Richard Perle, former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, now says the Iraq war is a mistake; the President's national security team, he says, is "among the most incompetent teams of the post-war era" and characterizes them as "deadly, dysfunctional."
Kenneth Adelman, another Reaganite and a member of President Bush's Defense Policy Board until last year, was widely quoted at the time of the Iraq invasion as saying the war would be a "cakewalk"; now he says Bush has squandered America's chance to intervene abroad in good causes for at least a generation.
Michael Rubin, Pentagon staffer, says that President Bush has "betrayed Iraqi reformers."
David Frum, former Bush speechwriter credited with coining the phrase "axis of evil," now says the whole war policy has "failed at the center."
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Vanity Fair Exclusive: Now They Tell Us Neo Culpa As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Perle is quoted from that article. The one I cited comes from the Mail & Guardian. I can't access the Vanity Fair one for some reason--I get a "stack overflow" error message, and my browser shuts itself down.
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
:shrug: I guess my first thought was why not use Bush as the whipping boy, he won't be the Republican candidate in the next election after all. The only hope the Republicans may have to win the next Presidency if Iraq is still a major issue (and does anyone think it's all going to get better anytime soon?) may be if they can distance themselves from Bush and his closest advisors.
-------------------- If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation. - Jean Kerr Posts: 18428 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Nov 2001
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posted
Finally managed to read the Vanity Fair piece, which is actually a three-page teaser for a much longer story to be published in the next few months. It's funny--the neocons have a whole range of people to blame: Bush himself; Rumsfeld, of course; one claims that Bush is controlled by women--Laura and Condoleeza Rice most notably--and can't make any decisions on his own.
But they all say neocons are not to blame. Nope. Even though every single one of them was in favor of the war.
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
As usual, I'm waiting for the spin from certain boardmembers...
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I'm with Brad on this one. Of course they'll blame an incompetent execution rather than a fundamental failure in the neocon ideology.
--Logoboros
-------------------- "If Men were Wise, the Most arbitrary Princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the Freest Government is compelld to be a Tyranny."
quote:Originally posted by trollface: As usual, I'm waiting for the spin from certain boardmembers...
Looks like you're going to have a long wait. This doesn't appear to need much spinning. By the way, are we to assume that you've never done any spinning?
-------------------- "This air we're breathing. Oxygen, isn't it?"~I’mNotDedalus, impersonating Vincent D’Onofrio.|"Sometimes trying to communicate can be like walking through a minefield."~wanderwoman "Give people a break. It's not easy doing a life."~Joshua Halberstam Posts: 4020 | From: Oklahoma | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
What I mean is that I'm waiting for either a "Bush's aim was a noble one. It was the right thing to do with the information that we had at hand. Hindsight is 20/20" and variations on that theme, or "But Clinton..." and its variants.
I suspect that certain people will simply avoid posting in the thread. It's either that, one of the approaches above, or actually having to admit that Bush is a fool and it's all gone tits-up.
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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-------------------- "If Men were Wise, the Most arbitrary Princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the Freest Government is compelld to be a Tyranny."
posted
I can't read anything by Frum without thinking about his poor mother. I wonder if she ever knew what a little misery guts her son is?
-------------------- If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation. - Jean Kerr Posts: 18428 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Nov 2001
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I saw one of the people quoted in the article on CNN this morning and he was saying basically the same thing. He said that they were quoting out of context to make it sound as if they were saying something different than what they actually meant. He went on to say that he gave them a two hour interview and he challenged them to release the transcript of the interview so people could see the context in which those quotes were made.
Posts: 716 | From: San Antonio, TX | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
The full article will be published in January. I suspect that the release of the teaser was timed for the elections...and that the interviewees were comfortably assuming that January was when their views would be known.
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by trollface: What I mean is that I'm waiting for either a "Bush's aim was a noble one. It was the right thing to do with the information that we had at hand. Hindsight is 20/20" and variations on that theme, or "But Clinton..." and its variants.
I suspect that certain people will simply avoid posting in the thread. It's either that, one of the approaches above, or actually having to admit that Bush is a fool and it's all gone tits-up.
Ok, wait a minute. First you all but dare anyone to disagree with your stance on the issue, then you preemptively argue that anyone who does so will invariably use what you consider to be an invalid argument, and THEN you say that if they don't argue with you, it's because they know they're wrong on the issue and can't 'fess up to it. Congratulations on initiating, arguing, and declaring yourself the winner of a debate without even having someone in the other chair. Well fought.
