Deeply depressing Iraq story

[TayTay]

This is from Newsweek and it details just how impossible a problem Iraq is to solve. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8101422/site/newsweek/

I don't believe there are any good solutions in Iraq. None. It's just one long nightmare with no relief either for the U.S. or the Iraqi people in sight. It depressing as hell.

[paulk]

1. we are stuck there if we intend to stop Iraq from falling into chaos

and it might happen anyway.

Bush's Iraq misadventure is a blunder of historical proportions.


And Afghanistan is also a mess that could easily backslide to the Taliban.

There are times when I'm almost glad Kerry didn't become president - I don't think anyone could get us out of this mess -

this tar baby is all Bush's now...

[ginnyinWI]

2. that's the one consolation

That Bush has to for once take responsibility. He thought he would go down in history as a hero for fixing up the Middle East--ha. I suppose Hitler thought he'd be a world hero too. Where do some people get the idea that they are so smart?

If Kerry had won, it would have been better for the world, but this way it is worse for the GOP, and we now have a chance to discredit the far right more than otherwise. Small consolation, but still.

[paulk]

3. does Bush think he's smart?

There's all kinds of anecdotes out there about how Bush felt toward "intellectuals" when he was in college. He hated them because they were smarter than him. I remember reading an article after 2000 where a lot of the Conservative intellectual crew were complaining because they'd all been shut out of his administration. It seems Bush has always had this real disdain/contempt for intellectuals - his way to get back at them is to do things - make things happen. You know, start wars, change the world kind of stuff.

I wonder if it even matters to him that the things he's doing are disastrous. He just seems to be interested in making a mark - putting his name in the history books. Doesn't matter if the end result is good or bad.

[ginnyinWI]

4. yeah, not smart, but "right"

That's mainly what he thinks--that he is absolutely positively right in the positions he takes. He's so right that someday he will be thought of as another great president on the scale of, say, Abraham Lincoln. I really think he does. I've heard this said of him. It's also known as having "delusions of grandeur",isn't it.

[karynnj]

5. Worse yet, it is his sense of being absolutely right

that so many voters found reassuring. His certainty was reassuring to them and the annoyed tone he used when questioned about anything probably comes from this. The terror fears converted a trait that would mostly likely have made him seem very autocratic and pretty unlikable into something which made them admire him as a leader even if he led in terrible directions. The fact that Kerry often paused for a few seconds before giving a well thought out answer made him seem less certain than Bush.

[whometense]

6. This is something I will

never understand. How anyone finds that sense of certainty reassuring is beyond me. It has the opposite effect on me - makes me want to run for the hills.

I also can't stand people who refuse to apologize or admit error. I guess this helps explain why I'm such a big fan of the shrub. :sarcasm:

[ginnyinWI]

7. and to me

the fact that he paused made him seem all the more sincere and honest. :loveya:

The only two callers this morning on Cspan who had anything good to say about * were under the impression that he is a good and sincere guy who was basically duped by the Neocons. I think this is how they are beginning to deal with the disconnect between their love for the guy and what he has wrought. One even said that he was flown away on AF-1 against his will on 9/11, and that everyone around him wants to keep him out of the loop. Poor little chimpy victim!!

I record Washington Journal and then put it on in the background in the morning so I can monitor how people are feeling about events. Doesn't look good for the chimp. Callers were overwhelmingly against, on a wide variety of topics.

:popcorn:

[whometense]

9. This is good news!!!

I used to watch Washington Journal in the morning, but the callers got so sickeningly pro-* that I stopped.

If those people are turning, then maybe the country really is getting it.

I've noticed that on my current morning fix, Morning Sedition, the number of blue collar plain working folk callers has hugely increased over the past month or so.

[ginnyinWI]

10. that would be another good sign

That group would be slower to change their minds. But once changed, I believe they are solid. It's not so much that they have changed their values--I believe they hold definite values--it's that they are probably now finding out that * does NOT share their values, in reality. Nothing they hate like a stuffed-shirt phoney. That would piss a lot of them off.
It's all good. Maybe there's hope for this ol' country yet. :)

[whometense]

11. Agree.

The big talk this morning was about that article in yesterday's NY Times about income disparity. People who called in: a doorman at a fancy Upper East Side NYC apartment building (union member), entrepreneur from ?South Carolina? maybe who had to sell everything he owned to pay for his wife's final illness. A single mother (forget from where) making about $50K who has bought health insurance for her teenaged daughter, but can't afford it for herself, and has no idea how her kid will be able to go to college. Truckers call in all the time, too.

The health care problem is HUGE with all these people.

[whometense]

12. Dan Froomkin today

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html

Resolute or Stubborn?

In some ways, that's the seminal question about the Bush presidency. I've been dogging it since soon after my column started. See, for instance, my Feb. 9, 2004 column , entitled "Resolute or Stubborn?"

In this week's U.S. News and World Report, Kenneth T. Walsh reports on the latest: "Now, even some Republicans are arguing (privately, of course) that Bush is stubborn and arrogant. 'His act is wearing thin,' says a top-drawer GOP adviser who is influential in Washington and on Capitol Hill. 'It's always "I'm right. You're wrong." ' Bush needs to respect other points of view, especially from those within his own party, says the adviser. 'I don't mind people having convictions, but there is another side to every argument.' "

[europegirl4jfk]

8. Iraq and Vietnam

I'm finally back in California and just started reading "Tour of Duty" which my daughter bought for her oral presentation at school. And it was a revelation to me when I read Kerry's testimony before the SFRC. In everything he said about Vietnam you could just replace the word "Vietnam" with the word "Iraq" and you have the exact situation in Iraq right now. Try it, it's more than shocking and an eye-opener for people who still think Iraq could be "fixed".

I'm sure Kerry of all people knows that too. And IMO he has to and will address it sooner or later. And I hope that it won't take too long now until the Iraq veterans and other war protesters will be in the streets and at the mall in Washington. Bush should tremble in the White House!

[ginnyinWI]

13. have a good time with the book!

Reading it the first time through is such a treat!

One reason JK was so against Desert Storm, and Iran-Contra for that matter, is that he so much wanted to avoid another useless, wasteful Vietnam-style war. He knows how these guys love to exploit power. This war was different--or at least presented as different to the Senate and all of us, because of the threat of WMDs, and that is why I think he voted for the IWR. They put credible people like Colin Powell up there, and that, along with the post-9/11 atmosphere that was so strong in 2002, made JK and a lot of them decide to vote for it.

Colin Powell was one of a group of Vietnam military vets who back in the 70s drew up a list of rules to be used in any future conflicts (the name escapes me now) which was designed to prevent anything like Vietnam happening again. His being on board with this invasion must have meant a lot to JK and many others.

[paulk]

14. you mean the "Powell Doctrine"?

Powell did have some credibility because of that.

How he can even show his face in public after his UN speech....

[ginnyinWI]

15. yeah that's it---thanks! n/t