Neat Trick
Ah, Michelle Malkin. Will you ever stop being a loon propagandist?
Obama: Soldier deaths = “Wasted” lives
By Michelle Malkin · February 12, 2007 04:39 PMSen. Barack Obama’s nutroots are showing. RedStateLady has the video of Obama arguing that each and every member of the military who volunteered to serve and died in Iraq wasted his/her life:
Transcript:
OBAMA: We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged and to which we have now spent $400 billion and has seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.
The audience roared with cheers and applause.
This is a neat little trick. Michelle and the Wingnet are trying to make it so that any statement opposing the war is interpreted as a slam on the troops.
Check it:
Allah explains the anti-war Dems’ conundrum:
Of course he thinks their lives were wasted. Everyone on the anti-war side does; that’s one of the reasons they want to end the war. But they can’t say that because it dishonors the dead so they’re forced into rhetorical pretzels like the one Pelosi tied herself into a few weeks ago with Diane Sawyer. Army Lawyer summed up her position at the time thusly: “They didn’t die for nothing, they died for something stupid.�
Welp, Michelle, you’ll be happy to know that I employ zero pretzel logic. I will come right out and say that these 3,000+ Americans have died for absolutely no good reason. And yes, Michelle, when you get our country involved in a war using the specter of non-existent weapons and bullshit links to al-Qaeda; when you do absolutely zero planning for the end of the war; when you continue to insist that the war is going just dandy when everything is crumbling around you; when you refuse to hold people accountable for their failure and, indeed, reward them for it; when you do all of these things as our current president has done, then yes, you are wasting peoples’ lives.
Note that I didn’t say that they wasted their own lives. I said their lives were wasted by a reckless, imperial president who shouldn’t be allowed to use safety scissors without parental guidance, let alone control the most powerful army in the world.
UPDATE: It seems Obama, being a politician and not a blogger, has backed off:
In an interview following the rally, Obama, who said he has visited with the families of military personnel who have been killed in the war, said he regretted saying the lives had been “wasted.”
“I was actually upset with myself when I said that, because I never use that term,” he said. “Their sacrifices are never wasted…. What I meant to say was those sacrifices have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission.”
He was right the first time, but I understand why he decided to ease up. For many families of soldiers killed in Iraq, the realization that their sons and daughters died for nothing is just too painful to contemplate. But at some point, they are going to realize just how big a waste of blood and treasure this war has been.
See also: Nitpicker, who knows a thing or two about military service:
I am no pacifist. I understand that there are times when the value of what might be earned could outweigh the cost of a few thousand American lives–or, even, a few hundred thousand lives.
But the lives we have lost in Iraq were lost due to the fever dreams of ideologues, who ignored all historical precedent in both proposing and planning their war. Every rationale for war has proven either false or foolish and the results pyrrhic, at best. We are less respected, less revered and, yes, less feared than before we began it. Our own intelligence agencies think that the war is actually creating more terrorists with even less central command and, while you argue that “we weren’t in Iraq on 9/11,” it’s clear to anyone with the eyes to see that, in the words of Don Rumsfeld, “the harder we work, the behinder we get.” Even some of your most erudite of conservative intellectuals (a near oxymoron these days) and mindless, partisan hacks have admitted the war was a mistake, closing a gap of years between them and the American public.
It is not dishonoring the troops to point out–as I do now, flatly–that their lives are being wasted in Bush’s ridiculous, pointless and, ultimately, futile adventure.
Heh-indizzy.
But at some point, they are going to realize just how big a waste of blood and treasure this war has been.
I don’t think that’s true of the Malkins and Charles Johnsons of the world. Realizing isn’t part of their skill set.
