Safire:"Saddam's Guerrillas" -implies those on Left Unpatriotic or stupid

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/opinion/21SAFI.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

"Saddam's Guerrillas"


< Patience is not an American virtue. Saddam anticipates that the antiwar minority -- furious at the unexpected ease of the U.S. victory and shrugging off findings of mass graves of Saddam's victims -- would turn a steady accretion of casualties among occupiers into dread visions of "quagmire.">

< He presumes that British and American journalists, after the obligatory mention that the world is better off with Saddam gone, would -- by their investigative and oppositionist nature -- sustain the credibility firestorm. By insisting that Bush deliberately lied about his reasons for pre-emption, and gave no thought to the cost of occupation, critics would erode his poll support and encourage political opponents -- eager to portray victory as defeat -- to put forward a leave-Iraq-to-the-Iraqis candidate.>

(eroding support for the current occupant of the White House will) "encourage political opponents -- eager to portray victory as defeat -- to put forward a leave-Iraq-to-the-Iraqis candidate

"Drop the premature conclusion that if we can't yet find proof of the destructive weapons, they never existed. That's like saying because we haven't found Osama or Saddam, those killers never existed,"

My comment: Are these devious, stupid or convoluted reasoning?- or all three?

No one disputes that Weapons of Mass Destruction have existed in Saddam Hussein's arsenal - but did they exist in the present - was the danger "imminent" and could there be "mushroom" clouds over Manhattan if Bush waited.

Who would ever be furious over "the unexpected ease of the U.S. victory"? Patriotic folks are only on the right? The U.N. inspectors said they needed a few months to complete their work --Bush maintained he or we could not wait that long. The people in the mass graves certainly needed to have their deaths revealed and their murderers brought to justice, but there was no imminent danger to us from those mass graves.

[w13rd0]

1. Safire is a desperate shithead...

...practicing his skills at "real-time revisionism". No jackass, we are pissed because we were RIGHT about what we said BEFORE THE WAR! And we were DISMISSED as a focus group. Bush lied, no real thought was given to postwar planning other than the securing of oil fields, and Bush's apologists are now excusing shameful behavior (an order of magnitude far greater in severity) they claimed to be outraged by...

Astonishing, they just won't stop lying.

[Cha]

2. Stupid Stupid Stupid safire...he didn't want this war at one point

either. We will have our Voices heard and the safires of the World can go suck elephant eggs for all I care?

[GOPFighter]

3. Typical conservative

He was in his early 20s during the Korean conflict, but didn't serve (went to Syracuse instead). Wrote speaches for Nixon, and has never recovered. Conservative writers and pundits are ordained by God to demonize the left, not search for truth. Safire makes a good living writing drivel like this and presumably loves his Bush admin tax-cut and is looking forward to more to come.

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Nice Strawman.

Good use of 'slipery slope'.
Excellent implied 'ad hominem'.
Very good 'after the fact' logic.

I give him a 95% for his 'improper use of rhetoric' grade.

[ilpostino]

5. My letter to Safire

We’ll indulge you your whimsical ventures into Nixon’s brain since you worked for the guy some time back in the last century. But don’t you think you’re overreaching a bit to conduct a similar reading of Saddam Hussein’s mind since you never met the thug and have yet to demonstrate any understanding of him beyond typical armchair general cant? I’ve seen the tape of Gen Abizaid’s admission that we’re now engaged in guerrilla war in Iraq, but I’m afraid I missed that breath wherein he mentioned guerrilla war and Saddam Hussein at the same time. I thought the days of journalistic improv at the Times were a thing of the past. And now I see Bremer’s statement that Saddam Hussein is not behind the guerrilla attacks, rendering your incursion behind the enemy mind more mooter still.

(Note: the grammatically incorrect close was a little fingernail over the blackboard action for the punctillious idiot)

[Sushi_lover]

6. his examples of troop losses conveniently forgets Beirut

He would lose his faithful sheep if he mentioned any of Reagan's catastrophes.

[Ready4Change]

7. Hasn't Safire noticed...?

Hasn't Safire noticed that our brave/bold leaders have declared that there is no guerrilla war, and therefore Saddam can't have any Guerrillas?

I think he isn't listen to our leaders with rapture as any self respecting patriot should. Maybe he needs to report for reconditioning?

[jafap]

8. are we really that desperate for reading material

that we would stoop to reading Safire? Try the Counterpunch website instead. Safire is not worth reading, and trying to explain his twisted logic to him is extremely unlikely to work.

He does make the point that I have always felt will make Bush hard to nail on the WMD issue. How do you a) prove that they are not there? and b) prove that Bush knew or should have known that they are not there? Not that I do not want to see him nailed, but it is too easy for his defenders to say - "just because we haven't found them, does not mean they were not there." Now Bush keeps saying "he had a weapons program" as if that was what he claimed as a reason for invasion - "a program" rather than "a stockpile". "Saddam must disarm, and if he does not, we will lead a coalition to disarm him." He said that over and over, but how do you disarm a program?

[wellst0nev0ter]

9. Pot, Meet Kettle; Kettle Meet Pot

Clinton's Compulsion

We have a President who has a problem: he lies when he doesn't really have to.
This mysterious compulsion is not to be confused with the rational falsehood. His finger-wagging denial of a sexual relationship last year was designed to cut off further inquiry, and he could logically assume at the time he would not be contradicted by hard evidence. It was a calculated deception by a well-ordered brain.

The deceptions this year are different. Not only were the misleading statements made about the weightiest matters -- war and national security -- no purpose was served in uttering them.



via http:www.billmon.org