And while I-told-you-so’s may not be in the height of taste, I have to admit to really, really wanting to rub a few noses, because some of us have been indundated with so much condescension and nastiness over this war on this board for a long time. And we have this nagging feeling that if something horrible had happened like a chemical attack, this board would be just crawling with threads with titles like, “Are you happy NOW, you war-mongering bastards?”
Well, I hope you don’t think you’re the only one to feel condescension and nastiness over the war. Trying to be as fair as possible, I would say that there has been equal amounts of nastiness directed towards both sides of the issue. I hope by “some of us” you meant pro-war and anti-war folks alike, because it’s been flying in both directions. Wouldn’t you say?
As for the “war-mongering bastards” comment, perhaps you’re right. And if that had happened, I would be just as critical of it as I am about the “bragging rights” that many seem to feel they have now.
Part of the reason that I feel bragging is out of line right now is that the fight has only really begun. There was never much of a question in my mind that the military conflict would be won, but the larger fight for a better Iraq and a more stable Middle East is just barely begun. The largest body of work lies before us, not behind us. And while I share some of your relief that the fighting is drawing to a close, some trepidation remains that we won’t follow through as we should.
Basically, my feeling is that the pro-war vultures are very busily bragging about winning a fight, when only the first round is really over.
Many people opposed to the war made very strong arguments about all the possible ways the war could be a disaster: Gas attacks on civilians, very heavy casualties, populace rising up against coalition, etc.
IMO, these were legitimate concerns. However, it is clear that at this point those who were supporting the war have been proven correct in their assessments. Can it still go south in the long run? Absolutely. There’s a lot yet to do. But as it stands now, those who supported the war have every right to feel vindicated, and those who focused on the dangers rather than the possibilities should feel a little chastened.
Are some of them being childish asses about it? God, yes. But where there are bad winners, there are often sore losers, too.
Y’know what? If someone spent three weeks calling me a monster and throwing around vague allusions of impending doom and disaster, with no basis in fact whatsoever, I’d tend to become a little smug when I see them proven wrong.
I’m pretty sure those weren’t the only arguments. The mainstream arguments were that it was foolhardy for Bush to thumb his nose at the world with the obvious foreign-policy repercussions that it surely will have; that unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation with the flimsy justification that it is related to the 9/11 attack was the wrong course of action, and that it’s hypocritical to claim to be “liberating” a population (when it suits our purpose) when there are clearly millions and millions of oppressed people throughout the world. The line of reasoning that we can only aid human rights via war would require attacking half the world.
Your argument boils down to: “The worst scenario didn’t happen; therefore the war was justified”. Total strawman. Nobody was arguing that a worst-case scenario was necessary to invalide the war, or if they were, they certainly didn’t represent the consensus of opinion.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Saddam compared to Adolf Hitler, from GWB to Ari Fleischer to the talk radio pundits, etc etc. GWB also called him a threat to world peace, and the talk of all the WOMD he’s been hiding saturated the airwaves a bit. I guess I was starting to believe them, because I was expecting a bit more of a fight from them.
The reason the bragging is so disgusting is that we anti-war protestors were entirely correct in characterizing this pointless war as another Vietnam.
Troops have been stationed in Iraq for going on a decade now, dozens of U.S. troops have been getting killed every week the whole time, the military has had no cohesive plan for conducting (much less concluding) this war, and even if they had a plan, the native populace clearly supports the regime we’re seeking to replace anyway.
What part of this analogy to Vietnam do you still have a problem with?
What happended those morons (like Gary Hart) who were talking about “10,000-100,000 Americans dead and 250,000 Iraqi civillians dead”? (Strange…he seems to have removed the article from his website. Without a retraction. Asshole. Anyway, here’s a partial site ) I’d have a lot more respect for these cretins and their ilk if they’d have the nads to admit that they were wildly, stupidly wrong.
And Coldie, I mostly agree but one comment you made has to be a typo, right?
**
I mean, c’mon.
“I’m positively delighted for the Iraqi people, who have found their freedom again. I’m glad they were freed but I’m upset that someone made the decision to free them.”?
Oh, from andrewsullivan.com’s catalogue of anti-war wisdom, with a variety of foolish predictions and assessments, this particular example by Simon Jenkins,in a Times (of London) piece from March 28th, entitled (incredible as it seems) “Baghdad Will Be Near Impossible to Conquer”:
“Hostile cities have ways of making life ghastly for aggressors. They are not like countryside. They seldom capitulate, least of all when their backs are to the wall. It took two years after the American withdrawal from Vietnam for Saigon to fall to the Vietcong. Kabul was ceded to the warlords only when the Taleban drove out of town. In the desert, armies fight armies. In cities, armies fight cities. The Iraqis were not stupid. They listened to Western strategists musing about how a desert battle would be a pushover. Things would get ‘difficult’ only if Saddam played the cad and drew the Americans into Baghdad. Why should he do otherwise?”
Analogies to Vietnam indeed? The protestors’ attempts to pretend what they were direly predicting LAST WEEK! was never on their tongues is perhaps the most remarkable example of Newspeak I’ve ever heard.
More like “I’m glad that they were freed, but strongly feel that it would have been far preferable if the liberating forces represented a wider coalition of nations, preferably with the blessing of the UN, or indeed a UN mission altogether”.
I know you and I have differing opinions on the validity of the UN, so let’s not try and debate that here. All I’m saying is that I’m happy the Iraqis can now enter the long road to true democracy, even though I would have prefered the means by which they were enabled to enter this road to be different (although I fear that military action would have been inevitable to overthrow Saddam), as I strongly believe the current war as it has been fought has done a lot of damage to both the UN and the position of the United States in the world, two things I greatly regret, and that could have been prevented with someone other than GWB in charge.
Our Leader looked out over the cold light of March. His heart was sorely torn. Every day he heard grim news of the plight, the sorrow of the Iraqi people. He nibbled a pretzel thoughtfully. They must be liberated.
Ah, but the people. Sometimes they could be slow to see the truth. They must be led. They must have a leader who could see the truth beyond the words, the truth that arcs over mere facts. Was this not the office of Great Men, men like Nixon and Reagan, men who were not afraid to set aside simple veracity for a greater good? With a heavy sense of necessity, he resolved that whatever form of mendacity, whatever forgeries and lies where called for, stern duty required it. If the people could see Saddam bin Laden as a threat to them…then they would follow. And once victory was secured, they would quite forget why they had gone to war in the first place.
"I’ll just step down to Condie’s office and say “Fuck Saddam we’re taking him out!’ She loves it when I talk dirty!” On the way to the door, he stopped by the mirror to adjust his tie and saw:
Actually, it was “Two outta three”. We need to find one more point of commonality. Um…We agree that Iraqis being freed is good. We disagree about the value of the UN…Can we agree that Saddam was a wanker? If so, we have fulfilled Meat Loaf’s prophecy.
