It’s all so clear now; the people of Iraq only have to hold on until Frodo W. Bush, Samwise Cheney and Gollumsfeld make it to the Election of Doom. Oops, Gollumsfeld fell into the lava (or was he pushed?); now all we need are some magic Eagles to pluck George W. Baggins and Dick Gamgee out of the mess they have gotten us into, and we can all live happily ever after.
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Psssst. The analogy was supposed to cajole the kids, not the adults. Your naming conventions are simultaneously cute and lame.
Some analysts believe this is exactly what Iran did, at least in part. I think the evidence is still sketchy, and far from ambiguous, but it’s not implausible. Of course, if it turns out that there’s some truth to this story, then clearly Iran’s approach was not a total success, because while I’m sure they wanted Saddam weakened or eliminated, not to mention the United States entangled and distracted, they can’t be entirely happy with the instability and chaos they actually got on their border.
Thanks. Your have accurately articulated the feeling I have over this but never found quite the right words. It is a vile policy formulated by a vile individual, Dick Cheney, and carried out by a vile simpleton, GW Bush.
It’s interesting how sometimes the war is defended with the “fight them there instead of here” argument, and sometimes the “we did it for the Iraqi people” argument.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I sure as fuck hope nobody decides to do something like that for me someday.
Okay, I can theoretically see the analogy here. But where’s the Ring? The whole purpose of distracting Sauron’s attention was so Frodo could sneak in, destroy the ring, and permanently defeat him. So if Iraq is the distraction we’ve created to draw the terrorists’ attention, where’s the secret plan to destroy them? Is there a Special Forces team in Sudan that’s on the verge of capturing Osama bin Laden (Operation October Surprise)? And if so, shouldn’t Senator Santorum be keeping his mouth shut about it?
I can see it being plausible that they played some role in getting us in there. But I think all the evidence points to Bush/Cheney wanting to take on Saddam from day 1. 9/11 just gave them the excuse. Maybe Iran facilitated with some bogus intelligence, but I’m pretty sure we’d be over there even without it.
And of course whether you accept the analogy or not, the OP is dishonest in claiming that Santorum used LotR as a basis for formulating his strategy. I give this thread two thumbs down.
Why would you take a thread title that seriously? He was trying to emphasize the idiocy of Santorum’s analogy, not offer a straight-faced comment on how he planned the war.
Let’s see… because it’s an outright lie? I think thread titles should be accurate. You don’t. I guess we disagree about that, but that doesn’t make you right and me wrong.
I am still stinging from the Smear Job Rove did on McCain back in 2000 during the primaries. Tony Snow is a lesser devotee, perhaps the Mouth of Sauron would be adequate if not precise.
Gotta agree with Marley that this looks much more like a case of clumsy phrasing than actual dishonesty or outright lying. Nobody imagines that Santorum was directly involved in formulating the strategy for the Iraq war, much less that he used the War of the Rings as his planning blueprint. Nor does the text of the OP attempt to make any such claim.
No argument there, and Fear Itself would have done much better to phrase the title more carefully and less misleadingly: e.g., “Santorum bases defense of war strategy on Middle Earth fantasy” or something like that. But the idea that he was being deliberately dishonest or lying in order to imply that Santorum was actually involved in the war planning sounds pretty silly to me.
(By the way, is anybody else slightly squicked out that LotR, according to the OP’s link, is “one of Santorum’s favorite books”? IIRC the novelist Stella Gibbons had a marvellous description of the feeling produced by the discovery that somebody you loathe enjoys the same book(s) that you do: “like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one’s dressing-gown”.)
On reflection, I will agree the phrasing of the title was clumsy. If it makes John Mace feel better, if I had the power to change it, I would use something like “Santorum compares war strategy to Middle Earth”
