# If/when the U.S. fails in Iraq, will the Right propagate a new Dolchstosslegende? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2007, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670 "2007-11-08T17:19:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/21 "2007-11-08T20:47:18Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Who are these people? I haven’t heard of any of them. As somebody already pointed out, the only Americans who have claimed that the United States deserved to be attacked are religious conservatives. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure that’s totally accurate [ > [@](#): > > Well, really. Let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to “ignorance” – a derivative, after all, of the word “ignore” – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it. ]([http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html](http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html)) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/22 "2007-11-08T20:48:35Z")
[QUOTE=Algher] It was when the US government chose to cease all support of the South Vietnamese government that it fell to the North [/quote] Cite? > [@](#): > > That all said, if we simply loaded-up every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine and brought them home today Strawman. > [@](#): > > we would be morally responsible for both breaking the country and then leaving without fixing it. This assumes our ability to fix it. The track record of our occupation is that our efforts to ‘fix’ things have only made them worse. If you’re a bull in a china shop, just because you _can_ stay, doesn’t mean you can fix the damage you’ve caused. You may just wind up breaking more china. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/23 "2007-11-08T20:55:04Z")
[QUOTE=FinnAgain] I’m not sure that’s totally accurate [url=[http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html](http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html)] [/QUOTE] OK, any Americans that a normal person would have ever heard of, aside from the wingnut right’s efforts to trumpet their message. Ward Churchill is effectively one of yours, I’m afraid. He and his views are known outside a small circle of friends only due to the publicity afforded him by the denizens of Greater Wingnuttia. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/24 "2007-11-08T21:05:29Z")
And what importance does Ward Churchill have in this country? Is he running for office? Is he an advisor to any politicians? Is he invited to speak at political gatherings? How is Ward Churchill representative of anyone when nobody else cares what he says? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/25 "2007-11-08T21:07:59Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Who are these people? I haven’t heard of any of them. As somebody already pointed out, the only Americans who have claimed that the United States deserved to be attacked are religious conservatives. [/quote] [QUOTE=Little Nemo] And what importance does Ward Churchill have in this country? Is he running for office? Is he an advisor to any politicians? Is he invited to speak at political gatherings? How is Ward Churchill representative of anyone when nobody else cares what he says? [/QUOTE] Kay. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/26 "2007-11-08T21:14:07Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] No. In both Vietnam and in Iraq, we are the foreign invaders and occupiers. The people who laid waste to their country, the killers of their friends, family and countrymen, the supporters of corrupt dictators. Imperialists, not liberators. They’ll **never** stop fighting us. Not if we stay there for ten years, or a hundred. [/QUOTE] If I understand history correctly, we were present in South Vietnam at the request of the South Vietnamese. It’s possible I’m wrong, of course. And you avoided the issue of Korea completely, which has a lot in common with Vietnam on the surface. Also, just because I will keep saying this to you, you are wrong about Iraq. Sadly, I am also sure that the government will continue to screw this up until we are pulled out and the country completely collapses into tribal warlordism. ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/27 "2007-11-08T21:24:23Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] There was no smiley because I was serious. I believe Pat Robertson is of the left. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify this matter. [/QUOTE] Endorsing Rudy Guiliani for President is pretty much the definition of being on the left. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/28 "2007-11-08T21:25:44Z")
[QUOTE=Tristan] If I understand history correctly, we were present in South Vietnam at the request of the South Vietnamese. It’s possible I’m wrong, of course. [/quote] We we propping up a corrupt dictatorship; there’s no way that the “South Vietnamese” could have requested anything. [QUOTE=Tristan] And you avoided the issue of Korea completely, which has a lot in common with Vietnam on the surface. [/quote] I know almost nothing about the Korean War, so I’m not going to comment. [QUOTE=Tristan] Also, just because I will keep saying this to you, you are wrong about Iraq. Sadly, I am also sure that the government will continue to screw this up until we are pulled out and the country completely collapses into tribal warlordism. [/QUOTE] And in what way am I wrong ? And in what way could they have NOT screwed up, besides not invading in the first place ? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/29 "2007-11-08T21:39:47Z")
