Tristero at Hullabaloo has dinner with a "liberal hawk":
"No, no, let me ask you a question. How come you, a musician, maybe a good one, maybe a well-read one, but a musician with no training in affairs of state - how come you of all people were right about Iraq but the most respected, most experienced, most intelligent, most serious thinkers in the United States got it wrong?"
"That is a question I ask myself every day, because it scares the daylights out of me," I replied.
My eyes started to tear up and the winter of 02/03 raced through my head. That awful sense of dissociation watching every American media outlet try to outdo its rivals by printing lies, the unspeakable dread as I watched my country willingly go over the abyss. The shock of realizing that nearly everyone I knew had bought the myth of the Good War and that nothing I could say or do, nothing anyone could say or do could change their mind. It was too late.
I tried to say more, but I couldn't, and then the subject changed and the dinner went on. We have a liberal hawk who used to post a fair amount here at Digital Media Tree, and I had some lively debates with him during that period when America was going off a cliff. Unlike tristero's hawk, he didn't question my credentials to question the war, but he did a lot of scaremongering. "What if Saddam nuked the Saudi oil fields?" "Saddam or Osama (I forget which boogeyman) wants to establish a New Caliphate and rule the Middle East!" (Or words to that effect.) What it came down to was he believed ex-CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack about Iraq, and I believed ex-UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who had been in the country and said it had no weapons of mass destruction. Also, unlike tristero's defensive hawk, the Tree's hawk doesn't continue to defend his judgment. He's just been very quiet the past couple of years. It's a shame--he's a bright, knowledgeable guy and I miss our debates.
Richard Perle was on the Frankin show yesterday. I caught just a bit. (AM radio is useless in the mountains.) Perle is not a (completely) stupid man, and he is willing to criticize some aspects of Bush's (and his) war. But he still fails to get it.
Perle insisted that the invasion was done right, but the aftermath was done wrong. Frankin tried to help Perle realize that the aftermath was a result of the invasion planning (or lack thereof). The problems with breakdown of order, raiding of ammo dumps, and insurgency were all there from the beginning.
And this wasn't even getting to the issue of the lies and fearmongering that were used to whip up a public frenzy for an entirely unnecessary invasion.
I lost the signal, so I don't know if Frankin was able to dislodge the dense layer of stupid surrounding the rational part of Perle's brain.
I think there needs to be a real day of reckoning for the cheerleaders, esp. the pundit class, who were cheerleaders for this misbegotten war. Richard Cohen is complaining about an email kerfuffle. In bygone days, the response would have involved: tar, feather, rail. Now that would be uncivil.
I've mentioned before, I think, Steve Gilliard's theory that the Washington sniper had a lot to do with the chemistry of the moment. That even though Muhammed and Malmo weren't al Qaeda by a long shot (sorry for the cruel pun) they contributed to the fear frenzy that got the pundit class all whipped up for Bush's war. ("DC isn't safe for our big hair! Horrors!") That sounds right to me, but doesn't explain the NY Times dutifully running the "departing troops hugging their loved ones" photos as if the whole thing was a fait accompli. That I ascribe to a cynical desire to sell papers. All the more reason head Times folk need to be included in the tarring and feathering party.
im not buying richard perles lament. thats the same tripe you hear from his neocon brethern, particularly kristol and stealth neocon mccain. they were the same people crowing about cakewalks in the lead up to war. perle was head of the defense advisory board; why wasnt he had crying about lack of planning then? just part of their blame somebody else pathology (i actually typed plame instead of blame). but at least perle has balls if no brains. cohen seems devoid of both.
and im not sticking up for the times, but there was that 9-11 thing. that scared a few people too.
Sorry, I didn't think I had to mention 9/11. We all know it didn't have anything to do with Iraq, so I'm trying to understand what was going on in the minds of "the most respected, most experienced, most intelligent, most serious thinkers in the United States."
"when two tribes go to war..."
Perle seemed to be saying (and I only caught 15 minutes) that the whole aftermath thing was a completely different thing, completely disconnected to the actual invasion part. This is like a surgeon saying "Well the removal of the diseased heart was exemplary. Best. Extraction. Ever. That other unrelated thingy that came along much later, where they had to go find another heart, stick it in the chest cavity, and connect it up ... that part wasn't thought through."
It's cognitive dissonance.
