David Brooks reads our minds about Iraq

The third paragraph is an astonishing display of Republican head-up-ass-ism.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/opinion/23brooks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print


June 23, 2005
Iraq and the Polls
By DAVID BROOKS

There's a reason George Washington didn't take a poll at Valley Forge. There are times in the course of war when the outcome is simply unknowable. Victory is clearly not imminent, yet people haven't really thought through the consequences of defeat. Everybody just wants the miserable present to go away.

We're at one of those moments in the war against the insurgency in Iraq. The polls show rising disenchantment with the war. Sixty percent of Americans say they want to withdraw some or all troops.

Yet I can't believe majorities of Americans really want to pull out and accept defeat. I can't believe they want to abandon to the Zarqawis and the Baathists those 8.5 million Iraqis who held up purple fingers on Election Day. I can't believe they are yet ready to accept a terrorist-run state in the heart of the Middle East, a civil war in Iraq, the crushing of democratic hopes in places like Egypt and Iran, and the ruinous consequences for American power and prestige.

What they want to do, more likely, is somehow escape the current moment, which is discouraging and uncertain. One of the many problems with fighting an insurgency is that it is nearly impossible to know if we are winning or losing. It's like watching a football game with no goal lines and chaotic action all over the field.

... that at Valley Forge, Washington was the insurgent--the al-Zarqawi of his day?

Does he not understand that Washington was to have said, upon leaving the presidency, that it was unwise to create alliances and entanglements in the domestic affairs and wars of other countries?

Does he not remember anything about Vietnam and the reasons why that war was a mistake?

Has he not figured it out that people are beginning, just beginning, to realize the extent to which they've been bamboozled by a government of con men and flim-flammers?

Of course not--he's David Brooks of the New York Times.

I don't remember anything from history about Washington going into towns, rounding up the Tories and killing them. I live near Jockey Hollow in Morris county (NJ) where Washington stayed for 2 winters - it was the first National Park. One think they explained to the kids was that it was hard to get enough food as the local farmers could sell to the British and get currency that they knew could be used for purchases or sell to Washington's troops for Continentals. (It's not worth a Continental - was a well-known saying) In the mid 70's, I went taking a "little sister" (program), the 9 - 10 year old asked, choose to sell to the British after this was explained.

The point being, he didn't kill the farmers selling to the British.

... occupier and insurgent. The British were seen as occupiers, Washington's forces were the upstarts--fighting from the hedgerows, and not playing by the established rules of combat as Cornwallis' troops were trained.

And, yes, it was a fact that sympathies for the British, even after the revolution started, ran high, for all sorts of reasons (as I recall, fully a third of colonials sided with the British).

The resemblance is meant to be metaphorical, not literal.

so they revert to an earlier, more glorious one. We are not revolutionaries fighting for our independance. We are not fighting a world war. That alone would imply we have actual allies. This is not WWII. This is not Valley Forge. Hello and welcome to a far less noble cause. Involking earlier wars will not make it any MORE noble.

It's like these people are lost in a John Wayne movie, except they keep sending other people onto the set as they just sit there eating their popcorn.

(Okay, that was either really profound, or I should go to bed now. Bed is more likely)

Now that I can believe...who gives a flying about what the Iraqis want.

Brooks, you're an idiot and a rightwingnut, you've always been an idiot and a rightwingnut, and you always will be an idiot and a rightwingnut.

As the polls continue to reflect support for this war dropping like a rock, the right-wingers are starting to turn their fury against the American people, lecturing us, berating us, belittling and ridiculing us.

This is the endgame, folks. They're like a burned-out hulk turning the last of their fury against the Joe Six-Packs who have kept them in power for years. Their majority status is finished.

wants us to want, hence whatever thoughtless drivel that exudes from your keyboard.

Thanks for clearing that up for us!

to a game of football. Can he show how insulated he is? How disconnected from middle america? And isn't that rather ironic given his whole Bobo thing?

telling us rubes how we feel.

I couldn't fucking care less what this neocon douchebag thinks about how America feels! The numbers are clear and getting worse for them and their miserable, illegal, failed war.

Fuck you David Brooks!

(snip)

It's just wrong to seek withdrawal now, when the outcome of the war is unknowable and when the consequences of defeat are so vast.

Some of you will respond that this is easy for me to say, since I'm not over there. All I'd say is that we live in a democracy, where decisions are made by all. Besides, the vast majority of those serving in Iraq, and their families, said they voted to re-elect President Bush. They seem to want to finish the job.

Others will say we shouldn't be there in the first place. You may be right. Time will tell. But right now, this isn't about your personal vindication. It's about victory for the forces of decency and defeating those, like Zarqawi, who would be attacking us in any case.

(snip)

Wow, a bigtime wingnut apologist actually conceding the whole thing might be a terrible mistake! But even if it is, I guess we gotta stay the course, because the consequences of defeat would be so "vast" even if the whole thing is a "vast" mistake! Bend your mind around that, boys and girls!

"It's about victory for the forces of decency and defeating those, like Zarqawi, who would be attacking us in any case."


:eyes: Shut up, Brooks!

if they didn't vote in the election? Real good example we're setting!

I forgot the guy's name, but I know Will Pitt wrote about him.

Discuss

This is a typical republican spinning of the poll numbers. He is full of shit.

its more than being against the war in the begining, until the last few months I too felt we needed to stay and try to fix the pottery we've broken.

We are so crippled now. With recruitment down, we no longer have the option of sending in more troops which at one time looked like a possible solution, at least one worth trying. This prez is so divorced from reality who among us trust he and Rummy and Dick in-the-last-throes Cheney to make the correct decisions? Not only has he bungled the execution of the war and refused to hold anyone accountable. My stomach still turns when I think of that Medal of Freedom ceremony. What was THAT about? Next it will go to Rummy and Cheney.

The middle ground, advanced by some Republicans, is to set a date for withdrawl. What they want is for someone to do something. For someone to be held accountable.

For those of you too young to remember Vietnam, I remember when we started sending massive numbers of troops there. It was the same sick feeling.

...about how tight security is in Iraq to protect a visiting senator. It's pretty vivid, from the flight in (attempting all the while to avoid possible attacks) to the business of being whisked into an armored vehicle and kept from stepping out in the street.

an EVEN BIGGER DEFEAT!

our mistakes will lead to a different outcome.

Still cheering his war along, I see.

I predict he'll still be regurgitating this crap 10 years from now.

And hey, David, you fucking Asshole, you. The problems you cite as a reason for staying weren't there before you and your asswipe neocon fuck buddies insisted on sending american kids there to get killed.