Posted on 11/30/2006 5:06:15 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
It's hard to be a sunny optimist when considering the situation at Iraq. Things are tough, no doubt. That said, was Today, the show whose NBC News parent famously declared "civil war" earlier this week, giving us a fair-and-balanced view of matters this morning when the only expert we heard from expressed the most unalloyed pessimism on Iraqi prospects?
Meredith Vieira interviewed Richard Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and former principal adviser to then Secretary of State Colin Powell. At the end of their conversation, Vieira summed up Haas's views this way: "You do not believe that there is anything about the situation that is winnable, I take it."
Haas concurred: "You take it correctly." He went on to paint the situation as a "colossal foreign policy error," the consequences of which we will be living with for years.
See video here.
But Ali Aldabbagh, chief spokesman to Prime Minister Maliki, recently opined to me in Baghdad that the current sectarian violence is being directed from politically-motivated leaders down to the people, not up to the leaders from the people. If that is true, and if efforts to bring those leaders into the political fold succeed, is there not at least some hope for a peaceful conclusion? 'Today' certainly didn't let us hear from anyone expressing such a view.
Finkelstein recently returned from Iraq. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
Pessimistic-Today-show ping.
Why keeping watching this crap???? Better to write a few letters to its sponsors objecting to their bias and letting them know you are dropping their product until the bias is removed.
I just heard Bing West on Washington Journal. He said that every battalion in Iraq now has a lawyer with it telling them what they can and cannot do. If that is so, we will never win a war again.
The interesting thing about these "experts" is that they don't mention one optimistic point. Yes, the Sunnis are attacking the Shias, but it's not just random attacks on Shias. They are focused on al Sadr and his followers.
al Sadr is an enemy of the US, and has been responsible for a lot of the violence in Iraq. Let the Sunnis finish off al Sadr, and things will calm down, I think.
A Lauer Certified Civil War as Tony Snow Does the Dipsy Doodle Linguistic Precision Dance Around the Term Civil War
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KVU0VuztZZE
Funny clip from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.
Now that is very interesting! And yes... it seems to me it holds some promise.
I didn't know you were in Iraq! Wow! :) Glad you made it back safely.
Ah yes, the blame america firsters are at it again. Funny how they ignore the AQ in Iraq fomenting this violence. Heaven forbid that the media/democrats actually place the blame on the real enemy; nope, they are happy to blame it all on President Bush. Pathetic bunch of whimps and anti-american, anti-troop, pro-terrorist propagandists. Mark Levin had it right last night when he said he would no longer refer to reporters (talking about NBC) as reporters, but rather as the propagandists they are.
Given our governments' inability to deal with hostile leaders like al-Sadr and the like, or weak leaders like al-Maliki, it would seem that hope in that regard would be misplaced.
Arguably, it would be better if the leaders wanted peace, and the people wanted violence. Thinking of Iraqis as people just like us is deceptive. They're not. They like strong, visionary leaders, and distrust common sense or grassroots approaches. So, they may want peace and quiet on an individual level, but they still look at their leadership like they do the weather. It does what it wants, and they have to adapt to it. It's vastly easier in Iraq for leaders to make the people obey, than for the people to make their leaders obey.
The 'majority' of Iraqis are war-mongering, barbaric neanderthals who have been butchering each other and their neighbors since man first recorded history, and they have never even stopped to take a breath. Tribalism, religious factionalism, civil war, medievalism, American-haters; call them whatever you want, but nobody with an informed, reasonable, rational mind can claim that these "people" are not violent to their core, or that if America pulls out they won't slaughter each other to the last man, woman and child. This is who and what they are. Iraqis are not deserving of freedom and democracy, and the time to leave Iraq to the Iraqi people is long overdue. Let them sort out their own problems. These sub-human butchers in Iraq are not deserving of one single drop of American blood.
America prayed to and trusted in God throughout our history, and we prospered. Let Iraqis pray to and trust "allah".
Yea....let's nuke em!
Just to be the devil's advocate:
Perhaps that "expert" was mostly correct given the weak and spindly spine of the American public, given the "surrender slowly attitude" of many of our politicians, and given the daily gloomy reports from Iraq from the ruthlessly anti-American, liberal, socialist old media.
Maybe the "expert" was right ....... given the climate of WEAKNESS AND FAILURE.
****
And I'd like to say this ....... this President and administration have ASKED FOR NEARLY NO SACRIFICE from the general public in this "war on terror" (as during WWII), which will most likely last for at least a decade or more.
The President is a major failure in communicating the need for any REAL COMMITMENT of the general population. How can anyonre take this war seriously if they are not asked to make sacrifices?
****
Along those lines:
The United Nation was created to see that America never would win another war.......... ever.
Good question, I noticed that too ........ and, are those SPIKED HEELS on her feet? What kind of shoes are those for a serious news person?
I actually thought it was Katie at first.
Good point! Katie always seemed to wear shoes like that.
Yes .. there are some problems in certain areas of Iraq
But the WHOLE country is NOT in a civil war
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.