Posted on 11/08/2004 9:37:29 AM PST by tpaine
The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/weekinreview/07kirk.html? ex=1100877650&ei=1&en=1003a79efbe25be2
November 7, 2004 The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ROUND 8 p.m. Tuesday, a gloomy mood was settling over the dozen conservative stalwarts gathered with martinis and glasses of red wine in an office in Arlington, Va., to watch the returns. Early exit polls showed President Bush trailing, and Richard Viguerie, dean of conservative direct mail, thought he knew who was to blame: the neoconservatives, the group associated with making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
"If he loses, they are going to have a bull's-eye on their back," Mr. Viguerie said.
Ronald Godwin, a top aide to Dr. Jerry Falwell, agreed. "I see a real battle for the Republican Party starting about Nov. 3," he said.
The euphoria of Mr. Bush's victory postponed the battle, but not for long. Now that Mr. Bush has secured re-election, some conservatives who say they held their tongues through the campaign season are speaking out against the neoconservatives, against the war and in favor of a speedy exit.
They argue that the war is a political liability to the Republican Party, but also that it runs counter to traditional conservatives' disdain for altruist interventions to make far-off parts of the world safe for American-style democracy. Their growing outspokenness recalls the dynamics of American politics before Vietnam, when Democrats first became identified as doves and Republicans hawks, suggesting to some the complicated political pressures facing the foreign policy of the second Bush administration.
"Clearly, the war in Iraq was a drag on votes, and it is threatening to the Bush coalition," said Grover Norquist president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the administration who had not spoken up about the war's political costs before. He contended that the war reduced Mr. Bush's majority by 6 percentage points to 51 percent of the vote. Mr. Bush now has two years to "solve Iraq" to protect Republican candidates at the midterm elections, he said. His suggestions: withdrawing United States troops to safe citadels within Iraq or by "handing Falluja over to the Iraqis and saying, 'It's your headache.' "
On Thursday, Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, issued a call to conservatives for a serious debate about the administration's foreign policy. "The consequences of the neocons' adventure in Iraq are now all too clear," he said. "America is stuck in a guerrilla war with no end in sight. Our military is stretched too thin to respond to other threats. And our real enemies, nonstate organizations such as Al Qaeda, are benefiting from the Arab and Islamic backlash against our occupation of an Islamic country."
Proponents of the war, however, argued that Mr. Bush would not have won re-election without it because Americans did not want to change the commander in chief. "Bush's foreign policy decisions seem to have been exactly why he won this huge victory that he did," said the neoconservative David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He argued that candidates who opposed the war - Gov. Howard Dean the most, and Senator John Kerry to a lesser extent - suffered the biggest losses. IF the Democrats have silenced some of their loudest complaints about the war, however, some on the right said they were turning up the volume on their own previously muted objections.
"A lot of the antiwar conservatives had to hold their tongue during the campaign because the No. 1 goal was to get Bush re-elected," said Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and an important conservative fund-raiser.
Even on the eve of the election, William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review, was decorously edging closer to full-throated opposition to the war. "At War With What or Whom?'' was the headline of his column on Oct. 19.
A few months ago, Donald Devine, a vice chairman of the American Conservative Union, publicly apologized to Mr. Bush after it was reported that in disgust at the war he had failed to applaud a presidential speech. But in a column shortly before the election, Mr. Devine wrote that conservatives should vote for Mr. Bush precisely because he was likely to withdraw from Iraq sooner than Senator Kerry would.
Arguing that the president had dropped hints like a quickly retracted statement in a television interview about the impossibility of winning a war against terror, Mr. Devine argued that "the president's maddening repetition of slogans" about the war was the "only politically possible tactic for a candidate who has already made up his mind to leave at the earliest reasonable moment." He added: "The neoconservatives will be devastated."
But Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, dismissed those theories, pointing to the president's statement in his post-election news conference that troops would stay in Iraq as long as needed: "Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions," the president said.
Courtesy of Bill Clinton and the democrat party.
stop POSTING TO ME
I cant stand your disregard for the truth!!!
stop POSTING TO ME you pathetic loser
ANYONE that would start a thread about whats right or wrong about our Armed Forces being in Iraq on the day of the LARGEST battle so far, where some are dying, has no morals or integrity... you are irrevelent....SHUT UP
Yes, unfortunately that's true and that's why we should never shut up about Norquist or the other closeted Copperheads or Bush's reference to Islam as the religion of peace.
• "Thats why I support the Bush decision to establish bases in Iraq, and fight terrorism from them until we win."
Yes, until we win.
• "Yes indeed. We're in the right place, and we intend to stay there."
At least with some number of forces, until the GWOT terror is successfully concluded.
