Joe Conason: War Critics Are Mainstream, Not Fringe

Joe Conason: War Critics Are Mainstream, Not Fringe

Posted on Aug 10, 2006

By Joe Conason

As Connecticut Democrats went to their polling places to choose a Senate nominee, waves of rhetorical hysteria burst forth from the mouths of excitable conservatives. At stake in the primary was not only the fate of a single politician but the “soul of the Democratic Party” and perhaps even the fate of the West.

Old terms like “appeasement” and “Stalinist” have been brandished to insinuate that anyone who dares to dissent from the failed policies adopted by Joe Lieberman and the Bush administration is at best a fool and at worst a traitor.

Such overwrought commentary, often phrased in terms of deep concern for the future of the party of FDR, JFK and Harry S. Truman, usually emanates from commentators whose political objective is continued Republican domination of all branches of government. Democrats should reject this propaganda barrage—which reveals an extraordinary capacity for self-deception on the right.

The propagandists charge that opposition to the war in Iraq is an obsession of the far-left fringe, and that the Democrats will be destroyed by any attempt to extricate our troops from the quicksand. Every reputable survey of public opinion refutes that assertion. Support for the Bush administration’s conduct of the war, and for the president himself, has been declining steadily since the end of 2004. And every anchorperson, pundit and squawking head seeking to suggest otherwise is either inexcusably ignorant or purposely lying.

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060810_joe_conason_war_critics/

I think I heard a clip of Limbaugh talking about the 'radical fringe base' of the Democratic Party. Wha?

how dare he question the Iraq war and demand accountablility from his government?

We see polls about Bush's support for his handling of the war in Iraq. We don't see polls about Bush's strategy for his "war on terror."

Bush's strategy is to replace every government in the Middle East with a democracy. Bush is willing,if necessary,to prosecute consecutive wars for decades to accomplish that goal.

The strategy ignores that the cost in lives and money to do that would be far worse than anything terrorists could do to us if we left the doors wide open. And we'd still be hit with all the terrorist attacks Bush's wars would spawn. All this is OK with Bush because Bush believes that after 100 years the future residents of the Middle East will no longer want to attack us because they'll be so greatful for the democracy they got after America bombed their theocracy supporting great-grandparents. Then, according to Bush, America will win the "war on terror."

I'd like to see a poll on support for Bush's approach to his "war on terrorism." I'd like to see the angry E-mail the mainstream media is about to get from the Internet left contain a request for such a poll. I'd like to see the media disclose that they are receiving demands for this poll. We could see which side represented the "extremists."

I don't think such a poll would ever be taken though. Bush's approach to the "war on terrorism" is so far out beyond the boundaries of reason that the clerks at polling outfits would refuse to call people up and ask them an embarrassing question like that.