The Big Fool Says To Push On

Are you a morally and intellectually confused Nazi appeaser? Read on to find out.

This week (with more just around the corner victory pronouncements- this time they mean it!- from military leaders), the two people most directly responsible for starting this war- and for all its failures/atrocities- launched a concerted attack on the war's critics, likely intended to get said critics to blink if they bark loud enough. The argument was short on substance, but full of the red meat that has previously fired up their diminishing base. No talking point stone was left unturned.

First up- Vice President Cheney. Salon's Tim Grieve's has the the highlights of Cheney's speech Monday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno. Lots of 9/11-related fearmongering ensued. He immediately dismissed those who disapprove of the war (aka- the majority of Americans) by stating "there is a difference between healthy debate and self-defeating pessimism. We have only two options in Iraq -- victory or defeat. And this nation will not pursue a policy of retreat."

Translation: 'Healthy debate = stay the course'.

I am reminded of a parody White House address from January in which 'President Bush' says "It must be legitimate, respectable debate. For example, some say we are making great progress in Iraq. Others say we are making great strides. This is a appropriate debate". Reality often outpaces satire in this administration.

Dismissing numerous calls for withdrawals and/or timetables, Cheney adds that "I realize, as well, that some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone. But the exact opposite is true." That no one has actually made that argument is irrelevant to Cheney.

Grieve's response says it best-

If anyone is advocating withdrawal based on arguments like these, we haven't been hearing them. The case for withdrawal is pretty simple: We shouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place, and the cost of staying there -- in lives, in money, in the lost opportunities to deal with Osama bin Laden or Iran or North Korea -- far exceeds whatever marginal benefit there may be in staying the course, which is serving mostly to make Americans a target and create a dangerous sort of codependency on the part of the Iraqi government and its fledgling security forces.

Cheney didn't engage with that argument Monday, and why should he? It's easier to fight against caricatures than to debate whether an additional 50 or 100 or 2,600 dead Americans will bring security to Iraq or transform the Middle East. It's easier to debate a straw man than a real one.

This is their speciality; and it speaks volumes on how unseriously they take all this.

On a related note, Rep. Barney Franks (D- MA) this morning has an editorial in the Boston Globe, which masterfully smashes the myth that Iraq war critics are pacifists against dealing with terrorism. Entitled "Afghanistan Ignored", the piece reminds readers of the overwhelming support for that war and chides the White House for not only abandoning that war, but also for using the false 9-11/terrorism connection to defend their lie-fueled war in Iraq, stating their rhetoric "uses the big lie to defend the war in Iraq on grounds that in fact describe the war in Afghanistan". Recommended read.

Next up- Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who actually managed to top Cheney in terms of sheer hubris. Speaking to veterans at the American Legion's, he said critics were appeasers to "a new type of fascism" like that of the Nazis and lack the "perspective of history" (see video). Rumsfeld joined Cheney in continuing the false, but politically lucrative, connection to 9/11, stating that Bush "remains the same man who stood atop the rubble of lower Manhattan, with a bullhorn, vowing to fight back." He continued on to state that critics of the war (again, the majority of Americans) suffer from "moral or intellectual confusion" and are "quitters" who lack the guts to fight back.

Translation: 'It's not our fault, it's your fault for not supporting us enough.'

I think Rumsfeld may have finally jumped the shark. Methinks he could benefit from some historical perspective.

And so, while thousands of American troops sit in the desert babysitting a civil war, this is what we get from our leaders at home: not a plan or a course correction, but a continued series of ad hominem attacks and rhetorical jingoism. Those holding onto hope for any semblence of victory need to accept that it's not coming... not as long as the President and his administration are more concerned with winning a political war at home than the one they started in the Middle East. As Tim Grieves lamented, it's easier to fight caricatures than to have a real debate.

[PS- Reality continues to outpace satire in the Bush administration.]

[PPS- YouTube flashback to an old Spiro Agnew attack on Vietnam critics and the media. See if it sounds familiar.]