That's a good analogy. Alvin Toffler says we (Western Civ.) are very good at breaking things, reducing them down to little bits. What we are not good at is putting things back together. Ironic that he is God to Rumsfeld, Gingrich and other sci-fi warfare advocates. Maybe they just read the parts they like.
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Tristero at Hullabaloo has dinner with a "liberal hawk": We have a liberal hawk who used to post a fair amount here at Digital Media Tree, and I had some lively debates with him during that period when America was going off a cliff. Unlike tristero's hawk, he didn't question my credentials to question the war, but he did a lot of scaremongering. "What if Saddam nuked the Saudi oil fields?" "Saddam or Osama (I forget which boogeyman) wants to establish a New Caliphate and rule the Middle East!" (Or words to that effect.) What it came down to was he believed ex-CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack about Iraq, and I believed ex-UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who had been in the country and said it had no weapons of mass destruction. Also, unlike tristero's defensive hawk, the Tree's hawk doesn't continue to defend his judgment. He's just been very quiet the past couple of years. It's a shame--he's a bright, knowledgeable guy and I miss our debates.
- tom moody 5-12-2006 8:27 pm
Richard Perle was on the Frankin show yesterday. I caught just a bit. (AM radio is useless in the mountains.) Perle is not a (completely) stupid man, and he is willing to criticize some aspects of Bush's (and his) war. But he still fails to get it.
Perle insisted that the invasion was done right, but the aftermath was done wrong. Frankin tried to help Perle realize that the aftermath was a result of the invasion planning (or lack thereof). The problems with breakdown of order, raiding of ammo dumps, and insurgency were all there from the beginning.
And this wasn't even getting to the issue of the lies and fearmongering that were used to whip up a public frenzy for an entirely unnecessary invasion.
I lost the signal, so I don't know if Frankin was able to dislodge the dense layer of stupid surrounding the rational part of Perle's brain.
I think there needs to be a real day of reckoning for the cheerleaders, esp. the pundit class, who were cheerleaders for this misbegotten war. Richard Cohen is complaining about an email kerfuffle. In bygone days, the response would have involved: tar, feather, rail. Now that would be uncivil.
- mark 5-12-2006 10:01 pm
I've mentioned before, I think, Steve Gilliard's theory that the Washington sniper had a lot to do with the chemistry of the moment. That even though Muhammed and Malmo weren't al Qaeda by a long shot (sorry for the cruel pun) they contributed to the fear frenzy that got the pundit class all whipped up for Bush's war. ("DC isn't safe for our big hair! Horrors!") That sounds right to me, but doesn't explain the NY Times dutifully running the "departing troops hugging their loved ones" photos as if the whole thing was a fait accompli. That I ascribe to a cynical desire to sell papers. All the more reason head Times folk need to be included in the tarring and feathering party.
- tom moody 5-12-2006 10:18 pm
im not buying richard perles lament. thats the same tripe you hear from his neocon brethern, particularly kristol and stealth neocon mccain. they were the same people crowing about cakewalks in the lead up to war. perle was head of the defense advisory board; why wasnt he had crying about lack of planning then? just part of their blame somebody else pathology (i actually typed plame instead of blame). but at least perle has balls if no brains. cohen seems devoid of both.
and im not sticking up for the times, but there was that 9-11 thing. that scared a few people too.
- dave 5-12-2006 11:18 pm
Sorry, I didn't think I had to mention 9/11. We all know it didn't have anything to do with Iraq, so I'm trying to understand what was going on in the minds of "the most respected, most experienced, most intelligent, most serious thinkers in the United States."
- tom moody 5-12-2006 11:45 pm
"when two tribes go to war..."
- Thor Johnson (guest) 5-12-2006 11:52 pm
Perle seemed to be saying (and I only caught 15 minutes) that the whole aftermath thing was a completely different thing, completely disconnected to the actual invasion part. This is like a surgeon saying "Well the removal of the diseased heart was exemplary. Best. Extraction. Ever. That other unrelated thingy that came along much later, where they had to go find another heart, stick it in the chest cavity, and connect it up ... that part wasn't thought through."
It's cognitive dissonance.
- mark 5-13-2006 12:33 am
That's a good analogy. Alvin Toffler says we (Western Civ.) are very good at breaking things, reducing them down to little bits. What we are not good at is putting things back together. Ironic that he is God to Rumsfeld, Gingrich and other sci-fi warfare advocates. Maybe they just read the parts they like.
- tom moody 5-13-2006 1:01 am