A couple of heavyweight academics, successful writers, yada, yada, yada.
Now I know for sure Sullivan needs no defense ---- but Podhoretz reads like a real Dick.
The argument, as we all know now to be utter Bullshit, is that the war in Iraq was Necessary for the safety of American lives (Bush Doctrine,) Going to be quick and easy (liberators, flowers etc. so said Mr. Cheney on MTP) and essentially Humanitarian in nature so as to free all the poor Iraqi people suppressed by an evil dictatorship. We were sold this piece of shit rationale by the Neoconservatives history will record.
Here's the truth about Neoconservatism and Iraq in a nutshell: Keep Fighting in Iraq to maintain pressure on Iranian and Syrian governments, but also to provide a forum as a broadly swathed Ultimate Fighting ring to take on the Jihadists, and the general overall U.S. haters of all sorts from all sorts of places. That the U.S. has moved beyond the sissy Rooseveltian "Gunboat Diplomacy" but is actually willing to maintain a state of perpetual war. Negotiating is weakness. Abiding to treaties? Weakness.
Now back to the tiff between the heavyweights. The attack on Sullivan, whom I do not always agree with, is that this passage from Sullivan contains errors:
We patiently listened as neocons told us that the Palestinians are too dysfunctional a people ever to have democratic rights or their own state, but that the the ancient sectarian warfare of Iraq can be transformed in a few years!…I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time, because it offered an interesting critique of what’s wrong with the Middle East, and seemed to have the only coherent strategic answer to the savagery of 9/11. I now realize that the answer - the permanent occupation of Iraq - was absurdly utopian and only made feasible by exploiting the psychic trauma of that dreadful day. The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right.
TO which Podhoretz reaches deep to say that
In fact, neoconservatives were and remain the most determined supporters of George W. Bush’s June 24, 2002 speech in which he said specifically that the United States would accept a Palestinian state just so long as that state was a democratic one.
Was I on drugs when their election was held, Hamas wins, and then we said - well that doesn't really count? I don't recall them being the only party on the ticket either.
Then this from J. Pod:
Others — Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan most prominently — did argue that we had prepared inadequately for the occupation, and that we needed far more troops.
I'm of the belief that if you put Bill Kristol in sentence you have to include the word Douche. To base any argument with Bill Kristol -Douche - as your protagonist is beyond hysterical.
Then the kicker from J. Pod:
Andrew Sullivan no longer is interested in winning in Iraq, in fact is probably quietly eager for a defeat there, doubtless out of a combination of a certain degree of conviction, a ravenous hunger for leftist Web traffic, and because having decided a few years ago he’d picked the wrong horse in supporting it, he finds it unbearable to imagine that the wrong horse may prove to be the right horse after all.
Now I take this personal. First off - Victory in Iraq? Victory? Please show me how many "Victories" there are in our Modern History of defeating an enemy that has no uniform, no flag, and no territory? I can -- The slaughter of the Native Americans and the Aboriginals. Is that what would define a victory? Slaughter them all? That anyone who believes this is all of a sudden a wussy leftist feeding from the trough of Sullivan?
He just cannot admit the reality of a forever misunderstood region - that might is not going to solve the problem, that the revolt('s), if there ever is going to be one, will come from within itself.
I would leave this final question to J. Pod:
If rockets stop firing into Israel, will Israel suddenly become a dove? Or will they harbor their animosity? It has to be peace in what the people really want bottom line. Let the people have what they want. Get back to thinking on how to improve the Oslo accord asUri Savir believes it can be.
The ultimate lesson we can glean from Oslo's limitations is that an enduring peace must be built from the bottom up, not from the top down. Instead of relying on the same archaic peacemaking strategy we've used for centuries – and which was reflected in the Oslo process – we can embrace a new model based on nurturing mutually beneficial forms of cooperation on the local level, as well as between cities and organizations.
What do I know---I read The Daily Dish.
No comments:
Post a Comment