Thank you, Evil One for participating here where so many of your brethren have long departed from this topic. Your journey to the dark side begins with a single step.
Four years ago many of us here at the SDMB and elsewhere were saying, “If we attack Iraq it will cause a civil war and will make a giant mess.” The response from many on your side was, “If you oppose the war you are a Saddam lover.” This message board at the time had mostly civil and reasoned debate (as always ) but elsewhere the war opponents were called “Pussies and Traitors who want to see America attacked again. ” When Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech my right-wing friends told me “See how wrong you were?”
Now we have a civil war and a giant mess and the tune from the soft right is “The war was a good idea but there were some miscalculations.” The hard Bush supporters are saying, “ The media is to blame.” And “The left in this country are fueling the insurgents.” The point Elucidator made about the train track is all too true; there are still many who believe we were about to win Vietnam when the liberals pulled the rug out from under everything.
My point is this… Yes you are a cunt! What we said four years ago is true and you come along and say “Uday is not raping little girls anymore.” When five years from now Iraq is all in flames and there are massive genocide projects in Kurdistan and Anbar are you going to say “Uday is not raping little girls anymore”?
We were all quite clear about it in 2002. Saddam was successfully contained, not a threat to us, an asshole to be sure but not much different from many others we’ve supported, IOW yes, keep the status quo. We knew then, and know now, that he had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, a fact which has somehow since filtered through the jingoist mental shields of many like you despite Bush’s continued lying about it.
The enemy was Al Qaeda, and the Taliban that supported them. We thought then and still do that the war to eliminate them in Afghanistan, and to capture Osama (remember him?) was what mattered. .
Not all of us can be tarred with the same brush. Unless you’ve never changed your opinion based on factual observations over a years time, please stop thinking that you’ve scored some kind “gotcha” point or whatever is motivating you here.
Since I don’t have a seat at the National Security Council table or Top Secret compartmentalized clearance, I assumed that the administration knew something I didn’t.
My point is…none of us know what’s happening at that level. Some of us pretend to, but we don’t.
My point was actually to dispense with the idea that this was some sort of novel phenomenon. Unless you want to go back to the isolationism of the conservatives in advance of WWII, it seems to me that there is an enduring core element of conservatives who think that the best solution is always to attack someone somewhere.
Look at the current “surge” or escalation of the war in Iraq. This is exactly reflective of the conservative belief that we lost in Viet Nam because we didn’t escalate our involvement there.
I just don’t think there is really anything “neo” about these people. Perhaps crazy, exceptionally stupid, infantile, scared shitless… but not much neo.
You’re a dunce. “Flip-flopper” is the conservative term of derision for liberals who change their opinion based on factual observations over time. Kimstu believes in fact-based analysis, so her use of the term was ironically intended. That was the “gotcha” moment; that a conservative would employ that [valid] reason for changing their opinion while having blasted liberals for doing the same.
Now, if you publicly opposed the term “flip-flopper” as applied to John Kerry and others, the “gotcha” was perhaps misplaced. It is still an apt jibe at many conservative pundits.
The idea that the “invasion” and the “aftermath” can be separated so that one is declared a success and the other marred by “miscalculations” is fucking moronic.
It’s as if I declared as a success by any measure my effort to take a backhoe and knock off the fireplug out by the street, but then determined that my inability to stop the torrent of water flooding from it afterwards was a “miscalculation.”
Your insight is amazing. I wasn’t going to confess about moaning in the fetal position under my desk from all the “ass-handing”, but you saw right through me.
) but elsewhere the war opponents were called “Pussies and Traitors who want to see America attacked again. ” When Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech my right-wing friends told me “See how wrong you were?”