While Obama was right the first time, he’s also right to anticipate the snarling dogs and express himself in such a way that his message won’t be misinterpreted by families who are caught between rage and hope. It’s not about appeasing some crazed harpie, but connecting to the voters. If a life is called wasted, its sacrifice becomes completely meaningless. Hearing that can easily turn the rage a parent or relative might feel about what this president has done against the war critic. Anyone running a campaign now should be cognizant of this. He has plenty of ammunition he can use: the abuse of power, public trust, public funds, the abuse of the military, the erosion of democracy… He’s got plenty he can say without risking this bullshit situation where he ends up apologizing and qualifying his statements.
re Nitpicker’s
This paragraph isn’t one Obama would use, but it’s an example of one that makes the criminal sacrifice of lives obvious without having to use a blunt force trauma phrase like “lives were wasted.” I’m just sayin’ People aren’t stupid. They know their kids died for dick all. They just can’t handle hearing it too directly. I wouldn’t fault them for that. (not that I think you are…)
Anyone who doesn’t die for the Glorious Crusade is wasting their life. Unless of course they are fighting the Eternal War on Terror on the internets. Then it’s a life twice fulfilled.
Saying that their lives were wasted is understating the case, as it implies that there is no net gain for their sacrifice. Unfortunately, we are far worse off for the policies that their lives were sacrificed for. Maybe it is too soon to have such a frank discussion, even though I would wager most families of the fallen are aware of that already.
How long did it take until a frank discussion could happen about what went wrong in Vietnam? Ten years, fifteen? Even now?
No, those lives weren’t wasted. Those soldiers might be dead, but cowardly pussies like Jonah Goldberg, David Brooks and Glenn Reynolds feel .00000001% safer, plus as a bonus they get to act all manly-man-like while they cheer on the murder and mayhem. So don’t say we didn’t get something out of it.
Poor people dying so that extremely rich people can get even richer. That’s what the Iraq war is, and anyone who pretends it is anything different is handing the neocons a rhetorical victory. It’s time to start calling this war out for what it was all along. Strategically, this war made no sense. It was a naked power grab. The architects of the Iraq War had no noble intentions.
Poor people dying so that extremely rich people can get even richer. That’s what the Iraq war is, and anyone who pretends it is anything different is handing the neocons a rhetorical victory. It’s time to start calling this war out for what it was all along.
Not fair! Imperialism, greedy oil executives, and neurotic son trying to out-do his father also played they’re parts.
This has touched on a nerve for me. I have worked with returning soldiers and their families, and it is very true that while they may believe in their heart of hearts that their children were horribly maimed (or killed) in a war without legitimate purpose, most of them are unable to deal with that. In fact, it is usually -in my experience- that it is the parents who have the most trouble with this. Any discussion about how this war might have been mishandled and misrepresented is interpreted as a direct attack on their child. I feel incredibly sorry for them. It must be heartbreaking to think that while you were telling Johnny how proud you were of him for joining the cause, and your son was basking in that praise, that it was all for nothing. Worse than nothing, it made the world a much more horrible place. Give them time to grieve, and I think you will find a group of people more willing to extract payment for their loss than any other. As for the soldiers, they live in a kind of soul-death we like to call PTSD. How can their lives ever be normal again? The difference here is that they are much more aware of the fact that what they did was utterly wrong. Only a psychopath feels OK after killing a civilian, or anyone, for that matter. The politicians that orchestrated this war need to be brought to task for all of these deaths, as if they shot them from a gun in their own hands. There is a growing movement within the vets of the Iraqi war to do just this, and I very sincerely hope they succeed.
Their lives were WASTED Malkin! All to protect your master’s ego and provide you with some entertainment you psychotic little freak!
Their honor is still intact. Naturally you have NO concept of the difference.
George Bush WASTED their lives to stroke his ego.
They kept their honor by heeding the call to duty.
I hope someday you die of syphillus you skank whore.
President Bush effectively ordered the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis because maybe he could increase the scope of the global American empire.
And show all the people that made fun of him when he was younger that he is not a failure.
And maybe his dad would finally respect him.
That is so fucking disgusting I don’t want to get into it right now (but you guys are free to).
I’ll jump in. This is extremely, very fucking disgusting. How else can you characterize this? Many people die—- the ones responsible get a nod from th
e state departement?
Or not?
Can we please get the preview button back? Please?
