Cooper's post today offers a fine summary of the good, the bad and the ugly on the Iraq vote. One point he makes, which we should remember, is that the ShrubCo plan for forming a new government in Iraq had no resemblence to what actually took place. The direct vote was a result of - dare we say it? - a
popular movement instigated by Sistani. I would add that when you hear the predictable and irritating bleatings about how successful the ShrubCo foreign policy is, it should be our job to point out that those who say it are cynically taking advantage of the bravery shown by the Iraqi people in order to advance yet more partisan political garbage here at home. By doing so they shame themselves and denigrate the achievment of the Iraqis. There's some cautioning for us as well, with which I agree:
We need to find a way to escalate the politics and reduce the bloodshed and simplistic nostrums from triumphalists on the one side or lefitsh isolationists on the other will not cut the mustard. We owe a more sober response to the Iraqi people.
More politics and less bloodshed? Given the choice of either politics or bloodshed, I'll take politics.
Update:Hate to say it(especially twice in as many days), but
BullMoose has gone and made some more sensible points along the same lines.
Your blind hatred of President Bush seems to prevent you from embarking on rational thought here. When he works with a group of people to compromise and reach a consensus for a productive solution, he is deemed inferior for not coming up with a plan all on his own. When he pushes forward dragging “progressives” kicking and screaming into supporting democracy in Iraq, the first democracy in an Arab country mind you, he is advancing partisan political garbage. Absurdity and hypocrisy abounds.
ReplyDeleteWhile this is not the end, it is a significant and historic step forward. The bravery of the Iraqi people should be applauded and it is. No one is taking anything from them, except people that denigrate and trash their biggest supporter over the last two years, President George W. Bush.
If as BullMoose puts forward the idea that the left should follow Tony Blair’s lead and not Michael Moore’s. One would think that Tony Blair’s support of President Bush would convince some on the left to follow suit. But I guess that’s not a “popular movement”?!
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, absurdity and hypocrisy abounds. I didn't say Bush is advancing partisan political garbage. I was referring to people who will use the somewhat good outcome to claim a wholehearted victory for this policy. I would say your simple-minded insistence that the question is even about support of Bush or not is what lead you to misunderstand my post(and the Moose for that matter). The point was to say that to make this another argument about being Pro-Bush or Anti-Bush is engaging in partisan political garbage.
By the way, Bush hasn't been the Iraqis biggest supporter. I don't want to get into all of the details of things Bush has done that were direct betrayals of the Iraqi people. I will say that if you look at what his policies have been, he has never been a supporter of democracy in Iraq. His mouthing of those words is a result of political expedience, nothing more. Christopher Hitchens is probably who you meant, or maybe Paul Wolfowitz.
As for my blind hatred of Bush, that's a load of hooey. I don't hate him. I don't like his presidency, to be sure. But it's certainly not blind hatred. I have very specific reasons for disliking his presidency, same goes for Clinton, Bush I and Reagan. Quite frankly, in my lifetime there hasn't been a president worthy of the office.
I DO have blind hatred of people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter et al, but it has nothing to do with what they say about Bush and everything to do with what they say about "liberals"(and I assume that they include me in that). I think they're actually a disease plaguing the country. Those are the people to whom I am referring when I say "irritating bleatings".
Sorry it's tough to make the distinction. Obviously I need to work on my language.
"Liberals stood with union organizers in the '30s against company goons and with the Freedom Riders in the '60s against racist thugs. How can we not today be firmly on the side of Iraqis braving the terrorist scourge?"
ReplyDeleteThis quote from Bull Moose sums it up for me. Beautiful, unquestionable bravery from the Iraqis who voted yesterday. All we can do is look inward and ask if we could have done the same. I like to think I would have. But (hopefully) I'll never know.
Jeff, what Bush professes to want and what the liberals want is the same thing. Of course we want democracy in the Middle East. Of course we want a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine. We disagree on the means.
And we don't hate Bush. That's a profoundly lazy way to characterize Jay--it makes things a lot easier for you if you can just boil it down to that. I'm not flinching from calling you lazy here because I've seen that you are capable of a real argument. I don't feel it's in your constitution to be intellectually lazy.
Although many liberals have been shortsighted and populist in their response to Iraq (i.e., not thinking long term, but rather pointing to 1,400 deaths and insinuating that those deaths are the sole reason we shouldn't be there), I bet the response to this from kneejerk conservatives will be extremely shortsighted: "Hey, wussy liberals, look: they voted fearlessly, so it was worth the invasion."
