Posted on 06/01/2004 11:23:56 AM PDT by quidnunc
Around the world, the "Closed Until Further Notice" signs are going up at the hitherto bustling branches of the Armchair Warmongers Club.
In America, CNN's conservative cutie Tucker Carlson has decided the war is "a total nightmare and disaster" and says he's "ashamed" he ever supported it.
In Britain a year ago, Anatole Kaletsky of The Times was buoyant and sunny: "The vast majority of Iraqis will soon find themselves incomparably freer and better off than at any time in the past 50 years." Now he's sunk in his own columnar quagmire: "Iraq will indeed now replace Vietnam as the byword for America's military humiliation, its strategic incompetence, its wayward moral compass," etc, etc.
His Times colleague Mary Ann Sieghart has flounced off, too: "That's it! I've had enough. I'm fed up with justifying the war in Iraq to sceptical friends, family and acquaintances."
Tony Parsons, hitherto the token non-anti-American at The Daily Mirror, feels cheap and used. "Tony Blair fooled me," he says bitterly. "I see now it was all a pack of lies."
Down under, where the Warmongers Club was never exactly overcrowded, The Australian's very own leading hawk, Greg Sheridan, is in full never-glad-confident-morning-again mode. There will be no more valentines to the US Defense Secretary.
"Biggest Winner Of All Is Rumsfeld" was the Sheridan line last April. Now he says Rummy has to go, and broods, "You have to wonder if it's all falling apart for the US in Iraq." Speaking as an armchair warrior myself, I wouldn't want to be sharing a foxhole with these chaps — even an armchair foxhole.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
So Cnn's Tucker finally cowered to Carvell. He, and the others listed, are spending far too much time with liberals.
Funny how it's politically expedient to say that now, hmm? BTW, how's that bow tie ya poof?
This is essentailly a repost of:
This is one armchair warmonger still fighting
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 30/05/2004)
After a couple of weeks away, I return to spend a lonely evening talking to myself at the eerily deserted Armchair Warmongers Club (Fleet Street Branch). Where'd everybody go?
A year ago, Anatole Kaletsky was buoyant and sunny: "The vast majority of Iraqis will soon find themselves incomparably freer and better off than at any time in the past 50 years." Now he's sunk in his own columnar quagmire: "Iraq will indeed now replace Vietnam as the byword for America's military humiliation, its strategic incompetence, its wayward moral compass," etc, etc.
His Times colleague Mary Ann Sieghart has flounced off, too: "That's it! I've had enough. I'm fed up with justifying the war in Iraq to sceptical friends, family and acquaintances." The standard rap against us armchair warriors is that we can't stand the heat of real war, but poor Mary Ann can't stand the heat of real armchairs. The chap on the sofa at that dinner party was just too beastly and sceptical.
Tony Parsons, hitherto the token non-anti-American at the Daily Mirror, feels cheap and used. "Tony Blair fooled me," he says bitterly. "I see now it was all a pack of lies."
With moulting hawks all around squawking their forlorn chorus of "I'm No Longer Such An Ugly Duckling", it's tempting to join the mass ecdysis. But this is one leopard who won't be changing his spots. Fourteen months ago, there were respectable cases to be made for and against the war. None of the big stories of the past few weeks alters either argument.
The bleats of "Include me out!" from the fairweather warriors isn't a sign of their belated moral integrity but of their fundamental unseriousness. Anyone who votes for the troops to go in should be grown-up enough to know that, when they do, a few of them will kill civilians, bomb schools, abuse prisoners. It happens in every war. These aren't stunning surprises, they're inevitable: it might be a bombed mosque or a hospital, a shattered restaurant or a slaughtered wedding party, but it will certainly be something.
Okay, a freaky West Virginia tramp leading a naked Iraqi round on a dog leash with a pair of Victoria's Secret panties on his head and a banana up his butt, maybe that wasn't so inevitable. But, that innovation aside, the aberrations of war have nothing to do with the only question that matters: despite what will happen along the way, is it worth doing?
I say yes. It is already worth it for Iraq. There are more than 8,000 towns and villages in the country. If the much predicted civil war had erupted in any of 'em, you'd see it. Not from the Western press corps holed up with its Ba'ath Party translators at the Palestine Hotel, but from Arab television networks eager to show the country going to hell. They cannot show it you because it isn't happening. The Sunni Triangle is a little under-policed, but even that's not aflame. Moqtada al-Sadr, the Khomeini-Of-The-Week in mid-April, is al-Sadr al-Wiser these days, down to his last two 12-year-old insurgents and unable even to get to the mosque on Friday to deliver his weekly widely-ignored call to arms.
Meanwhile, more and more towns are holding elections and voting in "secular independents and representatives of non-religious parties". I have been trying to persuade my Washington pals to look on Iraq as an exercise in British-style asymmetrical federalism: the Kurdish areas are Scotland, the Shia south is Wales, the Sunni Triangle is Northern Ireland. No need to let the stragglers in one area slow down progress elsewhere. Iraq won't be perfect, but it will be okay - and in much better shape than most of its neighbours.