Those soldiers might be dead, but cowardly pussies like Jonah Goldberg, David Brooks and Glenn Reynolds feel .00000001% safer….
Actually, when you read these and other wingtards, it seems clear that (a) they do not feel any safer, they are still completely terrified; and (b) they really love being terrified. (Either that or they’re hypocritically pretending to be afraid to bolster their arguments for more war, but who would do that?)
I would love to ask some of these wingtards if they really feel safer than they did four years ago. I’m sure they would say “Yes, but…” with the “but” being that they would stop feeling safe if we withdraw from Iraq without “winning” (whatever that means). Leading to the inevitable conclusion that they will only feel safe while there is a war going on. Which is totally fucked up.
Do you think it has anything to do with FEELING safe?
Brad, does your posting this mean you’ve made it out of the post-DOS attack wilderness?
Of course Obama had to apologize. After all, he might’ve lost that 0.0001% chance that Our Lady of the Çoncentration Camps and her likeminded ilk would be voting for him in a general election, and everybody knows he can’t waste that chance to reach across the aisle while they punch him in the nutsack…right? Just like John Edwards, it’s mathematically possible they’ll still vote for him, after all.
There are two major fallacies supporting Malkin’s argument. Iraq is a fucked up mess for two completely separate reasons: the decision to go to war and the execution of it and the aftermath. “Anti-war” being the position that the decision to wage war was wrong. Anti-war and pacifist in this context are not the same.
No person, soldier or civilian died as a result of the decision aspect, they died in the execution. It’s neither possible to compare a best case scenario Iraq war with what we got, and it doesn’t make any sense from a moral standpoint. It makes complete sense for those who actually believed Iraq was a threat worth risking American lives. The difference between what they signed up for and what took place are horrifyingly different.
However, for those who blew sunshine up the American people’s collective skirt for political reasons, anyone who criticizes the horrifically misguided execution of the war somehow dishonors those who followed the orders to go. It only makes sense if your political agenda is to hide the incompetence of the execution. Shorter Malkin “We did the best we could do over there and all you can say is that those who fell wasted there lives”* See, you have the put in the first part, a patent lie, in order to claim any life was wasted.
Second fallacy is that because we have an all volunteer military, each member made some decision to go to war in Iraq. Although that ought to be an obvious bad joke, it would have to be assume in order to equate not supporting the troops with not supporting the war. And then only if you combine all of these false premises could you conclude that pointing out that soldiers have needlessly died in Iraq is an “Ant-war” statement. And just to prove what craven propaganda that is, Malkin proves her point by quoting “allah” who quotes Army Lawyer’s bias paraphrase of Nancy Pelosi. Well, if that isn’t a recipe for honest reporting then Malkin just isn’t a journalist.
* “shorter” now also having the commonly understood meaning: “… said, and I’m paraphrasing here” and needs no attribution, imo.
I guess it’s time again for the Kids In The Hall allegory, in which the guy keeps mindlessly coming back after getting hammered to the pavement.
Oops. Damn cookies.
for those who still don’t get it, let’s be clear about the implications of the internet, bloggers (esp. but not exclusively polemical ones) and partisan rancor for 2008. there is not one day that will go by that offer the opportunity for such manufactured outrage. i know this is complicated for people on “our” side, but not for michelle and her lot. they get it. they have it down. every.fucking.day.there.will.be.something.for.someone.to.apologize.for.
every day. and kos was right–if the dems can’t band together to combat this (with a war room of bloggers and videographers and clever comedy writers all working like one does on a sitcom or better yet a daily show writers’ room) we are fucked.
jim webb, a superb writer and a guy who gets mass media (tangentially, i worked on rules of engagement, and i know the guy is a real hollywood pro) had a guy following his opponent around with a…video camera! and why? because george allen is a stupid person. he really is. intellectually bankrupt. and thus, with a video camera on him, some outrage was inevitable. as it happens, one didn’t have to manufacture it, but one could have if necessary.
here’s a simple statement for our democratic candidates to memorize:
“my enemies have chosen to intentionally misinterpret my words in order to confuse the public. but they underestimate the public, who know exactly what i meant: [fill in blank by repeating the statement with slight amount of explanation.] they may be able to fool the media, but they can’t fool the american public. next question.”
it ain’t that fucking hard, idiots.