> [@](#): > > What percentage of the South Vietnamese were communist? Vietnam had been one country. Most Vietnamese were opposed to being a French colony and various groups were resisting the French. The Communists were popular because they were one of the biggest resistance groups. The Geneva Accords which recognized Vietnam as an independent country in 1954 set up two temporary divisions that were supposed to be rejoined after a 1956 national election. The communists groups were strongest in the more populous northern half of the country and took control there. The republicans and the monarchists were stronger in the southern half of the country. But as stated above, there was a national election scheduled for 1956. The communists knew they would easily win the election - virtually everyone in the more populous north was a communist supporter and there was also a significant number of communist supporters still in the south. I’m not going to claim that the communists were pure-hearted but in this particular case they had every reason to support a fair election. But the various groups opposed to the communists did not and the United States was one of these opposing groups. We could count the same numbers that the communists did and we knew that they would win the election. So in October 1955 a referendum was held in the southern half of the country. While the republicans probably would have won anyway, there is overwhelming evidence that they rigged the election results. The result was that the southern half of Vietnam was declared to be an independent country with a republican government. Both the communists and the monarchists refused to recognize the legitimacy of the referendum. The United States however decided to recognize the referendum as legitimate and recognized the Republic of Vietnam as an independent nation. To the communists in the north, the creation of the Republic of Vietnam was an illegitimate secession akin to the Confederate States of America and the American response was equivalent to if the British had recognized Confederate independence. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/30 "2007-11-08T21:49:53Z")
FinnAgain, I was responding to this: > [@](#): > > Why do you think that a Dolchstosslegende\* can only be propagated by the Right? > The Left has been doing it, too, (but on a different issue: the 9/11 attacks) Notice that he didn’t say one person had been doing this. He said The Left had been doing it. I wasn’t disputing that there are individuals like Ward Churchill in this country who are saying foolish things. But I’m saying that The Left has not embraced these people and these people do not represent The Left. The Right cannot make the same claim. People like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Anne Coulter have said foolish things but that has not stopped The Right from embracing these people as their own. And the idea that Pat Robertson is part of The Left? That’s one of the most foolish things I’ve ever read on this board. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/31 "2007-11-08T21:50:07Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] Cite? Strawman. This assumes our ability to fix it. The track record of our occupation is that our efforts to ‘fix’ things have only made them worse. If you’re a bull in a china shop, just because you _can_ stay, doesn’t mean you can fix the damage you’ve caused. You may just wind up breaking more china. [/QUOTE] Re: Vietnam: > **[Battlefield:Vietnam | Timeline](http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index4.html)** March 1973, the US leaves Vietnam August 1974, Nixon resigns January 1975, the North takes Phuoc Long and the US does…Nothing. > **[What Happened When Democrats in Congress Cut Off Funding for the Vietnam War?](https://www.hnn.us/article/what-happened-when-democrats-in-congress-cut-off-f)** > > The prospect of Democrats controlling the 110th Congress has raised speculation over a possible suspension of funds for the war in Iraq. Given control of the purse strings, a Democratic Congress would be in the position to force the government to... > [@](#): > > Historians have directly attributed the fall of Saigon in 1975 to the cessation of American aid. Without the necessary funds, South Vietnam found it logistically and financially impossible to defeat the North Vietnamese army. I do not get your Strawman quip - are you saying that we do NOT want to pull the troops from Iraq? I certainly would support any situation that would bring the troops home and end our game of foreign entanglements. Finally, the Bull in the china shop is also keeping a pack of dogs at bay. When the bull leaves, the shop might just take MORE damage than the bull is causing. Can we now move on past this horribly tortured analogy? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/32 "2007-11-08T21:58:43Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] FinnAgain, I was responding to this:Notice that he didn’t say one person had been doing this. He said The Left had been doing it. I wasn’t disputing that there are individuals like Ward Churchill in this country who are saying foolish things. [/quote] And you responded by saying only religious conservatives had acted in such a manner. That explicitly doesn’t allow _anybody but_ religious conservatives. Your rhetoric got away from you, right? [QUOTE=Little Nemo] But I’m saying that The Left has not embraced these people and these people do not represent The Left. [/quote] Nobody represents “The Left” or “The Right” or “the left” or “the right”, largely because that’d be a fallacy of division or composition, depending on which direction you were taking things. Moreover, as either generalization is a linguistic fiction, it’s a bit hard for anybody to speak for it. To the extent that the Republican or Democratic parties have spokescritters, I suppose, you can say that someone is speaking for them. But that’s still only the official party platform, and I’d wager that not all Dems (politicians or party voters) take Pelosi’s opinions as gospel, right? [QUOTE=Little Nemo] The Right cannot make the same claim. People like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Anne Coulter have said foolish things but that has not stopped The Right from embracing these people as their own. [/quote] “The Right?” All of the people who you’d classify or who’d self-identify as being to the right of center? Us-Them politics is a bit silly, don’t you think? [QUOTE=Little Nemo] And the idea that Pat Robertson is part of The Left? That’s one of the most foolish things I’ve ever read on this board. [/QUOTE] Luckily I didn’t say it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/33 "2007-11-08T22:36:53Z")