That is a tremendously complicated question. Does the successful polling and infinitely commendable bravery of the Iraqis really justify the invasion and the rest of the neocon doctrine?
In terms of history, 1,400 deaths isn't really that many. Comparatively, what the terrorists in Iraq are doing is no more barbaric than behavior found sporadically in Europe and the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and very, very sporadically in the last decade). In our world, we can see it 24/7 on TV and the Internet, but it's nothing new (um, except for the whole global, stateless network thing).
What is of the utmost importance and of dire consequence for the future of democracy in the Middle East is the moral ground we stand on in our actions and our intent.
Liberals and conservatives both believe without hesitation that all nations should be governed democratically. We would like to see peaceful democracies all over the world, not least in the Middle East.
However, can we invade another country, bringing temporary physical ruin to their towns and cities and the permanent ruin of widespread manslaughter, if we ourselves are torturing people and denying others the very rights we are trying to export? Can we do without having given a clear reason for even doing it, or when the reason the whole world heard (WMDs) turns out to have been, if not intentionally misleading (practically lying), rooted in the fact that the people in charge only heard (and asked for solely) what they wanted to hear? Can we really just say, "Oh, we needed to fight tyranny?" or "the world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power" months and months later?
And since we don't have the resources to attack *all* tyrants, can we really use our own national economic interests to decide who to invade? (I'm not saying we went to war just for oil, but it's certainly part of it. Should it have anything to do with it?)
Do we want to have any religious aspect to our movement--even symbolically--when the radical fundamental aspect of our enemy is actually trumping democracy, forcing us to cooperate with leaders like Hosni Mubarak and General Musharrif, who believe that the widespread denial of human rights is less objectionable than the chaos that a real democracy would bring?
Would we accept democratically-elected Arab governments if they ended up much like the Taliban--theocracies denying human rights on an unfathomable level--as long as terrorism decreased and they agreed not to harbor terrorists?
In other words, are we prepared to give the terrorists what they want as long as they achieve it peacefully through democracy and stop using terror as a weapon?
And if we do, and they abuse human rights to the point where we feel like we need to intervene, are we going to have the moral ground to stand on, now that the world is starting to doubt our own commitment to human rights?
It's a complicated question, Jeff. It's not Bush-hating.
And to tell you the truth, I don't think uncritical acceptance of the bible is going help us answer them. Sorry to go after your faith, and I'm not advocating state-sponsored secular humanism, but I'm afraid I do see it as part of the problem.
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On another tangent, I've never felt more strongly that people who didn't vote in the 2004 U.S. Election, or those that voted without informing themselves, are worth nothing to this country, and need to get their acts together. If they don't get their acts together, I'm perfectly happy to see them leave the country. We don't need them. This group includes people who are very dear to me, but it's effing inexcusable.
I'm all for the Iraqis and I hope they can build themselves a decent country.
ReplyDeleteThe way Bush got us into the whole deal is inexcusable and criminal. If we had gone to Iraq out of a national will to do good, that would have been OK, but to do it by lying about WMD, etc., is absolutely not OK.
If you can go to jail by lying to a G-Man about a crime that didn't happen, like Ms. Stewart for example, what should be the penalty for lying the American people into an unnecessary war, let alone all Bush's economic, environmental, and other domestic crimes? His assault on the Constitution?
I hate Bush and all his henchmen with more passion than I have ever felt in my life. It disturbs me some, too, but it's OK, I'll live with it. I think they should hang for their crimes. I'm not even especially Liberal, but that is the side to be on to counter them.
As someone who moved away from the Left mostly due to the nihilism which Moose elegantly describes, I say Thank You for this post! The time for making decisions based on whether this "helps" Bush or not has long passed. I am quite certain that the Iraqis didn't vote to "help" Bush- they seized the opportunity afforded them with the grace and courageous shown only when humanity performs at its very best. True progressives would join them in their journey towards democracy.
ReplyDeletePleae note, I am not accusing you of making your decisions based on whether or not they "helped" Bush. However, I did see this hesitant reaction throughout the day in my workplace and on other boards. I am glad to see you and others taking a much different and more sane route. It's my (perhaps naive) hope that those to the right and those to the left can chill out and come together at least in this common cause.