“Of course, had Malkin been blown up in Iraq, there’d have been no loss of innocent life.” — The Ghost of Bill Hicks
Obama just screwed up by apologizing for this. No Democratic Party candidate should ever, ever say “I mis-spoke, I’m sorry” to the US press. Ever. That’s just stupid. Al Gore made the exact same critical mistake in 2000 debates when he apologized for naming the Assistant-Deputy of FEMA instead of the Deputy-Assistant. By apologizing, you don’t appease anyone AND you invite even more criticism.
Instead, you go on the offensive against the people asking for the apology. In Obama’s case, you start asking people to show you where tangible gains have been made as a result of our soldiers getting exploded in Iraq. You put the burden on them to show that you are wrong, and you accuse the people asking for an apology of engaging in partisan politics, and you question their motives, and where their funding comes from, and who they voted for in the last election. You freaking argue your point of view and refuse to let Republicans and their allies in the US press core frame the issue.
Big mistake, Obama and Edwards. The press is going to throw this in your face again and again now, all because you apologized.
And if Little LuLu and her wingnut welfare cohorts are going to squeal loud enough to prevent anyone from saying that the loss of life is a waste of life, then we might as well just roll over and let Saint John McCain inherit the White House.
It’s not a fucking contradiction in terms to say such a thing. Wilfrid Owen was killed a week before the Armistice. What a fucking waste. The 20,000 killed from the first day of the Somme. Heroes, and what a fucking waste.
Which is different from: “Michelle Malkin: what a fucking waste of space and breath.”
Yup, regular as clockwork the Obama story went from something confined to the blogs to a top story on CNN, ABCnews, and MSNBC. This is a direct consequence of him making the critical mistake of apologizing and admitting error.
If he had just stood his ground, the narrative in the press right now would be “What exactly are Americans dying for in Iraq?” Instead the narrative is “Is Obama a soldier-hating traitor who harbors secret hatred of Mom and apple pie?”
Obama didn’t have the presence of mind to go from the passive voice ‘lives wasted’ to say precisely who was causing their lives to be wasted. Brad did have it–the people who started this war are wasting the lives of our young.
Ambiguity kills. Note to candidates in this age of spin-happy wingnuts and gullible press: saying things directly and simply will save your ass, not to mention your campaign.
I respectfully disagree. The story is “We wasted 4 billion dollars and 3,000 American lives” The journalists are reporting the story of the apology. The news is that Obama is the only one silling to say this. No the apology doesn’t help, except for the part that gets him the headlines. Unlike, say, John Kerry’s botched joke, what Obama said is not offensive on it’s face and not so easily spun as offensive. The apology story gets traction from the fact that it reveals the speaker “true feelings” e.g. Kerry is an elitist meme. Barrack’s apology is in the nature of a “I’m sorry I didn’t say it in a more politically palatable way” as opposed to “I said something different than what I meant” Granted, he may not have meant for his apology to be the vehicle that got his statement in the headlines, but it gets his message out, misstated or not.
I think we stop using the passive voice, too. Bush wasted lives. Rumsfeld wasted lives. Condi wasted lives. And everyone who assisted these incompetant criminals in this ridiculous endeavor wasted lives.
Does this mean the soldiers’ service was meaningless? Does this mean Americans owe them nothing?
Hell no. We owe them more. Because they still stepped up and did their duty, put their lives on hold, and made the biggest sacrifice ever asked of any citizen: going to war. We owe them, big time.
We owe them an apology, first.
Then we owe them the fastest trip home we can arrange.
Then we owe them decent care, both physical and psychological, instead of cutting the VA budget.
We owe them a raise in pay, not a cut–and we should give them back pay for when the “Troop Supporting” GOP congress cut their pay three years ago.
We owe them college or vocational training.
We owe them decent housing, particularly the troops from the Gulf Coast who lost homes during Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.