It’s not all about you Finn. Some of my responses are directed towards what other people in this thread are saying. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/34 "2007-11-08T22:43:17Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > And you responded by saying only religious conservatives had acted in such a manner. That explicitly doesn’t allow anybody but religious conservatives. Your rhetoric got away from you, right? > [@Little Nemo](#): > > It’s not all about you Finn. Some of my responses are directed towards what other people in this thread are saying. Kay. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/35 "2007-11-08T23:09:50Z")
Finn, could you elucidate a little more? Posting quotes with a single three letter comment makes it difficult for me to know what you’re trying to say. Does “Kay” mean “Okay, now I understand the point you were trying to make and I’m glad we were able to clear up this confusion” or does it mean “I’m posting the word kay as a sardonic comment on the line of bullshit I think you’re trying to pass on us”? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/36 "2007-11-08T23:18:57Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] But we could have won Vietnam . . . [/quote] No, there is no way we could have. There is not even any way we could have established South Vietnam as a stable independent non-Communist state like South Korea. [QUOTE=Captain Amazing] . . .and we probably could have won Iraq. It was a combination of poor leadership and a turning of public sentiment against the war that made us lose. [/QUOTE] We could have, **maybe,** if Bush had followed [the State Department’s “Plan A” instead of the Pentagon’s “Plan B.”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=381910) Or if he had left General Garner in charge post-invasion instead of replacing him with Paul Bremer. Once that was done, the war was irretrievably lost. But either way, domestic public opposition to the war as such (feeble as it was at the time) would have had nothing whatsoever to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/37 "2007-11-08T23:22:31Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] And second, the Right, unlike the Left, is willing to stab the country in the back. “Party/corporations above country” has been a major theme of the Bush Administration, and the Republicans in general. [/QUOTE] For once, **Der Trihs** is right. ---
**Author:** ![Ocean\_Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8797f3/32.png) [@Ocean\_Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ocean_Annie)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/38 "2007-11-08T23:29:19Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] But we could have won Vietnam, and we probably could have won Iraq. It was a combination of poor leadership and a turning of public sentiment against the war that made us lose. [/QUOTE] There is too much empirical evidence to contradict any hope of victory in Iraq. Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco [Thomas Ricks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_E._Ricks) asserts that the war was an incompetent, tactical blunder with a flawed plan from the beginning. It was a war based on bad intelligence and false premises. Public opinion is not the reason America failed in Iraq. It is Bushe’s failure fueled by serious errors within the larger bureaucratic system of government and the weak, ineffectual media. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/39 "2007-11-08T23:29:38Z")
[QUOTE=Tenebras] Endorsing Rudy Guiliani for President is pretty much the definition of being on the left. [/QUOTE] 😛 Good one! ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2007, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670/40 "2007-11-09T00:14:18Z")
Of course they will. And already have. But maybe they won’t be able to anymore soon. It’s possible that, as the pendulum of power and corporate influence swings the other way we could see the Democrats whip out a stab in the back myth of their own. “We could’ve pacified Iraq and won the War on Terror, but Bush screwed it up so bad and the conservatives did everything in their power to make sure we couldn’t succeed.” Talk about karma. **Little Nemo** did a good job of going over the runup to our invasion of southern Vietnam. Pretty basic facts, really. Everyone needs to be more specific when referencing “the left” or “the right.” Do you mean the party? Party leaders (the head) or the body? The great mass of average voters? Some platonic ideal? Since this is a pretty dull topic otherwise, going over concepts decades old, I give you Charlie Madison: > [@](#): > > War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best; the highest morality he’s capable of … it’s not war that’s insane, you see. It’s the morality of it. It’s not greed or ambition that makes war: it’s goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we’ve managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war it seems we’ll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It’s not war that’s unnatural to us – it’s virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved. > > … > > I don’t trust people who make bitter reflections about war. … It’s always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a Hell it is. And it’s always the widows who lead the Memorial Day parades … we shall never end wars … by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogies. It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers; the rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widows’ weeds like nuns and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices. My brother died at Anzio -– an everyday soldier’s death, no special heroism involved. They buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud. > > … > > ``` > [Y]ou see, now my other brother can’t wait to reach enlistment age. That’ll be in September. May be ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution. What has my mother got for pretending bravery was admirable? She’s under constant sedation and terrified she may wake up one morning and find her last son has run off to be brave. > > ``` [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-when-the-u-s-fails-in-iraq-will-the-right-propagate-a-new-dolchstosslegende/425670.md?page=3)