Ryan: “Well of course, it will all boil down to Iraqi government ability to curtail violence so that some semblence of normality can return to some sections of the population and then building up from that.”
Ryan: “Then it fucks up, then I’m wrong, and you can be happy”.
Ryan_Liam, you slimy sack of putrescence, who should spend the rest of his life eating raw slugs, you’ve got a strange idea of what makes me happy.
You know what would have made me happy? If we hadn’t destabilized Iraq in the first freakin’ place. One of the major reasons I was against this war up front was the possibility that Iraq would turn into a Hobbesian war of all against all once we left. (I hadn’t figured on us staying long enough for it to happen while we were still there.)
But your claim that somehow that outcome makes me happy is about the slimiest, most low-down, disgusting thing that anyone’s said to me in longer than I can think about.
There’s a difference between wanting fuckheads like you to acknowledge exactly how bad it’s gotten there, rather than either pretending everything’s not all that bad right now, or some development around the next corner will somehow make Iraq’s security situation solve itself, and wanting it to be that bad. If you can’t figure that out, then, well, you’re even stupider than I thought, and lately my opinion of your intelligence has been dropping fast as new evidence on that score has piled up.
So go to hell, you rotting piece of filth. And may you be fucked by a thousand camels on the way, and infested by their fleas.
There are some people who regard politics as being the equivalent of a football game. They feel that you pick a team, you follow that team, there is an opposing team, you score points on the field, and your team wins if it scores more points. Their political ideal is for their group to go undefeated in every contest and win the trophy.
Other people see politics as being the equivalent of a religion. They believe that they are underlying truths in political issues. Some people are aware of these truths and it is their duty to reveal these truths to those who aren’t aware of them. By doing so, these people will be converted and the faith will grow. Their political ideal is for everyone to join the faith.
Politics is not a football game or a religion. But when the followers of these two metaphors meet, the conflicts between their world views usually lead to problems.
I can’t remember where I’m stealing this from, but I once read this tactic on behalf of the right* described as a conversation between a concerned liberal (CL) and a conservative about to jump out of a window (Conservatice Jumper, or CJ for short):
CJ: I’m going to jump out of this window now.
CL: Don’t do that, man, you’ll hurt yourself!
CJ: Lies! Here I go! Aaaaaaa-UHN! Ow
CL (from upper-storey window): Oh Christ, you’re hurt! Here, let me call an ambulance!
CJ: No, no, don’t -ARGH!- don’t do that! You’re just trying to prove me wrong! I’m perfectly fine, and my jumping decision was sensible!
CL: You’re bleeding.
CJ: No I’m not! We must stay the course!
CL: Please, let me help you.
CJ: Oh, okay, I am in quite a lot of pain. Happy now? This is what you wanted, isn’t it, you slimy gravity-sympathizer?
CL: It isn’t what I wanted, just what I predicted. I’m gonna go call 911 now.
CJ: Traitor! Why do you hate America?
*Obligatory disclaimer: Not all right-wingers do this. Ryan_liam does.
Not to single out Ryan, but the adherents of the Bush cult can’t face the reality that Iraq is FUBAR. They remind me of that knight from the Monty Python sketch. As blood spurts from where his arms used to be: “it’s just a flesh wound!” As he lay on the ground, minus all four limbs “Get back here and I’ll gum ya”. Dudes, face it. Your Dear Leader was responsible for one of the greatest blunders in world history. It ISN’T getting better and in all likelihood it NEVER will.
Oh, I don’t know. Once the Kurds form their own country (after the war with Turkey that will result from this), after the Shias join with Iran to create a Greater Islamic State of some variety (with all the bloodshed and destruction that will involve), the only people left complaing will be the Sunni’s. Still, they will have a target for their anger in the form of the permanent American bases being installed.
Ah, I love the smell of democracy in the morning… it smells like… burning flesh.
Are we sure that wasn’t the point of the whole thing?
Look, everybody talks about how we don’t want to destabilize the region, that it would be a colossal strategic blunder for Firefly’s “possibility that Iraq would turn into a Hobbesian war of all against all” to come to pass – but from a wholly amoral perspective, exactly what are the costs and benefits to American interests if that happens?
But why would we want to destablize the region? That would cause uncertainty in the supply of oil, driving up prices and making record profits for the oil…Hey wait a minute!
