance Led By Incompetence
Bumped To Top For Updates
Lots of meetings today, but I have to post a comment regarding the war in Iraq and the arrogant ignorance being displayed in Washington DC and NY City. With the exception of George Bush, who has been an amazingly successful and good President (look at his list of accomplishments and compare it to any other modern President) Congress and the media has to be the worst group of people to be in those positions in our entire history. This is no Continental Congress braving all sorts of political and deadly consequences to create a brave new world. No, this is a bunch of egotistical, waffling, finger pointers who voted support for Iraq and have had no staying power to see it through.
And the media is much, much worse than that. They don’t report, they echo. They are amazingly arrogant about things they could not do themselves. And they are obsessed with image, not essence.
These two nadir’s of American culture have combined to create a deadly feedback loop with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda kills because every massacre makes the Congress and Media quake and piss their pants. Al-Qaeda has been taught, like Pavlov’s dog, that violence does not bring retribution and destruction upon those inflicting the violence – it gains them political and media capitol. The more people (out for personal political gain) question Iraq and blame Bush for OUR efforts there (yes, Iraq is OUR challenge, not Bush’s) the more al-Qaeda kills. Look at that massacre of a village by a massive truck bomb in Iraq over the weekend. It was meant for one thing and one thing only. It was meant to be picked up by the media to show to Congress so they wilt and run away from Iraq.
These so called leaders of Congress and these talking-head-enablers of theirs in the media have broken the rule of national security. There is a reason politics must end at our borders. It is so cruel killers like the Islamo Fascists of al-Qaeda do not use massacres to exploit American differences. But this crop of disasters are so arrogant they felt their self-seen omnipotence makes them so much better than the generations who came before and learned the lesson of standing by each other through thick or thin. The exploiters have come to power to gain, not to lead.
The Congress and the media will have a lot of blood on their hands as al-Qaeda does what they trained them to do – kill for attention. And it will be hundreds and thousands of Iraqis who will be doing the dying for attention. Iraqis WE voted to liberate – and to protect as we did so. It is no shock a half-assed Congress has done a half-assed job in Iraq and are ready for the half-assed retreat. This is the worst Congress this country has ever had to endure.
Update: Kevin Sullivan has not only been gracious with a compliment on how I express my views and to some degree the views of those on the right, he also has asks me to list what President Bush has accomplished that makes him so successful. OK, here is the list:
(1) Serious income tax reductions in two bills, which helped our ecomony wrestle through the attacks of 9-11 and show consistent, steady growth since the downswing in the aftermath of the attacks.
(2) Bipartisan legislation on reforming the nation’s schools and making them accountable for the Federal money they get. This has resulted in steady gains in the success of our students because now we test to make sure the knowledge is being transferred and not just bouncing off the wall of the classroom.
(3) Rx policies for Medicare/Medicaid, which changed senior citizen medicine this country from reactive to preventative, while saving these programs lots and lots of money related to emergency room visits for prescriptions. Now those who cannot afford their medications can get them, and those who can are in a great national insurance plan which has been driving down drug costs for all Americans.
(4) Afghanistan – hugely successful war effort which did not result in the lamely predicted Quagmire but did result in a new, democratic Afghanistan which is withstanding years of efforts by Islamo Fascists to tear it down.
(5) Iraq – yes, Iraq. We won the military war within weeks. We established a democratically elected government which was created by broad support of elections across the country in the face of terrorist threats. The purple thumb revolution is something all naysayers predicted would not happen. There have been set backs – we fight a brutal and intelligent enemy. But we are slowly cleansing Iraq of the Islamo Fascists, standing up Iraq security forces, and the Iraqi street is taking our side as a wave of anti al-qaeda sentiment crosses the country. The only thing critics can lamely point to is their impatience with schedule – not progress. We keep make progressing and we keep adjusting. Impatience is not a reason to allow a massacre and Bush has won this debate too.
(6) A Federal ban on killing young humans for the stem cells so we can grow spare parts for the wealthy who are ill. No need to explain why this was a big win.
(7) Ban on partial birth abortions and requirement for parental notification. Again, the respect of life (and of religion) was raised during Bush’s two terms. In fact, Bush did more for AIDs in Africa than all Presidents before him, showing his respect of life credentials comes from a universal compassion for human beings.
(8) Bush cut federal deficit in half from its peak in 2004 – as he promised but years ahead of schedule.
(9) Two solid judges on the US Supreme court, numerous judges to the federal bench.
