Posted on 06/18/2007 6:53:32 AM PDT by teddyballgame
Politically, the "war on terror" continues to be a useful GOP bumper sticker, whatever John Edwards's objections. Instead of bemoaning this, Democrats need their own bumper stickersome way of framing their position that commits firmly to withdrawal from Iraq, but doesn't make them look like surrender monkeys. Without it, they have no coherent policy.
History can help. In 1993 and 1994, President Clinton developed a policy called "lift and strike" in the Balkanslift the arms embargo against Bosnia and strike Serbian positions to prevent ethnic cleansing. The approach was inconsistently applied, which hindered its effectiveness. But at least it was a policy.
Now, Democrats should embrace what I like to call "pull and strike"
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
So he thinks carpet bombing areas where Al-Qaeda might be is a strategy Democrats should now pursue? I’d like so see them explain that to the moonbats. ;-)
1) This guy is on a quest for a better bumper sticker. That's what Democrats think leadership is all about. Pathetic.
2) Are the Qaeda positions in Sunni areas and in Afghanstan readily accessible via Mapquest? Can we just look 'em up and then bomb them? Or does boots on the ground make it somewhat easier to find these targets? Hmmmmm?
“Whine, Wimper & Withdraw” would work nicely for the RATS
Yeah, style over substance. We had 8 years of it with Bubba.
Plays right into Laura Ingraham’s point that liberals have nothing to offer beyond a bumper sticker mentality.
Jonathan Alter is a moron, clearly he got his military diplomas from a box of cracker jack.
Stike from bases outside of Iraq? How’s that going to work? Unless he means carpet bombing of entire cities and taking the fight to Syria and Iran, his plan has less than zero chance of success.
“Pull & Strike”? How ‘bout “Sit & Rotate”
“This guy is on a quest for a better bumper sticker. That’s what Democrats think leadership is all about. Pathetic.” ~ ClearCase_Guy
Pathetic is the word.
“...people get hooked on leftist prescraptions, and require more and more of them in order to stay asleep, just like an addict.
Furthermore, just as in a mental patient, the more unpleasant reality impinges, the more denial is necessary. Terrorists want to blow up JFK? It’s Bush’s fault. Zzzzzz. We now see that some one third of Democrats have created a nightmare in which the United States government is actually responsible for 9-11. As it stands, it is probably fair to say that 90% of Democrats believe that the Iraq war was not waged for the reasons so stated by the administration, but for some sinister ulterior purpose that no sane person has yet been able to describe.
I am currently reading an outstanding book entitled A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900, which attempts to be a corrective to all of the noxious deconstruction that really got under way in the 1960s. Back then they called it “revisionist history,” which sounds innocent enough but which in reality was highly agenda driven, and attempted to rewrite history in such a way that the English speaking peoples were the bad guys rather than the (literally and repeatedly) saviors of history.
It is interesting how easy it is to trace the roots of today’s crazy leftists in a straight line back to their academonic source. For once history is deconstructed, it is very difficult to put it back together again. Thus, the left is operating in an upside down world first made possible by the early revisionists who, among other things, argued that America’s founders were just a bunch of greedy white males protecting their economic interests, or that capitalism is pure exploitation instead of an extraordinary liberator of human potential, or that the colonized did not benefit from colonialism, or that America was at fault in the Cold War, or that Roosevelt’s economic policies helped rather than aggravated and prolonged the great depression, or that poverty causes crime, or that it was wrong to drop the atom bomb on imperial Japan. These and similar ideas proliferated exactly like a toxin, infecting all of the academic rivers and then flowing downhill into the streams of journalism and politics. When some nutty academic sneezes, rank and file Democrats cognitively die off in droves.
What is so striking about the book is how America has remained constant, while the left has changed so dramatically — and gained so much cultural power. For example, there is absolutely no moral difference — none whatsoever — between the way Roosevelt responded to the fascist threat of his day and the way President Bush is responding the fascist threat of our day. The only difference is that America’s motivations have been so undermined by the left, that it is as if we are dealing with two entirely different countries. But when did the “good” America of Roosevelt and the “greatest generation” transmogrify into the evil America of President Bush? It never did. Again, it is exactly the same profoundly decent country. Only the left has changed.
Actually, one other thing that has changed — for the worse — is how utterly ruthless men such as Churchill and Roosevelt were in pursuit of their war aims. President Bush doesn’t even come close (although one senses that Giuliani could resurrect a bit of this higher ruthlessness). I don’t have time to provide examples, but suffice it to say that it boggles the mind how completely ahistorical the left is in this regard. Now, because of the influence of the left, it is almost impossible for us to be as ruthless as we need to be in order to prevail in the struggle against our enemies — who do not see our lack of ruthlessness as civility but weakness and lack of resolve. Which it is — that and self-hatred.
If it had come out in 1943 that some German or Japanese soldiers had been mistreated in an American prison camp, I cannot believe that any American would have wasted two seconds thinking about it. So. What. Whatever we did could never approach the barbarity of the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets. And besides, context is everything. There is no moral equivalence whatsover between what America and her enemies do, any more than there is an equivalence between the police and criminals just because they both shoot people.
It is obscene to call waterboarding a terrorist to obtain information that will save innocent lives torture. Absolutely morally obscene. To call Gitmo a “gulag” represents a kind of moral stupidity that is satanic in its implications. One of the most horrific consequences of leftist thought insinuating itself into our discourse it that it prevents one from speaking simple moral truths. It undermines everything — not just morality, but even the ability to speak about morality. I believe this is because, following Descartes, it elevates our capacity to doubt to the highest wisdom. Thus, it ends up with cynicism as the highest ideal: a philosophy of stupidity, including moral stupidity. ...” ~ Robert W.Godwin, Ph.D (A clinical psychologist whose interdisciplinary work has focused on the relationship between contemporary psychoanalysis, chaos theory, and quantum physics.) bttt
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/search?q=democrats
The most important turning point of the war since the fall of Saddam in 2003 has been occurring in the last six weeks when the Sunni Arabs has begun the major rebellion against Al Qaeda all over Iraq. Al Qaeda terrorist just lost their most important line of defense which was the support and shelter provided by the Sunnis population. Now that the terrorists do not have it anymore, it is all over for them, our troops will annihilate at a very fast rate.
In six t nine months form now, the whole world will realize that America won the war, and that Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and their terrorist proxies are utterly defeated in Iraq.
God bless our brave troops.
Any position we can find now, with an abundance of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets on the ground, is being struck. Servicing targets is NOT a problem. Finding attackable targets is. Pulling back forces will create a targeting vacuum and Al Queda will spread like cancer. No creditability in this piece at all.
Alter and the rats can “Blow it out their sorry anti-American ass.” How’s that?
My new Congresscritter, Patrick Murphy, was elected solely on an anti-war platform, campaigning with traitors Jack Murtha and John Kerry and even Cindy Sheehan. He has gotten tons of free publicity as “the only Iraq war veteran in the Congress” but otherwise hasn’t done a damn thing for this district except cosponsor a silly bill with Barack Obama. I have started raining his offices with emails and calls and letters demanding to know why he has not ended the war yet. Everyone who lives ina a district that the Dems took from a Republican last fall should start doing the same. Make these jackasses feel the heat!
I would be embarrassed if I worked for Newsweek.
...PULL and PERISH....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.