Wonko "shadow boxer" the Sane
-------------------- "It seemed to me that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilzation in which I could live and stay sane." Posts: 1462 | From: Outside the Asylum (Massachusetts) | Registered: Jul 2003
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by WonkoTheSane:
quote:Originally posted by trollface: What I mean is that I'm waiting for either a "Bush's aim was a noble one. It was the right thing to do with the information that we had at hand. Hindsight is 20/20" and variations on that theme, or "But Clinton..." and its variants.
I suspect that certain people will simply avoid posting in the thread. It's either that, one of the approaches above, or actually having to admit that Bush is a fool and it's all gone tits-up.
Ok, wait a minute. First you all but dare anyone to disagree with your stance on the issue, then you preemptively argue that anyone who does so will invariably use what you consider to be an invalid argument, and THEN you say that if they don't argue with you, it's because they know they're wrong on the issue and can't 'fess up to it. Congratulations on initiating, arguing, and declaring yourself the winner of a debate without even having someone in the other chair. Well fought.
Wonko "shadow boxer" the Sane
Sloppy work, trollface, my old chum. You forgot to include "adroitly change the subject so they can attack you for your argumentative technique without actually addressing the argument itself, presumably because they know they don't have a leg to stand on."
Still, I'm sure you won't make that mistake in future, eh?
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Oh, please. Use care when you assume the position of those who post here: the war in Iraq is a clusterNFBSK, with this administration at primary fault. I was addressing trollface's posts directly. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Dara.
Wonko
-------------------- "It seemed to me that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilzation in which I could live and stay sane." Posts: 1462 | From: Outside the Asylum (Massachusetts) | Registered: Jul 2003
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by WonkoTheSane: Oh, please. Use care when you assume the position of those who post here: the war in Iraq is a clusterNFBSK, with this administration at primary fault. I was addressing trollface's posts directly. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Dara.
Wonko
Yes, well, everyone thinks that now. But trollface isn't the only person who's noticed a reluctance on the part of the formerly pro-war snopesters to participate in any of the threads in this forum for a while. While this could be for any number of reasons, it's a perfectly legitimate conclusion to assume that this is so because they've run out of arguments to defend the Iraq war, and that they are unwilling to admit that, for fear of losing face.
You seem to be asserting that this isn't the case. Or at the very least, you appear to be taking exception to trollface asserting that it is. Why do you think that?
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Nope, I took exception to Trollface assuming that it is. Someone here on this board has a sig line about not assuming that silence means agreement. You can assume that the opposition to your point of view (whatever it may be) has run out of their flawed arguments if you'd like, but to me it sounds more like dancing on an unoccupied grave.
Wonko
-------------------- "It seemed to me that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilzation in which I could live and stay sane." Posts: 1462 | From: Outside the Asylum (Massachusetts) | Registered: Jul 2003
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by WonkoTheSane: Nope, I took exception to Trollface assuming that it is. Someone here on this board has a sig line about not assuming that silence means agreement. You can assume that the opposition to your point of view (whatever it may be) has run out of their flawed arguments if you'd like, but to me it sounds more like dancing on an unoccupied grave.
Wonko
Trollface said that he suspected people wouldn't post in this thread for fear of losing face. That's not "assuming" anything, is it?
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
If you'd like to pick nits, he said he was waiting for the spin from certain board-members... sounds like assumption that it would happen, to me. Further, to suspect something of being the case is as analogous to assumption as make no real difference in this context, anyway.
But in the interest of civilized debate, I'll refine my statement to say that I took exception to what I view as his assumption of what is going on when he said he suspected it of being the case. Doesn't change my point one bit. It's still dancing on an empty grave.
Wonko
-------------------- "It seemed to me that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilzation in which I could live and stay sane." Posts: 1462 | From: Outside the Asylum (Massachusetts) | Registered: Jul 2003
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by WonkoTheSane: If you'd like to pick nits, he said he was waiting for the spin from certain board-members... sounds like assumption that it would happen, to me. Further, to suspect something of being the case is as analogous to assumption as make no real difference in this context, anyway.
But in the interest of civilized debate, I'll refine my statement to say that I took exception to what I view as his assumption of what is going on when he said he suspected it of being the case. Doesn't change my point one bit. It's still dancing on an empty grave.