(10) Bush has kept this country and its assets overseas safe from attack since 9-11.
OK, so that is just the list of big ones off the top of my head. An analysis will show Bush was incredibly successful – because he had a Republican Congress to honcho is his policies. Now let’s compare Clinton on these issues, being the most recent two-term President from the other side:
(1) Clinton raised taxes and stifled the expanding economy, while not enforcing business practices that would have curbed the wild speculation surrounding the dot.com myth. All of this ended in a crashing economy which Clinton saw in 3 out of his last four quarters in office, and which went into the first 2 quarters of the Bush administration (before Bush could get any tax fixes passed in Congress and effect a change in the economy). Fact. Clinton left a down turned economy which Bush turned around and then bolstered through 9-11.
(2) Clinton did nothing on schools – but did propose standard uniforms.
(3) Clinton did nothing about Health Care, but Hillary sure scared he hell out of everyone with her government take over plans.
(4) Clinton saw the rise of Islamo Fascism in Afgahnistan and did nothing about it. His big military endeavour was Somalia and was an epoch disaster immortalized in the film Black Hawk down. He hesitated to take out Bin Laden numerous times, but was able to destroy a deserted aspirin factory, training camp and some camels.
(5) Clinton left the status quo in Iraq left to him by Bush I. Saddam did get into the Oil For Food bribery game with the UN during Clinton’s reign though. Best spin – Clinton was not paying attention.
(6) Clinton did nothing for stem cell research, nothing on Kyoto, nothing on any liberal agend item.
(7) Clinton kept fighting for the use of federal money to abortions across the globe and he was incredibly stingy on aid to Africa for AIDs (just ask Bono). He did nothing in these areas – he was the status quo President.
(8) Clinton can only claim fame for deficit reduction because the GOP Congress forced him (after two vetos) to accept deficit reduction legislation. He went, unwillingly, into the deal.
(9) Clinton can claim success for liberal judges – that is for sure.
(10) Bill Clinton allowed numerous attacks on this country to go unanswered. Starting with WTC 1 and two US embassies in Africa and attacks in Saudi Arabia and culiminating with the USS Cole, Bill Clinton took the terrorists to court and exposed our intelligence processes to Bin Laden’s group. Jamie Gorelick added more bricks to the wall between intel and law enforcement which made it impossible to deal with leads on terrorists. Successes were seen in taking on US citizens in Waco, Ruby Ridge, and a young Cuban exile boy in Florida. We missed the terrorists but killed our people by the dozens under Clinton.
I feell that should answer Kevin’s question reasonably enough.
I agree with you on this AJ. I read headlines like, “Congress Ready to Battle Bush.” God forbid they actually get ready to battle our enemies. We are getting far too complacent and as the Democrats continue to weaken the Bush Administration our enemies see a weakened country and when they see weakness or perceived weakness they strike.
One can only look back to 2001. The Democrats were doing all they could to weaken Bush after the 2000 vote count. Senators like Carl Levin were over in Europe days before 9/11 telling anyone who would listen to block Bush on every thing and that they (the Dems)would be back in power soon. The enemy perceived weakness and 9/11 happened.
The surge has had two weeks after full-up after Reid and Pelosi haggled over the defense bill for months. The surge was waiting on them and kept getting delayed.
Reid and Pelosi are doing this on purpose. They want to brainwash our public into thinking that this surge is a failure before it is finished.
Now is the time to tell RNC, Domineci, Lugar, Warner, Alexander, etc., that they need to reconsider their positions.
“The Congress and the media will have a lot of blood on their hands…”
Congress and the media ALREADY have blood on their hands which will NEVER wash off. May they be damned for it!!!
What is adding insult to injury are Republicans who are abandoning the troops. First we place a set of rather optimistic “benchmarks” on the Iraqi government at the very time of the year when little if any government business gets done in Iraq (how much work would get done in Summer if we moved Washington DC to Death Valley and gave the buildings only 1 or 2 hours of electricity per day?) and then only a couple of weeks into major operations they start making noises about pulling the plug.
It is absolutely moronic. We continue to attempt to gauge Iraqi progress by American standards. It is dumb to do that.
The moonbat organizers are doing their own surge against the surge and should not be ignored and emails and calls on our side need to counter their doings.
So true, AJ. I have been thinking for several years about what has transpired in congress over the last 50 years. What the heck have they done to keep us safe from terrorists? The Frank Church Amendment? Torricelli’s amendments?
Need we say more?
