Wow. 0wn3d indeed.
It all makes for a pretty good Onion point/counterpoint:
“No Blood for Oil” by Billy Johnson
“For God’s Sake, Please Commence the Attack on Saddam’s Clique” by Abdel Hassam
No speakers. :?
LOL… this is so typical of anti-war protesters. They have NO ANSWER for the Iraqi people, which 99.9% of them want Saddam killed so he can no longer torture and murder the citizens of Iraq.
SHUT UP YOU CHIRPING BIRD.
Thanks so much for this, made my day.
Did they cover “we’ve alienated the entire world with our shitty diplomacy, and god only knows the post-war occupation will turn out alright, what with it being seen as an imperialistic occupation”?
Not knowing the format of the radio station, I thought the DJ was pretty evenhanded with both sides, and gave the “little bird” many chances to elaborate on her position (which she proved unable to do)
As it is, the lady’s lack of real response to the question of how “promoting international peace and justice will remove Saddam" shows the exact tack the Bush administration should have taken to minimize or eliminate much of the criticism of its position.
Oh no we alienated the French. They hate us anyway!
Oh no we alienated the Germans. They whole world hates them!
Oh no we alienated the Russians. Hopefully next time we won’t bail them out of severe economic depression.
The UN can’t even enforce the resolutions THEY pass (1441) so why should we abide by them?
Jason, SHUT UP YOU CHIRPING BIRD
That anyone is saying this right now (and I’m not disagreeing that this is the perception in many people’s minds) shows just how badly the Bush adminstration fucked up on the “selling” of this war. This should have been a slam-dunk for an admistration who takes having the “moral imperative” seriously. Doubly so for any adminstration with Colin Powell in it. That the adminstration is in the perdicament that it is in now smacks of lazyness.
“That the adminstration is in the perdicament that it is in now smacks of lazyness.”
arrogance
Exactly. Nobody debates the fact that Saddam is a brutal despot. Why we couldn’t build a compelling case for war against such an obvious, easy target is anyone’s guess.
Somehow, we actually managed to make Saddam look like the victim in this exchange. What the fuck, man.
Actually I think you’re wrong. I think the Bush administration underestimated the stupidity of a small percentage the American people. Logic clearly shows that doing nothing in Iraq does nothing to stop the atrocities Saddam continues to cause to his own people. Logic clearly shows that UN mandates issued in 1991 are not being upheld. Logic clearly shows that Saddam, his funds, his terrorist camps, and his weapons are a threat to the American people.
So, I don’t think it was arrogance. It was a naive hope that all Americans are intelligent and can clearly see logical connections.
Ah, the old “everyone else is stupid” rebuttal. COMPELLING!
Well, I think the U.S. and the U.K. grossly underestimated the opposition they would face, both internationally and domestically. I doubt Blair would have risked this venture, had he known the position he has ended up in now.
There are many different reasons why the opposition to the war has grown this big, IMO. They’re not all good reasons, but they’re not all bad, either.
Damn it. Twice today. That’s me, being vague, above.
Exactamundo. It’s why, as Jason indicated, there’s not a lot of people in the world who believe that the U.S. can do a good job rebuilding Iraq after changing the regime, even if those folks would otherwise think regime change was a good thing. And even domestic dissent is extremely high.
It’s difficult to fathom how this administration has done such a poor job justifying their case (and just plainly explaining their goals, in a consistent manner), that they’ve managed to mobilize worldwide opposition to the U.S. on a scale not previously seen before.
They really blew it, but I hope they can redeem themselves by executing their plans far more effectively than they could explain or justify them to an audience that (after 9/11) should have been extremely receptive (especially given the nature of the opposing regime).
OOOHHH PLEASE! 99% of this protest bullshit is just ‘We hate Bush so anything he does is evil and corrupt’ If the C.H.U.D.S. finally emerged from their subterranean lairs and started goring us, people would throw themselves bodily onto a C.H.U.D. spear before they allowed Bush to make any kind of retaliation. We’d see C.H.U.D.S. eating entire Wiccan quilting bees while they chanted ‘No war against C.H.U.D.S. for oil!!!’
100% of these protester’s messages can be distilled down to ‘We hate Bush.’ I’m starting to like the guy just because of this.
It has NOTHING to do with how Bush ‘sold’ this war, just that he is Bush.
I agree completely.
If the adminstration had worked on the diplomatic side more before ramping the military side up to a peak then we might have been able to go in with a UN resolution. It might have cost 6 or 8 months but I think it would have still been okay to wait those few months.
Hopefully though when/if they find huge caches of weapons of mass destruction then the diplomatic wounds will be significantly healed as we jump up and down and scream “I told you so”. Of course, if they aren’t found then Bush won’t have much chance at re-election.
I don’t think the administration fucked up the “selling” of this war. Fact of the matter is most of the opposition was not buying and never would. With so much of the domestic dissent it’s “I hate Bush and everything he does”. This is not a reasonable or pliable position. That kind of a person can’t be convinced, so it’s useless to complain about the pitch. Abroad so much of it is simply anti-American obstructionism or we want to keep making money off of Saddam. Short of finding videotape of Saddam personally planting a nuclear car bomb on Jaque Chirac’s limo there’s little we ever could have done to convince France to get on board. And when it devolved into a bidding war for security council vote the “case” hadn’t mattered for a very long time.
Sure the Bush administration’s PR leaves something wanting, but to say it was his failure to sell things properly assumes that the prize was even up for grabs in the first place.
In the interest of full disclosure it should be pointed out that “Mohammad,” the Iraqi defector, may not even be from another country at all.
http://travellingshoes.blogspot.com/#90895879
I don’t think it much matters, though. What’s more important is what is coming out of the other side. Or rather, what’s not.