Wonko
I don't really understand why you've taken such exception to it, though. Why is it so illegitimate to suspect, or, if you insist, assume that people are avoiding posting in this or other threads because it would necessitate an admission of error? Why has it exercised you so?
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
It hasn't. I commented on it because it ocurred to me that shadow-boxing (as I've decided to call it until someone tells me what it's really called) isn't really an honest argument on the issue. I have commented further based upon your posts asking for clarification. I could just as easily ask the same of you.
Wonko
-------------------- "It seemed to me that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilzation in which I could live and stay sane." Posts: 1462 | From: Outside the Asylum (Massachusetts) | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Well, a little storm of a different kind has brewed since last I looked in.
My position is this. Since before the war even started, there have been certain board members who have consistently and very vocally defended Bush and his actions. There would be loads of threads appearing saying things like "Look WMD found!" Then, a while later, when people in Bush's team would issue statements that said things like "we were wrong about there being WMD", there would be different excuses. Now, as the comments from the right-wing have got less and less positive, and you're starting to get even the right-wing saying "okay, this might actually have been a bit of a cock-up", those comments seem to have slackened off.
You'll still see some of the same posters posting little incidental pieces on threads that aren't really related to the fact that it's a cock-up, but very little in threads such as these.
Maybe I am assuming, but it's hardly an unfounded assumption. It's an assumption based on past behaviour that I've seen by being an active participant in this forum for the last 3 or 4 years.
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by WonkoTheSane: I commented on it because it ocurred to me that shadow-boxing (as I've decided to call it until someone tells me what it's really called) isn't really an honest argument on the issue.
It was more intended as a sardonic aside than as any kind of argument.
In any case, don't you need someone to argue against, if you're going to argue against their position?
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
That was kind of my point. At the time I read your post, it seemed that you were arguing against nobody. I'm with you that the virulent pro-Bush crowd has died down, if not out, recently. That could be for any of many reasons, of course, your suspected reason among them. But there are also certain posters on this board who are so anti-Bush that every time an article comes out that shines any sort of negative light on the administration, they take the opportunity to crow and strut about how it's Bush-As-Usual™ without making any sort of contribution for or against the argument at hand. It just seems like dishonest debating to me, and I didn't mean to single you out.
Wonko
-------------------- "It seemed to me that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilzation in which I could live and stay sane." Posts: 1462 | From: Outside the Asylum (Massachusetts) | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I see it as a reflexive self-defence for all the times that I've had to virulently defend the idea that going into Iraq was a bad idea and that there weren't WMDs, and that it was a quagmire not unlike Veitnam, sometimes literally for years over multiple threads. And now that those are all things that those in charge and on the side of the invasion have now said, I've not seen one single person say "okay, actually I was wrong, maybe going into Iraq wasn't the best idea". Unless it's accompanied by a "well, hindsight's 20/20, and I couldn't possibly have known any different", that is. And, by my count, I still got called a lot more names than I called people. And that's not even counting the pain of having to decipher some of the more painful posts (anyone remember seixon?).
So, yes, it might be rather childish and unproductive but, dammit, I've earned it. I was right 4 years ago, I was right in the time since, and I'm still right. So there!
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I think you're all ignoring the most important fact about the Iraq War: Clinton had sex in the Oval Office!
Well, somebody had to say it...
Kilgore Trout
-------------------- "Nobody ever got stoned and beat up his old lady" -- Spence, snapdragonfly's friend Posts: 768 | From: North Hollywood, CA | Registered: Aug 2005
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
quote:Originally posted by WonkoTheSane: the war in Iraq is a clusterNFBSK, with this administration at primary fault.
NO other person or entity is responsible for this war but the Bush administration. This is Bush's War.
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by trollface: Since before the war even started, there have been certain board members who have consistently and very vocally defended Bush and his actions. There would be loads of threads appearing saying things like "Look WMD found!"
While I supported the invasion, I hardly mentioned WMD in the runup. However, it is totally legitimate to mention that Saddam made greater use of poison gas than anyone else since World War II, and would have done so again if allowed.
How about remembering the people on the left who claimed sanctions killed a million Iraqi children and now claim what is going on in Iraq is much worse, even though their widely disputed highest casualty estimate (600,000) is less than what they used to say was the butchers bill of sanctions?
Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz do not have the power to push the US into war. Even the author of this article in the (IMHO) far-left Nation magazine seems to realize it. Instead it is centrist (AKA liberal hawks) who make the invasion a historical certainty.
