Monday, January 08, 2007
left in the shambles, the smoke, the innocent victims of war, hiding behind their nakedness, fearing what's next for their unborn:
Behold Jackson Diehl: the most evil man alive who doesn't hack into Powerline's servers. Ah, what exquisite misery it is to be a third-rate Washington Post columnist. It might lead you to come up with analysis like this:
In Washington's bipartisan mind-set, the next six months are always crucial in Iraq. Persistently, we believe that one big, intense effort will turn the country around -- or make it possible for us to leave.
OK, steady as she goes. But then!
Why? Perhaps because Bush has never been willing to ask the country to commit itself to a long struggle in Iraq, despite his view of it as "the central front" in a war on terrorism that will define the 21st century. Instead he proposes the war that the Army and the public can tolerate without too much strain.
Fuck you, Army! Always trying to fight the war you can tolerate! Why are you such a bunch of pussies? Don't you realize what's in it for us? Twelve years of fighting, and all for... for... um, Jackson?
One day, on its own time, Iraq will reach equilibrium. At that moment a new power structure will solidify in a country that ranks second in the world in proven oil reserves; that occupies the geographic and ethnographic center of the world's most volatile region; that now harbors many of the most dedicated enemies of the democratic West. Will the United States want to be present, as one of the shaping forces, when that settlement is finally reached?
OK, if you or I ever wrote that this was a war for oil -- and, what's more, needed to be a war for oil -- the Jackson Diehls of the world would shout us down as traitors. Instead, we are expected to understand that imperialism will reap the black, viscous reward of a mere 12 years of suffering, and all will be forgiven. Notice there's not a word in here for the 23,000 Iraqis who died last year due to one element of the war or another, and whose oil Jackson Diehl thinks we ought to steal -- but fuck the wogs; they don't read the Post editorial page.
--Spencer Ackerman
It seems that, as usual from the killmorefaster crowd he gets the minor premise correct in saying "Perhaps because Bush has never been willing to ask the country to commit itself to a long struggle in Iraq, despite his view of it as "the central front" in a war on terrorism that will define the 21st century. Instead he proposes the war that the Army and the public can tolerate without too much strain."

But then draws a conclusion 1870 degrees from what would be correct. Sensible people consider the above and judge that the "Central Front" business is, um, bullshit. So if it's not that important, why exactly are we spending so much of our capital, financial, geopolitical and human, there?
Blogger Pooh | 10:21 AM

Harold Meyerson ain't a liberal? EJ Dionne? Eugene Robinson?
Blogger Spencer Ackerman | 12:26 PM