{"id":149,"date":"2003-09-22T10:16:22","date_gmt":"2003-09-22T14:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=149"},"modified":"2003-09-22T10:16:22","modified_gmt":"2003-09-22T14:16:22","slug":"stupid-lefties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=149","title":{"rendered":"Stupid Lefties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bold type are excerpts from the article<\/a> Iraq is not Vietnam<\/i> by Edward W. Lempinen.<\/p>\n

The anti-war left shows a troubling indifference to the plight of Iraqis — and flirts with irrelevance — by demanding that President Bush bring the troops home now.<\/b> <\/p>\n

Actually, it’s the Bush administration that shows a ‘troubling indifference to the plight of Iraqis’. From his selling-off<\/a> of their country to the highest bidder, with the exception of the oil industry, of course, to their insistence<\/a> on ‘staying in control’ of an increasingly out-of-control<\/a> situation.<\/p>\n

It is a terrible thing to watch a war in progress, even from a distance. If there’s a pulse in your imagination, you have some sense of the violence of it, the fear and the grief of it; men and women, children and animals, are killed and injured, losing homes, farms and possessions.<\/b><\/p>\n

Indeed, one had to have the most active of imaginations in order to know what was really occurring during the pre-emptive strike since the media was controlled by the aggressor and the American audience was allowed to view only what that aggressor permitted them to see. The extent of its propaganda campaign has yet to be fully uncovered.<\/p>\n

And where<\/a> are they now concentrating ‘rebuilding’ and ‘security’ efforts? Is it keeping women safe from rapists, NGO workers alive, protecting members<\/a> of the governing council? Has the electricity been fully restored, are the injured being cared for? Well no. But we sure are making progress on those pipelines.<\/p>\n

“Bring Them Home Now<\/a>.” The sentiment is seeping into the Democratic campaign for president. Dennis Kucinich, the antiwar Democratic presidential candidate, issued a statement<\/a> on Aug. 25: “It was wrong to go into Iraq. It is wrong to stay in Iraq. Let’s support our troops by bringing them home.” The language even crept into remarks from South Dakota Democrat Tom Daschle, the hyper-cautious minority leader of the U.S. Senate, when he insisted earlier this month that Bush must offer to Congress a war spending plan “that clearly lays out how we’re going to succeed in Iraq and how we’re going to bring our troops home safely.”<\/p>\n

Daschle’s demand is not only justified, but responsible — and yet his choice of words is disconcerting. It is the nature of mass politics that the most complex issues are distilled to bumper sticker slogans; the unfortunate effect is that these slogans can become the driving political imperative.<\/b><\/p>\n

As opposed to ‘Bring them On’? It’s amazing that Lempinen can concede the cautious were right on all of the issues he mentions in his scolding, yet finds it impossible to conceive they are suggesting an exit strategy that does not demand immediate withdrawal, rather “as soon as possible.” Or is he laying the groundwork for a permanent presence in Iraq, and if so, isn’t he being a tad disingenuous when he states in his conclusion: ‘bring them home when the job is done’? What job exactly? <\/p>\n

At what point, exactly, should we bring them home? What happens then to Iraq? Is it realistic to expect France and Germany or the 21 neighboring governments of the Arab League — none of them democracies — to take over?<\/b> <\/p>\n

[LINK<\/a>]<\/p>\n

In an hourlong interview at ?lys?e Palace, Mr. Chirac for the first time laid out a two-stage plan for Iraqi self-rule, the first stage being a symbolic transfer of sovereignty from American hands to the existing 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, followed by the gradual ceding of real power over a period of about six to nine months.<\/p>\n

The French president added that if the Security Council, France included, could agree on empowering Iraqis at once, France would be ready to train Iraqi police officers and soldiers ? either in or out of Iraq. Mr. Chirac also said France had no intention of sending troops to be part of the American-led occupation force, although he suggested that circumstances could change.<\/p>\n

“There will be no concrete solution unless sovereignty is transferred to Iraq as quickly as possible,” Mr. Chirac said in the interview, speaking just before he left for New York, where he will meet President Bush on Tuesday.<\/i><\/p>\n

I think Ed is trying to tell us he won’t be attending any of the demos on October 25.<\/p>\n

Update: Hesiod<\/a> has an interesting post about those who slur antiwar activists that includes the information that the Iraq governing council agrees with France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bold type are excerpts from the article Iraq is not Vietnam by Edward W. Lempinen. The anti-war left shows a troubling indifference to the plight of Iraqis — and flirts with irrelevance — by demanding that President Bush bring the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-2p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}