• "Policing rival tribal factions in Iraq is 'the black flag battlefield'? Can you elaborate on that point?"
My reference to the Islamic "black flag battle to the death", meant that when the terrorists (not necessarily meaning rival tribal factions) collectively declared war upon America, prior to 9-11, they did so with the intention of fighting a no-holds-barred battle until either they were victorious or until their last man falls and taking no prisoners along the way. They will not negotiate, they will not surrender, they will not agree to any peace short of total victory against the West. We have only three choices: We can fight them today with conventional weapons or we can fight them tomorrow with nukes or we can surrender. There are no other choices.
--Boot Hill
I happen to think Norquists suggestions about withdrawing United States troops to "safe citadels within Iraq" and/or "handing Falluja over to the Iraqis and saying, 'It's your headache.' " --- is the rational solution to the problem. One that Bush will soon follow.
Why should we care if Iraqis kill each other in tribal squabbles? They've been doing it for centuries.
Norquists suggestions: withdrawing United States troops to safe citadels within Iraq or by "handing Falluja over to the Iraqis and saying, 'It's your headache.' "
Yes, unfortunately that's true and that's why we should never shut up about Norquist or the other closeted Copperheads or Bush's reference to Islam as the religion of peace.
Bush is trying to end a war against terrorists, not incite a religious crusade.
The four rules of terrorism that the Copperhead pukes need to learn: There is no such thing as international terrorism that is NOT state sponsored. No exceptions.
Thats why I support the Bush decision to establish bases in Iraq, and fight terrorism from them until we win.
Yes, until we win.
Good to see you agree.
There is virtually NO Islamic state that does not sponsor terrorism.
Thats why we are in Iraq, in the middle of them.
If you go to war with one Islamic terrorist organization or terror sponsoring state, you've gone to war with all of them. No exceptions.
Yes indeed. We're in the right place, and we intend to stay there.
At least with some number of forces, until the GWOT terror is successfully concluded.
Again you agree. Nice.
Terrorists have chosen to make their war a black flag battle to the death, they can only be defeated on the battlefield.
Policing rival tribal factions in Iraq is "the black flag battlefield"? Can you elaborate on that point?
My reference to the Islamic "black flag battle to the death", meant that when the terrorists (not necessarily meaning rival tribal factions) collectively declared war upon America, prior to 9-11, they did so with the intention of fighting a no-holds-barred battle until either they were victorious or until their last man falls and taking no prisoners along the way. They will not negotiate, they will not surrender, they will not agree to any peace short of total victory against the West. We have only three choices: We can fight them today with conventional weapons or we can fight them tomorrow with nukes or we can surrender. There are no other choices. --Boot Hill
So, do you have a point that counters any of mine?
You've been preaching to the choir, Bootie.
OMG. I am rather surprised by this article. The war in Iraq is about terrorism regardless of the leftist spin which obviously has been adopted by the so called pure conservatives. I thought it was only the socialists on the left who didn't get it. Guess I was wrong.
No one "here"? I was not discussing anyone on FR. I was discussing the article.
Love your screenname and your post.
Oh no! The ranks of the Paleo So Called Conservatives (PSCCs) are multiplying! At this rate, they'll match the influence of the Libertarian Party by 2124!
Their site is usually pretty active, with at least four or five anti-Bush stories each week. Strangely, they haven't posted anything new since the election. Depression or a binder I expect.
It would be not their headache but their suicide. You read the stories about how we are teaching these ragtag armies how not to get run over by tanks?
This cannot, this must not be another Vietnam, where punches were constantly pulled because of spaghetti spined politicians.
These 'conservatives' sound an awful lot like liberals who favor weak national defense and fail to understand what the War on Terror is about.
:)
The problem was, he addressed the comment to me and missed on both counts.
1. I'm less a libertarian than a social conservative at this point. Call me a Straussian without the cynicism.
2. With a college degree and some graduate study, I am not an "autodidact", either. Calling someone who's read a few books an "autodidact" is an insult, which was the whole point. That's why I didn't respond.
I didn't mean to imply that you WERE an autodidact; I just found it amusing that he considered such an apellation damning!
Despite the 7 years I spent in university, I certainly have read more than several times as much since I left the academy than I did while in attendance.
Every well-educated person is an autodidact, by necessity. ;^)
The Asgard must have been pissed!
Or something like that.
Check the zot -- global glowing craters where Laughing Boy was just standing.
Never curse the Asgard.
I've heard Ex-lax is good for your type of ailment, tpaine.
I've heard Ex-lax is good for your type of ailment, tpaine.
It's been said a good dose of kaopectate could do wonders for yours.
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