So I've moved on. I am already looking for new regimes to topple. And here's where the events of recent weeks may have done some damage. In my corner of northern New England, as in Highgate and Holland Park, it is also stressful being a Bush apologist. Most of the guys I hang out with demand to know why he's being such a wimp, why's he kissing up to King Abdullah about a few stray bananas in some jailhouse, why's he being such a pantywaist about not letting our boys fire on mosques, why hasn't he levelled Fallujah. In other words, don't make the mistake of assuming that Bush's poll numbers on Iraq have fallen because people want him to be more multilateralist and accommodating. On my anecdotal evidence, they want him to be more robust and incendiary.
And evidently John Kerry's internal polling is telling him the same thing. Hence, his speech in Seattle on Friday: "This country is united in its determination to destroy you," he told the terrorists. "As commander in chief, I will bring the full force of our nation's power to bear on finding and crushing your networks. We will use every available resource to destroy you." Winning the Presidency isn't like winning the Palme d'Or, and Kerry, the ne plus ultra of weathervane politicians, seems to have figured there aren't enough votes in sounding like Michael Moore, Howard Dean or even Al Gore. With an eye to her own political viability, Hillary Clinton the other day demanded an expansion of the army.
Does Kerry mean it? Probably not. The tough talk's a cover for what would be a return to the ineffectual reactive national-security policy of the 1990s - "I have here a piece of paper from Kim Jong-Il," etc. If the media manage to drag the Senator, a very weak candidate, over the finishing line, it will be seen as a humiliating verdict on Bush's war. There will be no stomach for further neo-con adventuring. The House of Saud can relax and resume its buying off of al-Qaeda. Pakistan's ISI can get rid of General Musharraf. The IAEA can go back to sleep and let Iran get on with its nuclear programme. And, after months and months of experts telling them that they didn't have enough troops in Iraq, Washington will realise all the extra troops they needed are sitting around twiddling their thumbs in Europe, guarding against enemies who no longer exist on behalf of allies who are no longer allies.
Such a world would be a more dangerous place, but not necessarily for Americans. It is Europe that's closer and more vulnerable to terrorists, dysfunctional states and other enemies. That is why I'm a relatively relaxed hawk. The US may be forced to suffer the perception of defeat, but it is Europe that will live with the consequences. Be careful what you wish for.
With the Tucker Carlson / Carville news added.
It seems to me with the transition to sovereignty moving as scheduled, and the at-least-for-the-moment petering out of the Fallujah and Sadr insurrections, things are slowly moving in the right direction in Iraq. I don't understand why all this doom and gloom? Of course there will be violence and occasional setbacks, but this is a war in a righteous cause, and Pres. Bush never ever ever said it would be easy or quick.
If we fail in Iraq and bring our troops home,,,
Prepare for Parades in North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, China, etc.
Just break open a thesaurus, and you'll find Tucker's name listed as an alternative for "vagina."
I suggest we dedicate our time, effort and resources on efforts that make lasting change rather than fighting shadows,shills and dupes.
Oh, I agree, the Media is the real enemy and they see themselves as the 'real' government of the country, the one that endures as mere politicians come and go. The only way to effect them is economically - when their circulations and ratings decline they will cahnge (they are in business to make money after all).
It has not even been 15 months since the Iraq War began, these people should crack a history book once in awhile, the Iraq War has been and is a stunning success!
Could-not-possibly-have-put-it-better-myself Steyn BUMP!
All of these hand wringers do not have a clue. Thank the Lord they were not around on TV in 1943.
The media is the REAL enemy!
Yep - never any good news - always the bad.
Tucker Carlson is CNN's idea of a conservative, not mine.
I wish that the people who have an accurate take on what these type of "going well" poll numbers would just keep quiet.
If I didn't agree with a word of this piece, I'd still have to credit Steyn for getting "blow me" into the Jerusalem Post. I can't even say that at home!
I'm with you.
"It has not even been 15 months since the Iraq War began, these people should crack a history book once in awhile, the Iraq War has been and is a stunning success."
Yes it has. In fact, thanks to liberals (whom have a short memory) it is even a greater success. It was they, who predicted body-bags in the hundreds of thousands. These are the same people, who within the first few days of the conflict, turned a sandstorm in Iraq into a quagmire.
Even Afghanistan was suppose to be a failure, because...not even the great Soviet Army could tame that wilderness.
Each time the liberal doomsayers have lost ground, they've moved the goal-posts to somehow support their new positions. Even today, as the new government takes shape in Iraq, we hear cries of an American puppet regime. While Iraq has obvioulsy presented serious problems, it is no where near the disaster they've portrayed...nor the predictions they forecast.
In fact, I would argue that one of the reasons that Abu Ghraib was a front page story for 28-straight days is because the media is finding it more difficult to dig up negative stories, elsewhere. From the negotiations with al-Sadr and Najaf to Fullajah and the Sunni Triangle, things seem to be falling into place as the Iraqis actually begin to take control of their country. And it's telling that as they do, it is still the media that is looking for ANY fault to put on its front pages...just as they do today, calling into question the new government.
Oh, man, how I hate to disappoint you :)
It's a Britishism - short for "blow me down". Think Popeye. My sweet little elderly British mother-in-law says it, and I nearly swallow my tongue every time. One of these days, I'm going to burst out laughing, and I'll have to try to explain to her somehow...
Steyn undoubtedly knows who'll get the joke, and who won't. Like the editors.
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