We owe the National Guard and Reserve members a lifetime free pass from ever being deployed to a war zone again.
We owe every back door drafted member of the ARR a clear ticket out, with no callups, ever.
We owe them more than the bullshit treatment they’ve been getting all these years.
We owe them more than lip service and car magnets.
We owe them the identity of human beings, individual people, instead of pawns and political clubs used to silence debate about how much we owe them.
We owe thm a lot more.
Bush and his supporters are still doing what they’ve always done: hide behind the bodies of young soldiers.
Chris says, “Yup, regular as clockwork the Obama story went from something confined to the blogs to a top story on CNN, ABCnews, and MSNBC. This is a direct consequence of him making the critical mistake of apologizing and admitting error.”
I’m going to have to diagree with you there, Chris. I just popped over to the news outlets, and far from being a major story, it’s buried down below when reported at all. Between to Anna Nicole, may she rest in peace (I mean it, let her rest in peace already), and the blizzard in the midwest, we have just enough space to talk about Gen. Pace’s contradicting the administration’s Iran story, the Libby trial, and how many GOP House members will rebuke the surge. All in all, it’s a far better day to be Barack Obama than it is to be a Bush ally. This story has no more legs, and Obama was wise not to give it any by hitting it back at at Malkin et al.
BTW, Dorothy, that was an inspiring rant. It would make a quality stump speech with a couple of minor tweaks for content (for some reason, candidates try not to say, “bullshit” in their speeches).
What pisses me off is that Obama immediately retracted his statements, which only confirms what I already knew about Obama: He’s a politician, plain and simple. Don’t listen to the cheers when you speak the truth: Listen to the wingnuts muttering their displeasure from behind their keyboards.
I haven’t the slightest fucking use for him.
The troops’ lives have been wasted, utterly, completely and tragically wasted, troops like Jennifer Parcell, for instance, a 20 y/o kid who only wanted to follow her big brother into the Marines. If Obama really supported our troops, he’d stick to his guns and hammer home the truth that they’re being exploited and shipped home as freight when their usefulness comes to an end.
Hi! I’d like to offer my services to any supporter of the Democratic party out there.
Feel free to beat your head against me for the next two years. They’re not going to listen to you, so go ahead and just whack away!
This is why you people lose national elections. You think that the average American wants to lose this war, just like you do.
There are tens of thousands of American infantrymen over in Iraq who are intimately more familiar with the conflict than either you, or Michelle Malkin, and they virulently disagree with what’s being written on this forum. Other’s agree with you. I suspect that very few would argue, given that Saddam has left this earth, that the conflict has been an entire waste. That’s what the whole Arkin controversy was about. Barring a conclusive survey of the troops in the field, it remains an open question.
You are being honest with each other in that you consider those Americans who have lost their lives in this war to have been a complete waste. However, despite the protestations of some, I find it increasingly difficult to believe that there are places in the world in which Democrats would fight for American national interests and, in their turn, trade the lives of American solders to secure those national interests. Increasingly, Democratic opinion makers and shapers are willing to send Americans to places where there are no compelling national interests, such as Darfur or the never-ending involvement in Kosovo, but give a wide berth to the Middle East, where much of the world’s proven reserves of oil exist.
I suspect that if a Democrat were in office, the people on this board would show much greater understanding of the concept of compelling national interest. It is interesting to watch as partisanship trumps policy.
When you’re out of power, you can afford to bang the keyboard.
Who cares what the troops think? They see what goes on in their tiny corner of the fight, but are not informed about the conflict as a whole. That is not their job, anyway, and if we burden them with deciding policy they can not do their mission effectively. And most critically, a good soldier tries to keep a good attitude, at least as long as the press is around.
No. Deciding whether the policy is working is our job, and it is negligent for us to push that responsibility onto the soldiers. Their job is to fight for us, our job is to fight for them – what is in their interest, which we can see better than they can.
First point: Bullshit. That is NOT what “this whole controversy was about”, and if you really believe that, you’re pretty damn gullible.