AJ,
I agree with your analysis and your passion.It is the same cowardice that betrayed us in Viet Nam and cost innocent lives then. Shame on them!
Mack
We have today substituted the stuff of thousands marching in the streets in opposition to the war for focused websites run by aging hippies that have followers very well organized into support groups with calls for support to mail bomb people to effect outcomes and gogglebomb search engines to influence the outcome of search terms.
I read many of those sites and they are almost pulling their hair out that cant somehow seem to translate their energy and hate into actual bodies on the street.
Look at any of the pictures of the anti-war types with their small numbers and read the signs that have url’s to follow and go see that many of them are tied together groups of the well organized moonbat left.
They have had less success getting people into the streets than the Goreacle has for his church of global warming, but that doesn’t mean that they are not organized into online communities and doing their thing.
Think PaulBots with a mission.
The left has leveraged the net much more than the right has to put together a coalition of forces that many don’t even realize are there.
Basically the big picture is like this.
High dollar power players have funded themselves or gained support from big money foundations like Tides, the Pew Foundation etc
The run their money through PACS and other stuff to push their agenda.
They have media experts like Fenton Communications that design and coordinate the message.
Fenton alone has a client list of half the moonbat left of organizations that the left pacs and foundations support.
There are literally hundreds of those left of center groups supported by the money flow.
Fenton Communications has all those clients to draw from to have guest experts for whatever cause to put on all the talking head shows to get the message out driving it home time and again.
It is not hap hazard, it is totally planned and executed by the numbers.
At the bottom of the chain are the left leaning blogs which organize the grass roots and many of them are on mail lists or conference calls or even mover and shaker chat room to plan and scheme their next agenda campaign.
There is no comparable structure on the right and it leaves us at a disadvantage.
The state of things…
If we can’t make the world safe for democracy, at least we can make it safe for the iPhone….
OS2,
Points well taken. And I think Horowitz tracks these networks.
The Right was shut out totally before the internet and talk radio. The new tools have opened up a crack for us.
Mack
He does with his site DiscovertheNetworks.org also a good look at the big picture is the book Vast Left Wing Conspiracy written by Byron York.
Another good book is Horiwitz’s The Shadow Party and a separate good source is a site called namebase.org
I do not know why they sit these benchmarks anyway, the Congress can not even pass an immigration law.
I think these arbitrary benchmarks and timelines are a waste of time. In the past they said the Iraqis would not get their elections done, they did. People said they would not get the constitution done, they did. People also said Maliki would not tell Sadr to take a hike, he did.
Time and again they have come through in the end in spite of everything. I do not doubt there is corruption, incompetence and just plain fear in the government over there…but I heard the other day that they are ready to bring the Oil Trust up for a vote, if they can manage that they will have accomplished something.
I hear Bush is asking people to wait for Patreous’s report.
For all the naysayers let them try this
Get a government of your choice
Take them to Death Valley
Give them 5 or 6 hours a day electricity and air conditioning
Have people shoot real bullets at them when they try to get from point a to point b
Oh and make a small group of people who ran the place before have to compromise with a larger group they had under their thumb before
Looking back at the demonstrations in the 60’s, it should be obvious to anyone (even those who weren’t alive at the time) that it was the draft more than anything else that drove them. I think of that everytime some fool like Rangel says that he wants to bring the draft back – no military leader, no halfway competent military analyst would ever want to bring the draft back – it is a horrible way to create an army except in the most dire circumstances. (WWII being one)
Without the draft threatening involuntary servitude for tens of thousands, no mass movement of anti-war protest is ever going to get going. What an irony for the anti-war crowd – the draft, which they hated more than anything is the only thing that gave them life as a movement. Without it, they’re nothing and always will be.
“An amazingly successful and good President” …
I generally consider AJ to be a good blogger, and an eloquent voice for the Right-Wing. However, in this particular instance, he seems to have fallen victim to hyperbole and error. What exactly has President Bush done to earn such praise, or to even …
“no military leader, no halfway competent military analyst would ever want to bring the draft back”
nobody wants to lead an army that doesn’t want to be there. Thought I would favor a compulsory service of some sort. Require individuals at age 18 to get fire, police, paramedic, disaster rescue, or military training and serve at least two years in that capacity.
I agree wiith you on Bush’s accomplishments with regards to Iraq, but could you please cite where the Constitution authorizes the federal government to get involved with education or health care?
Jake,
If they take Federal money they must show progress – that simple. FYI Bush’s success have nothing do to with your support of the issue.