Insinuating a poster wants to increase the instability and violence in Iraq, is indeed a unsavory thing to say – unless the poster has clearly made obvious that he indeed wants instability and violence in Iraq, which a few have. On the other hand it is a bit amusing to see, how it’s apparently considered perfectly reasonable and within the bounds of decent debating on SDMB to insinuate how all conservatives or the whole neocon conspiracy or what not, or The Bush Cult, really just wants more violence and Iraq mayhem to drive up oil prices.
Oh, hey, listen, while I appreciate the ‘oil conspiracy’ response, and find it somewhat interesting, I was honestly asking whether The Bush Cult really just wants more violence and Iraq mayhem for whatever reason. If, say, lawlessness and civil war and poor sanitation and a ruined infrastructure means they have their hands full fighting one another while illnesses scourge the landscape – and if that cascades across several other parts of the Middle East – then what are the ramifications for US security? Are we safer if Iran collapses, such that there’s no longer a unified war machine with nuclear aspirations but only an anarchy where a lot of guys with little more than gunpowder are busily killing each other?
(Should I port this over to GD, or is it inevitably too hateful an insinuation?)
I don’t recall any poster saying that nor do I recall anyone insinuating that any other poster said that.
The question was posed from an amoral standpoint what are the costs and benefits to American interests of Mideast instability. The oil interests have certainly benefitted handsomely.
Well, yeah, but at the expense of gas prices going up- a major contributing factor to Bush’s low poll ratings. Now, I agree that the administration of the US at the moment wouldn’t hold back from destroying Iraq for the oil revenues for moral reasons- but they wouldn’t do it if it looked like costing them elections! Power is, ultimately, more important than money. Plus, they aren’t that smart: no-one who could fail to plan for the aftermath of an invasion of a Middle Eastern dictatorship (historically speaking, intrinsically unstable regions) could be smart enough to execute a carefully-planned war based conspiracy without cocking up or letting someone find out. What we’re looking at here is the law of unintended consequences: Yes, things went well for oil interests (and those granted restructuring contracts, and arms manufacturers, and Republicans re-elected on the backing of a war-time President…), but they’re not going so well for Republican representatives at the moment, or for Pentagon hawks who should be a Republican administration’s best friends.
I agree that if you looked at Dick Cheney’s 2002 notepads, you’d find:
Invade Iraq.
???
Profit!
However, this particular slice of “profit” (oil revenues) was not forseen, nor, I would wager, was the stinking quagmire that is Iraq.
In summary? Never attribute to conspiracy what can be more easily attributed to cock-up.
I tend to agree. While the administration’s morals are as low as they go, I don’t believe that they intended for the chaos that Iraq has become. They would have preferred that the Iraqis throw flowers at the troops and statues to Bush be erected thoughout Iraq. The chaos was an unintended result and the profits to the oil companies an unexpected bonus from their point of view.
It’s a zero sum game douchebag, if Iraqi Government fails to limit sectarian violence, then it’s ability to strengthen it’s hold over the state will fail, and concequently it’ll fall right?
Since I’m a Bush Occultist, Slugs are eaten by my mortal enemy, the French, so I can’t touch them :rolleyes:
Which won’t happen if we remain their until there’s an Iraqi Government with the ability to hold it’s own.
Well what I meant was you would be happy that I would be wrong, and like you said yourself, it can’t get any better, only worse, which would imply you’re correct.
But I don’t see it as that bad though, not as bad as you make it out to be, regardless of the situation, the Iraqi Government is still there, the Iraqi Army is still fighting the insurgents and there is an elected Government and written Constitution within Baghdad.
Just to keep playing devil’s advocate – or maybe just straight-up advocate, I haven’t yet sorted out my own decision on this one – the idea is that they intentionally didn’t plan for the aftermath of an invasion in an intrinsically unstable region. You can’t extrapolate a lack of smarts from that failure to plan; it’s the very issue in question.
We already know they disregarded British concerns about a failure to plan for the aftermath, and that they cashiered out the General who argued that we’d need far more troops to effectively occupy Iraq; they don’t need a ‘carefully-planned war-based conspiracy’ to then (a) fail to plan for the aftermath, and (b) put in too few troops to effectively occupy Iraq. That’s, like, the opposite of complex.
Eventually you finally mention it, albeit in passing, amidst much other unrelated verbiage:
Why should that make me happy? Frankly, being right on Iraq carries with it all the joy of eating a shit sandwich. And if my being right means someone else I have a low regard for is wrong, that doesn’t exactly wash out the bad taste.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people are getting killed in horrendous ways over there. I try not to think about that anymore than I have to, but when I do, it isn’t exactly cause for happiness.