Second point: Go out and poll the parents of the men and women who serve in our military and ask them if they think it’s worth it to lose their child in order to rid some other country of their unpopular and unpleasant dictator. How many Americans would you be willing to see die to bring democracy to, say, Brunei? I’m not even the most patriotic person I know, but I’m pretty comfortable saying that I value the lives of Americans over the lives of Bruneis, if only inasmuch as I wouldn’t send a single American to die to bring them democracy.
Third point: How in the holy hell did going into Iraq without any plan whatsoever to secure the peace do the slightest fucking thing to “advance our national interests”? Is “our national interest” now congruent with militant Shi’a domination of the Middle East? And, more to the point, are you high or something?
Oh, and just to get this preemptively out of the way….I said “fuck”, “hell”, and “damn” in that bit above. Therefore, instead of actually responding to it, feel free to clutch at one’s pearls and wince ever so delicately.
Alienating the rest of the planet and killing tens of thousands is the ONLY way to protect American interests?
Section9 ya missed it 1.
Third point: How in the holy hell did going into Iraq without any plan whatsoever to secure the peace do the slightest fucking thing to “advance our national interests�? Is “our national interest� now congruent with militant Shi’a domination of the Middle East? And, more to the point, are you high or something?
Jillian said,
February 14, 2007 at 3:45
A quite cogent point Jillian. The national interest is what I am primarily worried about here. I think it is being served poorly . So poorly it is actually doing harm. And continues to char on a daily basis. If we were serving our national interest we would promote instead of discouraging science. We would be well on our way to energy independence. We would not be saying it’s going to take a long time. It can’t. We have no choice. On a global basis if we aren’t the shining beacon we are an evil monster. We must be the former to survive.
I’ll just hijack a massive chunk of this thread ’cause I
can. This site roolz. Let’s see what we got to cook with…
And the average American wants me to stop beating my wife.
Hey! How did you… you know, Sparky, the average American has stopped
believing that invading Iraq was the right thing to do years ago. So your
we-want-to-lose argument goes something like this; two guys fall in to a pit of
quicksand (also known as a quagmire). The first guy says;
“We’re in a quagmire.” The
second guy says; “you want us to die.’
Dude, you
grammar is as bad as mine, but let’s stick to the issues. No, invading Iraq was
not an entire waste. We killed Saddam. On the other hand, if we were to
accomplish that same rate of success in every country on earth with a brutal
dictator, we wouldn’t have an American soldier left alive. No, I haven’t done
the math. Still, I’m sure it would be close leaving all our troops
wastedlost. Except General Casey.His cat-like qualities defy ordinary kill rate formulae.
Right. Kosovo was a failure on the level
of Iraq. Darfur has
no oil. All the soldiers in all our branches of the military vote Republican.
Nope, I don’t see any assumptions you’ve made that would undermine the whole
premise of your argument. Move along people.
What
office are you talking about? Speaker of the House? Senate Majority Leader? If
only us totally-out-of-power Democrats would just state what it is we expect
from our leaders, that would hold our leaders accountable for their actions. Do
you see that here? No, it’s the Repubican keyboard bangers who throw off
the partisan rhetoric and hold their leaders accountable. Whenever a Republican
leader puts partisanship ahead of national interest, woe betide that elected
official for the coals heaped upon his head by the Republican bloggers holding
him to his word. If it weren’t for the fifth
columnestate ofbloggers, there’s no telling what the Republican elected officials might have
tried to pull over. Thank you Section9, your patriotism doesn’t go unnoticed.
I suspect that if a Democrat were in office, the people on this
board would show much greater understanding of the concept of compelling
national interest
Well, I suspect they wouldn’t(as I think they understand it fine already), but I do suspect you would suddenly find interests you would have found compelling under this administration magically less so.
section9 –
I think you meant to post your message on a conservative board. As far as I know, Republicans lost national elections just a few months ago – BADLY. In addition, they were/are steering the US Military on a path to failure in Iraq/Afghanistan by gutting necessary military expenses in order to fund large tax-cut plans.
Sorry dude, wrong website. 🙂