I don't defend Bush per se. That's because I don't believe in the great man theory of history, especially when it comes to war. I do think that, as countries which are the world's greatest power go, mine is an unusually good one. The US/UK policy towards the Iraq of the 1990's, one of low-level warfare, was unsustainable, and I don't believe in tearing us down because we tried for something better.
And that better thing could still come. The reason I hesitate to predict it will is because so much blood will come first. Bush's idealistic attempt to keep the Shia majority from taking revenge on the Sunnis, whose leaders lorded over them for many decades, is what is failing.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Saddam made greater use of poison gas in 1988, Steve. That is not an excuse for the invasion of 2003.
-------------------- "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."--George Bernard Shaw Posts: 19266 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:Originally posted by AnglRdr: Saddam made greater use of poison gas in 1988, Steve. That is not an excuse for the invasion of 2003.
Actually, I don't even know that it much matters whether the people in a Saddamite mass grave were shot or gassed.
The invasion doesn't need an excuse. What most needs an excuse is the twelve years of necessarily indecisive low level air warfare against Saddam's hapless draftees, started by Bush the Elder. It is hard for me to see how such wasn't setting up present events. Somewhat needing an excuse is the attempt to turn Iraq into an overnight democracy, although it was based on the best of intentions, and Bush's critics pressed hard against replacing Saddam with a less cruel dictator who would have gradually introduced democratic reforms.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by trollface: I see it as a reflexive self-defence for all the times that I've had to virulently defend the idea that going into Iraq was a bad idea and that there weren't WMDs, and that it was a quagmire not unlike Veitnam, sometimes literally for years over multiple threads. And now that those are all things that those in charge and on the side of the invasion have now said, I've not seen one single person say "okay, actually I was wrong, maybe going into Iraq wasn't the best idea". Unless it's accompanied by a "well, hindsight's 20/20, and I couldn't possibly have known any different", that is.
...
So, yes, it might be rather childish and unproductive but, dammit, I've earned it. I was right 4 years ago, I was right in the time since, and I'm still right. So there!
It seems sadly ironic that I suspended my distrust of Mr Blair for just one thing, and the war was it.
Posts: 2370 | From: Arabia | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by trollface: I see it as a reflexive self-defence for all the times that I've had to virulently defend the idea that going into Iraq was a bad idea and that there weren't WMDs, and that it was a quagmire not unlike Veitnam, sometimes literally for years over multiple threads. And now that those are all things that those in charge and on the side of the invasion have now said, I've not seen one single person say "okay, actually I was wrong, maybe going into Iraq wasn't the best idea". Unless it's accompanied by a "well, hindsight's 20/20, and I couldn't possibly have known any different", that is. And, by my count, I still got called a lot more names than I called people. And that's not even counting the pain of having to decipher some of the more painful posts (anyone remember seixon?).
So, yes, it might be rather childish and unproductive but, dammit, I've earned it. I was right 4 years ago, I was right in the time since, and I'm still right. So there!
So, basically, you're not satisfied that the people who you've been arguing with for years have stopped defending their previous decision, faded into the background and presumably conceeded the argument by default? Instead, you want them to come forward and admit being wrong rather than trying to preserve some face? It sounds to me like you want a chance to gloat and make them eat crow. You're right, that does sound childish and unproductive.
Posts: 716 | From: San Antonio, TX | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Zachary Fizz: Repentant hawk recants - penultimate post on that thread.
It seems sadly ironic that I suspended my distrust of Mr Blair for just one thing, and the war was it.
Ah, but Zachary, you were never obnoxious with it. Mind you, this was before you had met Dara.
quote:MaxKaladin said: Instead, you want them to come forward and admit being wrong rather than trying to preserve some face?
Preserve some face? Surely the best way to come out of this kind of thing with some dignity is to step up, suck it up and admit "yes, I was wrong", rather than to slink off with your tail between your legs and pretend that you never said anything in the first place?
If you like, consider it a meta-comment on the inability of certain segments of the right-wing to admit failure or error - one of the key reasons that Iraq is in the mess that it currently is.
quote:It sounds to me like you want a chance to gloat and make them eat crow.
Nope. Quite the opposite, in fact. By doing so, they would earn my respect. I think that if you look closely, you'll see that I was gloating in this thread before anyone on the right had posted at all.
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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